Glen Abernethy

My questions today are for the Premier. In order for the voluntary sector and government to work more effectively together, the responsibility of maintaining a relationship should rest with the Executive. Will the Premier commit to dedicating a Minister at an Executive or cross-government level to be the primary contact for relationship-building and strategic planning with the voluntary sector as a whole?

Specifically related to the Public Service Career Training Program, it was never cut completely. In fact, after the budget cut there was still a significant amount of money left that was sent out to the regions specifically; it was going to be delivered at a regional level. Since then the program has just faded from the books.

I’m curious if the Minister could tell me where those dollars have gone. Can those dollars be re-profiled back into re-establishing the Public Service Career Training Program in the interest of residents of the Northwest Territories in smaller communities with the desire...

Based on the MLA strategic plan that we put together earlier in the year, the government’s response is to develop some committees and have those committees go out and work on some strategic initiatives. One of those committees is refocusing government, and the role, at least as far as I understand, is to identify avenues for improving the public service and deciding how we can do business more effectively. To me that means or suggests that they’re going to be responsible for putting in initiatives related to training and development.

What types of initiatives and/or programs is the Minister...

Yesterday the Member from Inuvik Twin Lakes raised concerns in a Member’s statement about the Affirmative Action Program and the inability of local people to get jobs with the G.N.W.T. — jobs which, with minimal training, they would be able to do regardless of the perceived educational requirements that they as individuals may not meet.

Currently, the G.N.W.T. spends a lot of money flying highly educated southerners into communities. Most of these individuals have little to no experience in small communities. Often they only stay for a year or two before returning south. It’s a revolving door...

The Management Assignment Program is for employees who are already in the G.N.W.T. public service. The intern program, although it’s a very good program and does have a significant amount of value, does actually focus mostly on Yellowknife, as most of the people want to come back to Yellowknife. I’m more interested in a program such as the PSCTP, when it did exist prior to the cuts in ’96, that gave people from the smaller communities and the regional centres an opportunity to get into the public service — where they didn’t have the education necessarily to allow them to be screened into...

I'd like to see a commitment from this government to invest in Northerners in a meaningful way. I'd like to see the reinstatement of the Public Service Career Training Program, based on its original design.

I would like to see people with skills and abilities from the communities offered an opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities to do the jobs which, with minimal training, they would be able to do.

I would like to stop the revolving door of highly educated southerners coming to communities for short periods of time.

I would like to build a strong public service with dedicated...

Mr. Chair, I move that $80,000 be deleted from the Interim Appropriation Detail booklet amount set out in Schedule 2, Capital Investment Expenditures, item No. 6, Education, Culture and Employment, on page 6, for the project Lahm Ridge Tower renovations.

Given the reality of the budget reductions we’re facing and all of those types of things, when I look at Education, Culture and Employment, I wonder why the government is moving forward with renovations on Lahm Ridge Tower. That building had over $900,000 worth of renovations done to it since 2002–2003. Given that we are facing these budget reductions, I’m not quite sure why we have to do another renovation to a building that appears to have been renovated on a fairly regular basis. I’ve been into a lot of the different buildings, a lot of different times, and I was always struck by how nice...

I guess I don’t quite understand what the definition of significant renovations is. I mean, in 2002–2003 they redid that entire basement. It’s quite nice. It’s got one of the largest boardrooms in it, completely rigged out: nice tables, everything. It looks fantastic. I think that cost about $300,000 and some.

I know they’ve done a lot of work on the second floor. You go into the main floor where the student financial assistance is. It’s quite nice in there. They’ve got all the fancy new desks, and they’ve got a whole new area set up for their computer people. It looks pretty good every time I...

My question today is directed towards the Minister Responsible for Transportation.

The other day I talked about customer service and whatnot, and brought up an issue about driver’s licences and how they’re not accepted as ID, even though they are official ID when people want to get additional pieces of ID.

New examples have come to me since I made that statement. In one situation, a lady wanted to change her driver’s licence because she got married. She brought in a certified legal copy of her marriage certificate and was told it was not acceptable, that she needed to have her original marriage...