Merci, Monsieur le President. On February 14, 2017, I sent a Valentine's Day message to the Minister of Human Resources, in the form of a set of written questions regarding vacancy and overtime statistics. I recognize this was a complicated and lengthy set of questions, and that the department likely had to expend a fair amount of effort to pull together that information. I sincerely thank the Minister and his staff for pulling the information together.
Today, I offer some observations on that data tabled in this House on May 25th. The vacancies in our department for indeterminate positions from June 2016 to January 2017 vary from 98 to 136. That seems like a lot to me, and I wonder whether there is any way that we can make our recruitment efforts more efficient. Perhaps the most surprising thing I found in the data the Minister provided was that overtime payments for 2016-2017, from April to mid-February, totalled more than $11.42 million. The agencies and departments with the greatest overtime were:
â— Stanton Hospital at $2.05 million;
â— Transportation at $1.98 million;
â— Environment and Natural Resources at $1.96 million;
â— Justice at $1.16 million;
All of the other regional Health and Social Services authorities ranging from Yellowknife at $186,000 to the Delta Beaufort at $557,000; and
â— Public Works and Services at $410,000.
Departmental overtime seems to have occurred mainly over the summer months of June, July, and August, and that makes sense given the fire and construction seasons. I didn't see any patterns in terms of the overtime for the Health and Social Services authorities, except it was highest in December over the holiday period.
Lastly, for sick leave, from April 2016 to mid-February 2017, 71,000 hours out of 117,000 total GNWT-wide hours, or about 61 per cent, are for employees in the Health and Social Services Authorities. Almost half of the total sick hours for departmental staff are found in the Justice department alone. I will have questions for the Minister of Human Resources, now known as the Minister of Finance, later today about how we can reduce our overtime and sick leave, and improve the quality of life for our valued employees. Merci, Mr. Speaker.