Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as anybody who would apply on a government position would be aware, through the form to apply, they would make the selection if they were an aboriginal person in the Northwest Territories and therefore considered P1. So if they felt they weren’t considered a P1 or a P2 in the existing categories in place, then any policy we have could be appealed if they felt that it wasn’t adhered to. It is pretty straightforward on that section of it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this would apply to all government staff. So all public servants, whether they are on education boards or health boards, the only group that would not apply to is the Power Corporation. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Management Assignment Program that’s in place, or MAP as we call it, was developed to try to move from within the existing workforce of the Government of the Northwest Territories; people who would have the ability to move up and take on the higher level positions and hopefully, with a succession plan, a person can come all the way up and take over a deputy minister position. That’s sort of the long term of things. When it was put in place, it was again there for everybody in the Government of the Northwest Territories. It wasn’t specifically designed...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we should be clear again that the affirmative action policy is not dead. This government is still committed to it. It is still part of our hiring practices. The specific area of succession planning and so on, they are pieces of what we’re going to put together and improve on as the Government of the Northwest Territories through our corporate human resource service centres. With the ability, once we have the staff together, working together and having the support of their colleagues, and with the same interpretation of the rules that we operate by, we will...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the affirmative action policy, we talk about a representative workforce of the population it serves. We don’t have a set percentage that each department has to achieve, but what we do is reference the population that we serve. So in the case of the Northwest Territories, we’re hopeful that we can see 50 percent of the workforce being of the aboriginal peoples in the Northwest Territories. In some cases, we are very close to that. Some departments are achieving that; in some areas they are not. The average we see now is at 32 percent. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the stabilization fund had a limit of $5 million and I’m told it still does. We are looking at making a change to that, but it is $5 million and the idea is plus or minus if the cost of the product goes up significantly that with that stabilization fund there wouldn’t be any massive increases or reductions if the price of fuel were to drop. In this case what we found was the petroleum products division was carrying, for quite some time, a very high amount within the stabilization fund. We were actually going to be hitting the ceiling of $5 million, and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the average vacancy within government as a whole would vary in the area of probably 12 percent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will have Mr. Rattray provide some detail in that area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the category of P2 is one of concern to us as a government in reviewing the information. We know we are going to have to look at that. It will be one of the areas within the report. We would like to go through this whole process and bring it together as a package. As a government, we also have to be cognizant of the issues that are out there. We will be reviewing this situation. If we decide to make one piece of it and make a number of changes...We will be reviewing the full impact of taking one piece of it on the government staffing situation. Thank you...