Jane Groenewegen

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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, I have a few questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I’d like to ask the Minister if there are plans by the department to evaluate the pilot project in Fort Smith that I referred to. Maybe the evaluation has already been done. Maybe there are other communities that are already piloting a similar project. I’d like to know what the status is of the evaluation and the encouragement, I guess, of other communities to follow this example.

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.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Human Resources, this shortfall of 500 and, well, actually 800 positions, but 571 that we are actively trying to recruit, how long has that situation existed? Is this a new trend? Is this something new or is this something that has been on the books and unfilled positions for quite some time now? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m really looking forward to seeing the breakdown of those 571 vacant positions, where they are located, whether that would be in the regions or in the headquarters.

The Minister of Finance indicates that they are actively seeking to recruit candidates for those 571 positions; however, on the GNWT website right now there are 126 jobs advertised. Of these, five are short-term, 10 are terms, and so that amounts to 126 versus 570-something.

I’d like to ask, where are the other 400 jobs being advertised? Are they on some other website? Are they being recruited by boards and...

Well, if the government is actively trying to recruit for 571 vacant positions in the public service at this time, you know, please include us in that challenge. We probably could have some ideas to help you out in filling some of those positions.

I would like to ask the Minister of Finance, on the 800 vacant positions, what kind of monetary dollar value does 800 vacant positions represent? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to throw a few single words out there that the government might want to consider when trying to recruit people for the 800 vacant positions and how we are going to get Northerners first and foremost into those positions and, secondly, how we could attract other people to come here. Let me throw a few of those out: mentoring, sponsorship, job shadowing, transfer assignment, succession planning, partnerships with the private sector, tracking our students when they’re out there, forecasting labour market trends in the Northwest Territories so we can tell students...

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...