Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Under the human resource manual there is a clear definition of what is expected under the duty to accommodate and it is up to supervisors to work with employees to make sure that duty is actually delivered.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It would be a marvellous opportunity if we could find a way to have a person in every community to deal exclusively with seniors but, as the Members knows, we don’t have enough of a demand in all of our communities to have staff available for such dedication. That’s one of the reasons that we’re looking at service centres, or government service centres in communities where programs like income security programs can be delivered. Hopefully, over time, we can expand the programming that they’re able to deliver to include those services for seniors. Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am always willing to meet with a Member to discuss a constituency issue any time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday in my statement about income security, the government’s plan is to eventually move towards providing all of our social programs, if possible, through one office in all communities. It will take some time to get there, but eventually that would be the plan.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to make it very clear that that is not the case. The human resources officer is not the person who makes the decision about who gets hired. It is a departmental decision. The human resources officers are involved to ensure that the process follows all of the GNWT policies and that the method of doing the interview and the assessment is done correctly. It is a department decision about the offers, but they have to make sure that they've followed all the processes and that's the role of the HR officer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The goal of involving human resources officers or staffing officers in the process is to ensure that all of the government's rules and regulations and policies are followed. We want to make sure, for instance, that the affirmative action policy is followed as it should be in the process. I would expect that in terms of technical questions, that more weight would be given to a supervisor if they are more knowledgeable about the technical area, so I'll have to follow up with the department and find out exactly how that might be accommodated. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would agree that the government should act as a role model and ensure that it is living up to all of the requirements of the human rights legislation in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Hopefully it will be done. If I remember correctly, the draft was supposed to be done by the end of September. So hopefully there won’t be issues around the review of that and I would expect it could be turned around fairly quickly into final form, which would mean that it should be ready for consideration during the business planning process.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, our policy speaks only to the duty to accommodate the employee and not the employee’s family. Certainly we do have the opportunity, with the flexibility in the policies, for supervisors to recognize employee needs where they are able to accommodate. I’d be quite happy to ensure that the Department of Human Resources offers training sessions throughout the course of the next year to supervisors to make sure that they’re aware of the requirements in the duty to accommodate and to also ensure that there’s some discussion with supervisors around applicability...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know whether or not it reflects what our human rights legislation says in terms of what is in our policy. It does refer to the human rights legislation and it says that the employers' obligation to accommodate stems from the human rights legislation. So it does refer to it and it says that it must reflect it. So we have a duty to accommodate our employees for their disabilities and if that’s not happening, then clearly we would have an obligation to do that.