Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for Mr. Dent, the Minister responsible for Human Resources. It concerns the awarding of the employee and family assistance contract earlier this year. Mr. Speaker, given the high quality of service demonstrated by Northstar over the seven years that it had this contract, and given the tremendous increase in the size of the civil service and the growth in the number of requests over these years, and given the intrinsic value of nurturing, protecting and enabling northern grown businesses to stay in business here to keep resident...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to speak on behalf of constituents who are connected with Northstar Counselling and Psychological Services, a local northern Yellowknife business, Mr. Speaker, which, until the first of April of this year, were the providers of the GNWT Employee and Family Assistance Program. They successfully provided this essential service to us for the past seven years with very high employee satisfaction. However, they were unsuccessful when the contract was re-bid earlier this year and lost out to a large multi-national southern contractor Shepell-fgi. I became aware...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will support the bill. It is a good piece of housekeeping and I think, Mr. Chairman, in virtually any field of endeavour of employment you will find that under almost any circumstances, even those that are less than ideal, that employers or workers will have some remuneration based on length or term of service on which they and their family can rely if and when they decide or it's necessary for them to leave. MLAs are without this right now; of course, in the circumstance that they should decide to, or be forced to, resign. I don't think that is a realistic or a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is interesting. I kind of contrast that investment with the decision by the Department of Human Resources to actually reduce investment in counselling services in mental health support to our own employees. Because of the decision by the Department of Human Resources to choose a southern-based contractor for our Employee Assistance Program, does it concern the Minister that we are subsequently going to be losing resident professionals who could be part of the mental health regime here in the NWT, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, given the irregularities in the way the contract was administered and awarded, the principals of Northstar have requested that the RFP be re-bid, re-assessed and a new award considered under an objective and impartial process. I support that request. Will the Minister take this and indeed reopen this RFP, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, does the successful bidder, Shepell-fgi, have an office here in the NWT and resident full-time staff? Is it fully compliant with the conditions of the business incentive policy that is in place to, in fact, enable northern businesses to be sustained here?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask the Minister if he could provide some detail on these positions. I can’t ask questions on a motion, Mr. Chair? Okay. Well, then we’ll go with …

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Along I guess a similar line here, we're looking at a budget item for a heliport for the North Slave region at $537,000. Are we buying the helicopter too, Mr. Chairman? Perhaps my understanding of what's required for a heliport is a little short sighted on this, but a half a million dollars? From what I understand, a heliport is basically a landing pad. Maybe the Minister could assist me there, too, in the scope of this project.

Mr. Speaker, have we developed, along with these partners or in any context, any kind of targets or objectives that we want to try to achieve over a given period of time that would show that we’re actually getting somewhere, that we’re actually making some results? What are the targets and the objectives, Mr. Speaker?

Oh, I see. Well, there's some wild speculation going on over here, but perhaps the Minister could help out, Mr. Chair.