Charles Dent

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to introduce Bill 14, Employment Standards Act. The purpose of this legislation is to modernize the statutory framework for employment standards in the Northwest Territories. To that end, this bill proposes to replace the Labour Standards Act, the Employment Agencies Act and the Wages Recovery Act with comprehensive legislation for employment standards.

This bill is based primarily on consultation that was conducted with the public in late 2004 by the Department of Justice. The department received feedback from different stakeholders, including GNWT...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On my left, I have Ms. Melody McLeod, director of income security, Education, Culture and Employment; on my right is Mr. Ian Rennie, legislative counsel, Department of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I have said, the department has consistently over the years found money to provide extra funding to organizations like NACC and we will continue to do that. I have no doubt that the new government will find the resources to increase the funding to the arts. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to introduce Bill 19, An Act to Amend the Student Financial Assistance Act. The purpose of this legislation is to increase the aggregate amount that a student is eligible to borrow under the Student Financial Assistance program.

The current aggregate amount that a student is eligible to borrow under the Student Financial Assistance Act is $47,000. The amendment proposes to increase this amount to $60,000. This change will allow the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to increase benefit levels under the SFA program by raising the monthly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue has always been one of finding adequate funds to be able to develop our programs. We're not in a situation where we have ever had excess funds that we could throw around. Over the course of this government, we have been trying to get, for instance, the pupil/teacher ratio back to where it was back in 1984. An important thing like education, this government has been struggling to be able to get back to the standards that we had 10, 15 years ago before we had substantial cuts in our funding by the federal government. So it's been a challenge for us to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just on one of the points that Mr. Braden was making, or just to provide some clarification perhaps, Nunavut is the only other jurisdiction in Canada that still uses legislation to set minimum wage. So in this change we are expecting that we are making it easier for the government to make smaller changes more regularly, which we think is a more appropriate way in which to handle this. I would expect that the government would annually take a look at what has been happening across the board with wages and embark on a process of consulting with chambers of commerce and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories, GNWT, strives to create a work environment that recognizes professionalism, leadership, integrity and respect for others. These shared values help public service employees adhere to high standards that maintain and foster public confidence in the government. To ensure continued public confidence in the territorial public service, the government is considering the feasibility of whistleblower protection for employees in the GNWT.

There are a number of different approaches to achieve the goal of whistleblower protection from...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The reason this has been written this way is to recognize that the definition of family may be different in the North than what you might find elsewhere and while the family has been defined under compassionate leave pretty much along the way that it is now recognized by the federal government, that’s been done just to ensure that where employment insurance would kick in, it’s a consistent definition here for us; but under bereavement leave, the expectation is that we will have a definition that is much broader, recognizing the northern reality or a broader...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The first item that the Member was talking about in terms of attracting people to smaller communities, we already provide remission at a higher rate to nurses who have gone through the program here and are willing to work in our small communities. So we recognize the student financial assistance and remission rates can play a role in recruitment and have taken that to heart and are doing that.

In terms of Education, Culture and Employment remissing loans to a different government, that would be outside of our mandate. But I take the Member’s point that it may be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the reasons that it’s being left to regulations is that it allows that consultation to take place, but the Construction Association will be involved in the consultative process, yes.