Glen Abernethy

I do, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. I’m happy to be here today to present to the committee Bill 21, An Act to Amend the Employment Standards Act. This bill provides members of the Reserves Force with an entitlement to unpaid leave from their employment when they’re required to be absent from work for the purpose of service with the force. This bill also prohibits an employer from terminating an employee or changing the conditions of his or her employment because an employee is a member of the Reserves Force.

There are approximately 620 Reserves Force members in the Northwest...

That’s fantastic news. I’m very happy to hear that.

The second part of this issue is the fact that there were well over 200 elective surgeries cancelled over the last couple of months, basically since January when all of these issues started to come up. I’m curious what type of communication plan or what kind of implementation plan Stanton is putting in place to get this backlog of elective surgeries through the system as quickly as possible.

The reason this is important, Mr. Speaker, is there are costs to people, their health, their livelihood, all of these things are affected by these...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and are a follow-up to my Member’s statement from earlier today.

In July, I believe, the Minister made an announcement that August 12th was the date that Stanton was targeting to resume elective surgeries once they were able to confirm that the sterilization equipment was in fact working to standard. I was very optimistic that would happen and I actually hope that that did happen, but I heard a rumour that, in fact, the elective surgeries have not been recommenced as a result or due to the fact that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the Members for their comments and support. With respect to Mr. Krutko’s comments, when we did take the bill out, I did go to the military and to the reserve units, and some of those individuals that we had talked to had a significant amount of experience with Rangers throughout the Northwest Territories. We also did go to the NWT Chamber of Commerce to get their perspective from a territorial perspective.

The Member is right, though; it would have been beneficial to go to some of the local governments to get their input, and in the future I would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize Ms. Bren Kolson in the gallery. Bren is the mother of Kiera-Dawn Kolson that I talked about earlier today.

I’d also like to take the opportunity to thank all the Pages who have joined us over the last two weeks and have done all the hard work for us. In particular, two of the Pages from the Great Slave riding: Ms. Shanaya Haogak and Ms. Shania Richler-Beaulieu. Thank you all for everything you’ve done for us today. We’ve really, really appreciated it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to share good news about an achievement of a northern Aboriginal youth who is the first person ever from the Northwest Territories to place in the North American Miss Indian World Pageant.

---Applause

Kiera-Dawn Kolson placed first runner-up in the pageant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the Gathering of Nations Pow-Wow, which this year hosted 18,000 to 20,000 First Nations from Canada and the United States. During the Gathering of Nations, the winners of the Miss Indian World were announced. Kiera also won the best speaker award and broke old ticket sales...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that Bill 21, An Act to Amend the Employment Standards Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, Bill 21 provides members of the reserve force with an entitlement of unpaid leave from their employment if they are required to be absent for work for the purpose of service with the force. This bill also prohibits an employer from terminating an employee or changing the conditions of his or her employment because an employee is a member of the reserve force. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Kiera carried the Eagle Staff into Parliament at the reconciliation of residential school survivors. These are just some of Kiera’s achievements.

She is an inspiration to youth. Mr. Speaker, I ask this Assembly to join me in congratulating and celebrating Kiera-Dawn Kolson’s achievements, her winning the Miss Indian World First Runner-Up Award, 2011, and to wish her all the best in her future endeavours and goals. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This Assembly worked awfully hard to try to find ways to reduce the power rates in communities, and as a result, the rates stayed the same in Yellowknife, but overall we did a good job of trying to reduce the rates in the whole Territories. This rate obviously is a concern; this rate increase is obviously a concern. I’d like to ask the Minister, if power increases as a result of the Bluefish construction, if we can’t avoid increasing our territorial power rates as a result of this, are there any programs or is there anything that we can do as a Legislature and the...

For the record, in my previous question I meant education boards, not health boards. This department is one of the largest departments that we have and it’s responsible for education, culture, and employment. I’m wondering in the employment capacity of this department if this department is taking any proactive action to work with businesses throughout the Territories to find ways to encourage them to employ summer students themselves.