David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess it’s consensus by convenience some days in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.

I’d like to ask the Minister: who today is currently paying the payroll at Stanton Territorial Hospital? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I want to get back on to questioning the Minister in regard to the role that Human Resources played in the rollout of the staffing reductions.

From what I gathered from the Minister, departments were left pretty much to their own devices. Maybe he could explain to me a little bit better: how exactly was the Department of Human Resources involved in the decisions that departments made in staffing reductions? Were they involved at all? Or were departments, like I said, just left to their own devices to come up with their own reductions, take them to Cabinet? Is that what happened...

Mr. Speaker, the Minister mentioned that we haven’t provided an infusion of cash, but just two and a half years ago we spent millions of dollars as an infusion of cash to address the deficit at that hospital. I’m asking the Minister: what is the government’s plan today to address the 11 and a half million dollar deficit at Stanton Territorial Hospital?

Did the Department of Human Resources work with each department in the area of quality assurance to ensure that each department was following through on the human resources procedures and processes that are in place to ensure they weren't contravening any policies, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to recognize a constituent and all the good work he does in the community in the area of addictions: Mr. Bern Richards.

Mr. Chairman, in the absence of a comprehensive human resource strategy or plan government-wide, I'm just wondering again how the government could make decisions in the area of staffing without a model to follow and how it is that they could just rely on deputy ministers and departments to come back with possible reduction scenarios. That's got to contravene some type of policy. It contravenes good judgment; I know that. But it's got to ring some alarm bells somewhere when we don't even have a comprehensive human resource plan for the future and we're out there hacking and slashing positions...

I’m not going to challenge your direction, Mr. Chairman; however, if the answers were sufficient, we wouldn’t be asking questions in this forum. It’s your prerogative, and perhaps we will ask those types of questions in question period.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll try to keep the question related to the estimates that are before us. The letters are the notification letters that went out to employees.

When we’re talking about the Main Estimates, Mr. Chairman, we’re talking about a reduction in staffing. Fundamental to that was the decision to either send the letters out or not send the letters out. The question I have for the Minister is: what advice did the Department of Human Resources give to the Minister and, in effect, Cabinet to either send the letters out or not send them out? That’s germane to the whole discussion we...

I’m happy to provide some opening comments under the Department of Human Resources. I welcome the Minister and his staff here with us this afternoon.

I do want to ask a number of questions when we get to the detail. One of the things I’m interested in knowing was what advice the Department of Human Resources gave to the government when we were dealing with the notification letters that went out to employees. I’d be very interested to know what the corporate take from HR was on whether or not those notification letters should have gone out in the manner that they did. Some of the blame, I guess...

I’m not a mathematician, but there are 380 employees, or thereabouts, at Stanton. With 12 payrolls that’s probably about six months’ worth of payroll that the department has been paying. That’s about $20 million. How is this transaction recorded between FMBS and the authority? How does it appear on the books? And where is this $20 million coming from?