One year would be fine.

I guess, then, we’ll take it from one year from the last PeopleSoft report going back a year.

The Minister had said that there were 1,038 inactive positions, and I was just wondering if we could mine down on that data just a little clearer. He said that there were positions being held for transfer assignments and he had given it some other reasons. What inactive positions aren’t being held open for anyone whatsoever?

I indicated that there are 1,038 vacant positions. I guess just to give some numbers, overall vacancies reported in the previous report were 1,226. That dropped to 1,038. The vacancies to be filled went from 527 to 466, as I indicated. The use of casuals went from 15 percent to 18 percent. The positions to be inactivated have decreased considerably from 218 down to 71 positions. Positions that are home position individuals that were on transfer assignment, there were 84 of those types of positions.

I appreciate that information. Is the Minister able to speak to how long some of those inactive positions have been kept on the

books? If I wrote my number down correctly, I think he said inactive positions had come down from 271 to 218. If I am incorrect, I will let him state that for the record. What type of detail do we have on these particular positions? I’m more curious on how long they’ve been inactive. I mean, that’s essentially the question and time is up, so I’ll leave it to him to answer.

I’ll have the deputy minister respond to that.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. Desjardins.

Thank you, Ms. Desjardins. Mr. Beaulieu.

Also, in addition to that, the Member had requested how long the positions were inactive. That is something that we can get department-by-department information. Again, we would have to go back to the departments and determine how long each of those positions, the 71 positions, were inactive, so the department would be willing to talk to the other departments to get that information to the Member.

Thank you very much, Minister Beaulieu. General comments. Next on my list I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just like to welcome the Minister and his staff for joining us today. It’s kind of neat, mainly because this is our last budget for the 17th Assembly, and I know the

Minister and his staff have appeared before standing committee on numerous occasions and we’ve had some pretty good dialogue in terms of how this department is managing its action plan but also getting some good input and advice from committee members.

I have a few things that I’d like to try to address here, and I’ll try to get it all summarized as my general comments and that way when we go into detail I don’t have to try to talk to it then.

I guess the first one, and it has always been important to me, is the Regional Recruitment Strategy and whether or not we can get an update on how this program is working and how many people have we put into senior, more management positions. The second one is this population increase action plan. You’ve heard it discussed since the beginning of this Assembly, and I just want to know what the department’s input into that

is and if they have to, in fact, have input into how we are going to get our population increased and if we’ll have jobs for people when they do come to the Northwest Territories.

Another update that I’d like to maybe get a little bit more information on is the Safe Disclosure Act. Where are we with that? Has it been utilized, and if not, how can we do a better job? In our region of Inuvik, I know there are a lot of requests for whether it’s ROEs or things of that nature, and I do know that with the staff that we have there they do a good job, but I also know that they tend to be possibly overworked sometimes and whether or not we need to create more support for our regional centres.

What has been in the news, as well, is some of our departments that are getting into such scenarios where our employees’ safety is put into jeopardy. I wonder what the department is doing working with other departments in terms of creating more safer environments, the type of training our employee staff can do to, I guess, numb a situation that can potentially be harmful to our employees.

I just want to know what the department is doing in terms of recruitment. I know we have a career fair going on up in Inuvik and whether or not the department is going to be having some type of presence there at the high school, especially for students that are looking at a career path that they might want to take, as well as students down south and how we are recruiting students in post-secondary to come back up north.

I did have some questions about vacancies, as well, but I think my colleague did a good job in asking those questions.

I know there is reference also to our 20/20 Public Service Strategic Action Plan. I’m not sure when we last got an update on that, but whether or not the department is doing a good job making progress in those five key areas that were addressed.

I’ll just leave it at that, Madam Chair. It is just more of a summary of some of the concerns and updates that I would like to see addressed. I know there are a few of them there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m going to have a go at responding to as many of these as possible, then have the officials also assist me in that.

Regional Recruitment is a good program. I did anticipate more uptake. We are making some changes that the deputy minister is just going to touch on that we think will improve the uptake as a result of the recent changes that we’re going to be making to that program. Right now we’ve appointed three people and we’re in the process of various

stages of hiring six more people and we’re looking at a total of 16 departmental applications. When we are able to bring people into all of these positions, we should have 16 people under the Regional Recruitment Program.

On the Safe Disclosure Memorandum of Agreement between ourselves and the union, since the agreement has come into effect, which was, I guess, back on April 1, 2013, we’ve had only one person… There has been just one disclosure, which is under review. We’re not sure as to why, but there is not an uptake. We could probably give an opinion on that as well.

For other recruiting processes and the safety, I would like to ask the deputy minister to respond to those.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Desjardins.

Thank you, Ms. Desjardins. Mr. Moses.

I just have a couple things. One was the departments, whether they have been giving input in terms of the increased population plan that this government is going ahead with and whether or not there will be jobs available, should we have an increase in the population. There were also questions on recruitment and what the department is doing in terms of attending career fairs throughout the Northwest Territories and also looking at recruiting some of our students that are in post-secondary programs down south.

Just making reference to budget dialogue from 2012, there was recommendation in terms of duplication of programs. I think if all departments are doing their own safety protocols, we could potentially have some different safety protocols within departments rather than having one that can do the job, or just creating that little department maybe through HR to go out and do all the safety. That way, duplication, we save money, especially with our fiscal situation. I think that’s a good opportunity in terms of looking at cost-savings. So, just following up to those other questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you. Maybe I’ll start off with this discussion a bit on the open house with Ms. Beard and then go to the deputy.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. Beard.

Thank you, Ms. Beard. Ms. Desjardins.