Daryl Dolynny

Besides working on communication, what is the department doing to establish government-wide occupational health and safety training programs?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If the passive restraint program is in full effect, what we’re hearing is over 350-some thousand dollars. I guess the question is why still the overall increase overall. I mean, these are your numbers, not my numbers. We’re still at 2.9 percent in growth. I guess that’s the question. We don’t have an endless supply of money. Our revenues, as we heard from the Finance Minister, are dismal and they’re not looking any more favourable for the next two to three years. Are we going to continue to see forced growth at three or four times greater than our revenues for the next...

Keeping with the theme of the directorate, as it says provides expert financial advice, as the Minister indicated in his opening comments that the large percentage of the $688,000 or the 2.9 percent of the expenditure growth was due to the collective bargaining increases or annual increases. I would assume that these increases are not a surprise on an annual basis. I know these are negotiated over a tenure. We saw these increases coming. This should not be a surprise to the department. That being said, by what virtue, if we know these increases are coming, we know our revenues are only growing...

I do appreciate the response. I guess there would be no problem, then, for the Department of HR to provide this Member a complete list of all reporting documents that PeopleSoft has in order to report overtime banked hours as well as payouts, and would we be able to get a sample of each one of those reports and a description of what those reports can offer? Would the department commit to that?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Under directorate, this activity has a lot of hierarchy in terms of the overall mandate of the department. With that I need to elaborate on three areas, one of which I talked about earlier in my general comments that was unfortunately not responded to by the Minister. That was the issue of standardization of the overtime policies and again controlling our number one expense, which is wage dollars. With that, I believe that there is a concern about the standardization amongst departments, amongst the different types of occupational groups and how we bank, how we report...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 188-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2015-2016, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to thank the many fine folks we have working for our public service who have dedicated many hours of effort to bring forth our last budget of the 17th Legislative Assembly. Your hard work is definitely a reflection of the polished product we have before the House and it is important that this House respects this. So, thank you from all of us from the Assembly.

Sometimes we forget, and it is worth noting, the budget is not just an expression of numbers but an expression of our values and unique culture, a culture that everyone in this room cherishes and holds true...

With that last question, if we are going to be implementing something of that magnitude, I would assume that there’s going to be some program dollars associated with it. Looking at this activity as being the guiding directorate for this activity, I don’t see much in terms of allowances for this new program to roll out, that it would go through the proper performance-based management assessment, putting all the risk matrix, everything that has to go with a program rollout of this magnitude.

Can the Minister indicate to me where he will be seeking these funds in order to create this new program...

One year later and it’s still not concluded, as we’re hearing from the Minister. We know our first point of contact folks such as nurses, physicians, mental health and addiction counsellors, social service workers, child protection workers and RCMP require ongoing training with withdrawal management best practices, harm reduction and the use of a full range of assessment tools, not just awareness from what we heard today.

Can the Minister affirm that this is indeed in place?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I didn’t realize that that was going to be such a complicated question to respond to and I do appreciate the information forthcoming from the department.

I believe we have some coordinators out there dedicated to occupational health and safety. I also believe we have a lot of coordinators out there that run this on the corner of their desk. That is not their entire positon. I think we’re doing a disservice if we are not giving that proper consideration. So I will be asking the Minister if he can provide a complete listing of how many coordinators that we have by department...