Jane Groenewegen

I’d like to ask the Minister, would they be at a stage at this point of perhaps calling for expressions of interest from other communities who may like more information on this or who may be wanting to participate in a similar program as this to support elders in their communities? It encompasses a lot of really healthy activity. Would it be premature for other communities to contact the department to express interest?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recently had occasion to run into a leader from the Fort Smith Metis Council and he was telling me about a very interesting program. I subsequently did some research and I wanted to share what I found out with Members of this House. It may be something that’s already been shared with this House, but it’s not something that I was aware of, so I would like to do a Member’s statement about that today.

About a year ago, the Fort Smith Metis Council was approached by the Department of Health and Social Services to develop a pilot project for elders that would incorporate...

My research would indicate that this program started in Fort Smith about a year ago, and I was wondering if the Minister could provide any kind of a time frame on when such an evaluation may be undertaken and completed.

Mr. Speaker, your committee would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I well understand the concept of people coming and going, there being job actions and positions being filled and positions being vacated. I understand that. Ten percent of the public service at any given time, the Minister used an interesting word when he said we “carry” about 10 percent vacancy in the public service. That makes it sound like that is kind of an acceptable thing to carry from one year to another, from one budget to another.

I would like to ask the Minister, is there an attempt, a serious attempt to fill this 10 percent, or is that carrying of those… Does...

I find the Premier’s comment extremely unusual. I was asking about how we can fill the positions. I wasn’t suggesting we should delete the positions, and I don’t know where that came from. If we can’t fill them, well, we’ll just delete them. I mean, I didn’t ask anybody to delete positions, especially not since so many of them are actually located in our regions.

We’re all about decentralization on this side of the House, and we think you are over there, too, so I don’t know what deleting positions has to do with anything. However, if we are actively seeking to fill 571 positions in the...

Is there a strategy or anything out of the ordinary in place right now to attract, recruit for those vacant positions at this time? I don’t know; if there are that many advertisements and that many posts out there on government websites, I haven’t seen them.

What is the effort that is being put forward at this time? Thank you.

I’d love to see where those advertisements are. You’re actively recruiting 571 positions in the Government of the Northwest Territories. Does the Minister have a breakdown of how many of those are in headquarters and how many of those are in the regions?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to commend the government on this – yet another – budget address here today for the fiscal year 2014-2015.

We have many challenges in the Northwest Territories and we also have many opportunities, so it becomes the task of this government and our Finance Minister to balance all of those interests and try to do the best we can to manage our territory.

I think of a few things that are mentioned in here today. I think the initiative to try to increase the population of the Northwest Territories with a set target and a set goal within a certain time frame is a...

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. There are two items on our agenda today. What is the wish of committee? Ms. Bisaro.