Bob McLeod

My understanding I that at one time, we did have such a registry of employees in the Northwest Territories. I would commit to finding out what happened to that registry. We may still have one. It only makes sense to do so.

In the oil and gas industry, there was a process whereby you expanded your area of coverage, so if you couldn't find people locally, you would go to the next level, which would be within the region, and then you would go to the Northwest Territories — sort of in concentric circles of employment. I would think that would be something that we would espouse.

I know that some of...

The issue of migrant workers has been a troublesome one for our government for some time. First of all, we have to recognize that we live in a democracy, so people are free to move and live wherever they want, as provided for under the Constitution of Canada.

We have been attempting to address the issues through the negotiation of socio-economic agreements with the mining industry companies, specifically diamond mines, through the negotiation of a socio-economic agreement with the Mackenzie Valley pipeline proponents.

Now, it’s more difficult in the oil and gas sector, because that’s a...

We certainly recognize the considerable effort required to host the Arctic Winter Games, and also the significant volunteer efforts required to make the Arctic Winter Games successful. Our senior managers have committed that they will be very flexible. They will make flexible arrangements for those government employees who are volunteers for the Arctic Winter Games, such that if they have to leave for two hours at three o'clock on any given day, they can make arrangements to be available for Arctic Winter Games work.

Mr. Speaker, as a government we’re always looking to find new ways of improving the morale of our employees and new ways to improve our performance. So it’s certainly something that we would look into as part of our Employee Recognition Program.

As a government, we have a number of employee recognition programs in which we recognize employees who have provided service above and beyond the call of duty and have made recommendations or suggestions that have resulted in savings or improved efficiencies for the government. We have long service awards, we have Premier’s awards of excellence, we have ministerial awards, and we have deputy minister recognition awards. We used to have a program whereby we would have financial rewards for employees, where they were reimbursed a nominal amount for any suggestions that resulted in real financial...

That certainly was the intention of the payroll tax. It comes down to a question of monitoring and enforcement. Wherever we are aware of it, the Department of Finance follows up to make sure that the payroll tax is imposed. It’s more difficult to impose when the payments to individual workers are made outside of the Northwest Territories. That would be an area where we would have to look to see how we can improve the monitoring and follow-up and collection of payroll taxes.

I wish to table the following document, entitled Grants and Contributions Programs Results Report 2006-2007, February 2008.

Document 10-16(2) Grants and Contributions Programs Results Report 2006-2007, February 2008, tabled.

I didn’t think I had misinterpreted, but with regard to the specific policy that he’s referring to — I guess it’s a travel policy — our objective is to make sure that the most economical mode of transportation is used. I’m prepared to review that policy.

With regard to further extending the reach of the government when it makes funding available, I’d be prepared to work with my colleague in implementing the Greenhouse Gas Strategy for the government.

We’ve been in communication with a number of people, most recently with Mr. David Hudson, the ministerial envoy for Minister Prentice, who is the lead on the Mackenzie Valley pipeline for the federal government. We’ve also had discussions with Randy Broiles of Imperial Oil and the APG members, so we continue to remain optimistic.

In the work that we are doing, with most of the positions for the government that would be affected, those skills are still transferrable. I would think that with the economy the way it is, there would probably be little difficulty in finding alternative employment for those affected employees. I think it would be more difficult for businesses that have ramped up in anticipation of the pipeline. Our expectation is still that the pipeline will go ahead, and we’re continuing to work on that basis.