Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Madam Chair. With me today is Mark Aitken, the acting assistant deputy minister with the Department of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the record, the Safe Advantage program is a program administered by the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission. The program is actually a fairly new program. It’s only been in place for, I think, five years.

The first couple of years were assessment years where they actually monitored what organizations were doing in order to set up the standards for the averaging to see who was above their average and below their average. The first couple of years there were no costs or penalties to anybody.

The GNWT has received some significant penalties in this area under...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here today to talk to you about Bill 2, Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2012.

The purpose of Bill 2 is to amend various statutes of the Northwest Territories for which minor changes are proposed, or errors or inconsistencies have been identified.

Each amendment included in the bill had to meet the following criteria:

It must not be controversial;

It must not involve the spending of public funds;

It must not prejudicially affect rights;

It must not create a new offence or subject a new class of persons to an existing offence.

Departments responsible for the...

Mr. Speaker, I seek consent to proceed with second reading of Bill 13, An Act to Repeal the Credit Union Act.

---Consent granted

Mr. Speaker, I seek consent to proceed with second reading of Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Human Rights Act, No. 2.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Human Rights Act, No. 2 be read for the first time.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this month I had the pleasure of attending the grand opening of the new East Three School in Inuvik.

This is a modern and beautifully designed and constructed 11,500 square-metre building. It is home to Inuvik’s high school in one wing and junior school in the other. It has 54 classrooms, with a large shared gymnasium, library and administration area. The architects who designed the facility worked closely with community members, students, staff and the departments of Education, Culture and Employment, and Public Works and Services to ensure the design reflected Inuvik’s...

I’m happy the Member brought up my past experience, my past comments. I did exactly what I’ve done already as a Minister, which is post all ranges for all GNWT positions in the Government of the Northwest Territories. I’ve said in committee, I’ve said in the House that that should be done and I’m happy to say today that is exactly what has been done.

With respect to posting individual salaries and individual position salaries, I’ve never been supportive of that, but if it’s something that committee wishes to do, I’m happy, with my colleagues, to look at that and discuss it with committee. If...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on the recommendations of the Access to Privacy Commissioner in the last Assembly, the government also made a recommendation that the government post all salary ranges for different categories of employment in the Government of the Northwest Territories. The Member and I were both on that committee, and since becoming a Minister I have directed the department to post all salary ranges for all categories of employment in the Government of the Northwest Territories on-line. They are all there.

As far as posting individuals’ salaries and individual position...

Mr. Speaker, many of the individual diversions are very specific to the individual involved in the diversion, whatever can be arranged in the community. It would be difficult to provide a comprehensive list of every specific diversion that has taken place, but I will commit to getting to the Member a bit of a summary of the types of things that are being done in the different communities as well as a little bit of a summary on what some of the communities are doing as far as prevention and individual diversion.

I do know that some of the communities have submitted applications for money to run...