Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. Desjardins. I’m sorry; I can’t understand. Minister Beaulieu.

Sorry, Madam Chair. I guess the only change to the direct appointment had occurred when there was an accommodation, a duty to accommodate employee had occurred. Then in that case, the Minister could do the direct appointment. That duty to accommodate had a bunch of prerequisites to it where we would be dealing with the union, the receiving department, the department the individual was leaving and so on, and we could do a direct appointment, I as Minister could do that direct appointment. Also, the direct appointment at the timing of an individual that was affected, so individuals where their job may be moved or where their job is no longer used in the public service would be looking for another job and would be affected. Up until that was approved, the direct appointment can only occur after the individual had been terminated from their current job.

So now what we do is before the individual is terminated, as soon as they are affected we can then direct appoint them. So that would be a direct appointment by Cabinet, but it would be a direct appointment that could occur before the individual actually lost their job. That’s really the only change.

The other direct appointments are, like I had indicated, it is a Cabinet policy and those direct appointments are not changed and the process in which we applied the direct appointment has not changed.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Next on the list I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to follow up on a couple of things in terms of recruitment and retention as well.

Yesterday the Minister stated, I believe, that it takes about six to eight weeks for when a job that’s available to the general public closes to the hiring process. So about a month and a half to two months before someone can get a job within government. I know we’ve got to go through the interview process and all the areas to make sure that this individual is qualified and ready for the job; however, that seems like a long turnover time for when I put my application in to get a job and the job is actually offered. I’m thinking that if we’re all competing for jobs in the Northwest Territories, the high cost of living here, you know, six to eight weeks of expenses while waiting on a job can be a financial burden on individuals, or they might actually take a job elsewhere while waiting for this to happen.

So I want to ask the Minister and his department what steps have they been taking to decrease that time of the job hiring process so we can get more people into the public service and working in our programs and services. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you Madam Chair. One of the areas that do take time is due process. It’s in the Public Service Act, and now we are looking at modernizing the Public Service Act to streamline that specific process of the appeal. The Member is correct; from the time the advertisement goes out until the actual job offer is made is a long period because we allow for the appeal process.

So, recognizing that, we are looking at reviewing or modernizing the Public Service Act so that would take a lot less time. Perhaps the deputy minister can also offer some assurance on the process and what other practices we’re looking at.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Desjardins.

Thank you, Ms. Desjardins. Mr. Moses.

Thanks, Madam Chair. In terms of streamlining the appeals process, there were a couple that were referred to but I wasn’t given specific details on. How long is the appeals process now and how do you streamline an appeals process? How do you streamline an appeals process and currently how long is that right now?

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For the times and what we’re using as opposed to maybe a conventional letter of appeal, it could be using some e-mail process, but using the Internet and so on, so I’m going to just ask the deputy to provide the details of what we’re streamlining.

Thank you. Ms. Desjardins.

Thank you, Ms. Desjardins. Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that’s a good practice, because you heard some Members here say that some people don’t even get an interview and they don’t even understand why they didn’t get an interview in the first place. They don’t have an opportunity to appeal because they didn’t have a chance to even get to the interview process. I mean, we might be screening out people that are long-time residents and might be screening out people that have the community experience but maybe not the education that is always required, so that is something that could also maybe be looked at.

We talked about vacancies yesterday and didn’t get around to asking again, but there were a lot of vacancies. Does the Minister, well, not off hand know right now, but how many of those jobs are entry level jobs that we have right now, and has he been talking with, I guess, Aurora College, specifically office admin students or people in those entry level positions to try to fill these jobs, and if he’s meeting with Aurora College on a regular basis or when individuals are slowly coming up to graduation time that these individuals are recognized for potentially filling some of these entry level jobs? Is he talking to the Aurora College on that front?

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Deputy minister.

Will those recommendations in a report come before standing committee so that the department and these several working groups that we have throughout the Northwest Territories are held accountable for the work that they do? It seems like there are a lot of working groups out there trying to do the same thing and I think Members sitting at this table have given some good recommendations already.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Should we take that more as a comment or did you have a question?

Will the recommendations from these committees or the reports that they have become come before standing committee so we can hold them accountable to the work that they’re doing and ensure that these recruitment and retention practices are best served?

Thank you for the clarification, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If the committee wishes to have the department appear, then we would go through the regular process of appearing in front of committee specific on these items.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Committee, we’re on page 247, strategic, human resources, operations expenditure summary, $8.339 million.