If the Indigenous Aboriginal candidate passes the interview, the offer would be made to the Indigenous Aboriginal candidate as long as he or she passes the interview.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have some questions on the summer student program. I am a firm believer in investing in our youth and investing in students. Students are out getting their education. We need to attract the person back. We need to treat that student with respect. When they come to the Government of Northwest Territories, we should do all we can to try to make positions available for the students. I would not advocate to create a budget for summer students because, under normal circumstances, I do understand that we have a certain amount of turnover in our system. If we are turning over nine per cent of the public service, as an example, we will say 400 people roughly, at that point in time in which it takes to recruit 400 people, there could be a two-month lapse, say hypothetically. We have 400 people changing over approximately two months. That creates quite a bit of a surplus in that area. That surplus is being used to hire summer students.

This year, many summer students have been advised that, due to the budget reductions in the exercise that we are currently going through right now, they were not able to be hired because of this budget reduction. I received a call from the media asking me what I know about that as a former Minister of Human Resources, and my response was we are on a status quo budget. We have an internal supply right now from April 1stto June 30th. There should be no change in what is occurring this year than what has occurred last year. Departments are out there saying due to the budget reduction exercises we are unable to hire the summer students that we need to hire. That was my response. I don't know whatever happened with that. It was a question that was posed upon me. I would like to know if the exercise that we are going through right now has any impact on the hiring of summer students this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through the Premier, I gave direction and guidance to the Ministers that the Premier would like to see us hire as many students as we did last year. We looked at the numbers. We are down from last year right now. As of June 2nd, we hired 217. Last year around this time, I think we were up to 260-something. So we are certainly down from where we were last year. As a result, the Premier has sent a reminder letter to all the Ministers and the deputies today indicating that we have to get our numbers up. We are committed to getting to the same type of numbers that we had last year. I can't speak for the other departments. But I have given direction to both my deputies that I would like to meet and, if possible, exceed last year's number, but certainly meet. The Department of Human Resources is very close to meeting our numbers from last year. The Department of Health and Social Services is a little bit down. But we are looking and we are trying to find ways to hire as many students as we can.

The Member is right. The departments do utilize some of their dollars through vacancies to help fund some of the casuals. If there are no vacancies, obviously it does make it difficult. But we know that we run, at any given time, around 400 vacancies. It is constantly changing positions. But it is a similar number, constantly changing positions. I don't know what some of the departments are saying to some of the summer students around the layoffs. If they are, I would suggest that that isn't consistent with the message that Cabinet is giving the deputies.

As I said, the Premier has sent out an e-mail today indicating that he would like all the departments to at least meet last year's numbers. The summer is not over. We are still hiring. We are still looking to hire and we will continue to hire. We will work hard to reach last year's numbers.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the Minister at the Department of Human Resources is made aware by other departments if other departments are considering reducing the amount of PYs in any particular community, especially the small communities. I would like to know if the Ministers have an obligation to advise this Minister or the Premier when they are reducing PYs, not necessarily people, but the position in various communities. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. I am going to recognize reply. Our time is up.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to change a PY in the Government of the Northwest Territories, it is a funded position. It requires us to go through the mains process that we are going through today, which means the Members do have an opportunity to see any funded positions that are being moved from one region to another or being eliminated. As with our policies and procedures, we have policies and procedures with respect to staff who are affected. So if a position is going to be moved or eliminated, we have a very thorough process we follow in an attempt to retain our staff as best as possible. We really want to keep our staff, as opposed to having our staff leave. Ultimately, position changes are brought to the attention of Human Resources, especially if an incumbent is involved. Ultimately, changes to established positions do come through this House so we all get to see them at some point.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I recognize the next Member, Mr. Simpson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Ministers have in front of them how many students have been hired. I was wondering, would you be able to tell the committee the number of summer students hired in Hay River over the past couple of years compared to a similarly sized Inuvik and Fort Smith?

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't have the numbers in front of me for previous years other than last year. I can tell you last year was one of the highest number of summer students that we were able to hire.

Fort Smith, this year, as of June 2nd, we have 23 students hired. Last year at this time, we had 33 students hired in Fort Smith. At the end of the summer student season, we had a total of 41 summer students hired in Fort Smith.

In Hay River, between the Hay River and the Hay River Reserve, we have 21 students hired as of yesterday in Hay River/Hay River Reserve. Last year, we had 21, so we are a little up from where we were last year at this time. In total, we only had 25 summer students hired during the whole summer student period last year compared to the 41 in Fort Smith.

I believe the other community you asked for was Inuvik. As of yesterday, we have 21 summer students hired in Inuvik. Last year at the same date, we had 25. So we are a little down in Inuvik. Our total hire as of August 14th, which is basically the end of the summer student period, last year was 38. We are a little behind in Inuvik from where we were last year, but we are still working. Was that it? Was that the communities the Member wanted?

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Simpson.

Thank you, Minister. Yes, and I see that traditionally Hay River has far fewer summer students than either Fort Smith or Inuvik, despite having a larger population, significantly larger, especially including the Reserve when it's compared to Fort Smith. Why is that? Is it a reflection of the fewer number of overall government positions or is there some issue that needs to be addressed regarding summer student hiring in Hay River specifically? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a good question. I couldn't say 100 per cent what the reason is. But I can say that in all the other community and region numbers they do include numbers for Health and Social Services. Whereas, in Hay River and Hay River Reserve, they don't because the Hay River Authority currently is outside the public service. They're bound by the same terms and conditions of our collective agreement and, I mean, we don't crack their summer student hires, so we have no numbers here for any summer students being hired within the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority. That might account for some of it, but I don't know. I will get in touch with the Minister and Health and Social Services and see if we can get some information from the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority to see what kind of numbers of summer students they've hired. I will certainly provide that to the Member and committee.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Simpson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think, overall, the Health and Social Services Authority account for a relatively small number of overall hires, so I don't think that would account for the quite large difference between the communities. Just a concern. I've had lots of people in Hay River concerned about the lack of jobs for summer students. We, know, like the other Members have elaborated on, we're trying to bring students back and we're trying to do the same thing in Hay River. So I'll just leave it at that and I'll follow that up with the Minister at another time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Mr. Minister, comments?

Yes, thank you. So in August 2014, Yellowknife Health and Social Services hired 17, Stanton hired 17 summer students, Beaufort-Delta hired eleven, Fort Smith hired seven, Deh Cho hired one, Sahtu hired one, and the TCSA hired one. So there is actually a fair amount of hiring of summer students happening in the Health Authorities. I will get that information for the Member. I will just point out that I mean, yes, our numbers are lower than they were last year. But in some places we're doing a little bit better in Hay River. It happens to be one of the communities, we're actually doing a little bit better than we did last year. I do take the Member's point on the number and how it doesn't compare to other communities of similar size. I will get the numbers on the health centre to see what kind of hiring they're doing, and we'll have a bigger picture of where we are in Hay River.

Still time for follow up, Mr. Simpson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Human Resources, are they in contact with the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority regarding summer students? Is there any sort of encouragement to hire summer students? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Mr. Minister.