Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some really good comments and questions by committee members on how we got to these two issues of the five positions that we’re discussing here. When you look at the review that was done in November, there were a lot of key findings, and I think Mr. Bromley alluded to briefly here in terms of just better management within our current system, and in terms of communicating to the public, do we need to fill more positions out there to try to do what other people are supposed to be doing right now.

I know all of our departments have communications staff. We have communications...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Within our public service system there are jobs that we have that are hard to fill, and I know at that meeting with Aurora College last week we talked about how do we look at creating programs for those hard-to-fill jobs. We talked about mentorship for our post-secondary students.

What is the Minister doing to address our mentorship problems when we have jobs that are hard to fill? If we have jobs that are hard to fill and we have a student that is trying to get into that program, what is he doing to accommodate those students to practice what they’re going to school for...

When putting out these jobs for competition with the students, has the Minister been working with the other departments or even with his department and looked at doing a coordinated start date for all post-secondary students so it creates an equal opportunity for all students who come back up to the North and for northern students, as well, to have the equal opportunity of applying on these jobs?

As we know, some schools, some colleges, some universities let their students out sooner than others. Obviously, those ones who are let out sooner have a greater advantage of putting their resumes out...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I have the honour of speaking about a great Northerner and a great human being. George Doolittle was born on August 11, 1944, in Edmonton, Alberta, to Jane and George Doolittle Sr. He attended Colorado Springs College for a year and then went to the University of Alberta to pursue engineering. However, George decided to seek adventure after a year of engineering. He travelled to several American and Canadian cities before settling in Inuvik, where he acquired a stationary engineer certificate.

George met Violet in Norman Wells in the fall of 1965. They fell in love...

I appreciate the responses from the Minister and our Premier. As mentioned, when these positions come in and looking at things as policies and directives, we’re taking on more responsibilities, especially in the land and water and looking at developing our… We’re unique up here in the North in terms of how we do business, especially more unique because we have so many Aboriginal governments and groups. But you’d think that looking at creating policies and new directives for the departments might be more of a priority with these kinds of dollars coming out of this transition funding, and as you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Yakeleya.

The consultant’s report pointed out the potential of Bill 37 to have a significant impact on the workloads of the Office of the Comptroller General and the Internal Audit Bureau in the Department of Finance, as a result of added responsibilities for public agencies under the bill and on those public agencies who would be required to respond to these offices when they exercise their new authorities.

The standing committee considered options for addressing this concern, including the possibility of exempting certain public agencies from the...

I think the Minister mentioned earlier that there were about 19 pending applications out there, job offers. I don’t know what process they are in with these offers.

It’s June 1st already, so I know some students would have gotten out of school at the end of April or even mid-April. We’ve still got some job pending offers here. As I mentioned, we still have Grade 12 students who are still taking studies, so they aren’t going to have the equal opportunity to get some of these government jobs.

What is the Minister doing to speed up the process so some of these jobs get filled a lot faster, giving...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I have questions for the Minister of Human Resources with regard to how we hire our summer students. Every year we get summer students who come up from post-secondary school, whether it’s in Alberta, BC, Yukon, even here in the Northwest Territories, Aurora College.

My first question is: How many government summer jobs are filled with post-secondary students? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I mentioned we also need support for the support workers. I also mentioned in eight communities we don’t have nurses, which is a big challenge for elders and people living with disabilities.

So, I want to ask the Minister, what is his department doing in the recruitment and retention of home care staff that we have in the Northwest Territories right now? Is he looking to recruit more home care workers so they get a break as well? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m glad to hear of all the services that are provided. In particular to the question I was asking is what is the department doing for in-home respite services? If somebody has a cognitive impairment or has a physical disability where they’re not able to get out and they need that longer-term service and it’s putting a lot of stress on the family, what is the department doing for the person who is home all day and providing services for several hours of the day? Do we have a program set up and is the department looking at addressing that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.