Jane Groenewegen

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...

The Minister of Finance cites many of the obvious reasons why our population is going down. I was just wondering: within the government, in order to come up with some creative ways to address this problem, who will be taking the lead role in addressing this? Like I said in my Member’s statement, we can be very optimistic and excited about the future of the Northwest Territories, but the fact is we are going to be challenged in many ways if our population continues to decline.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, it is good to be back in this House and we have a good long stretch ahead of us here where we will get a chance to air all of our concerns and all of our issues. We have been away for a while, so I have a few of them that have built up, I guess, over the time that we have been away and I have a lot of things that I want to talk about in the next six weeks.

The Premier has delivered his address today for the opening of session, and it paints a very promising picture of our future here in the North, and I want to be the first one to applaud the efforts of this...

Can I call the committee to order. We have one item on the agenda today. What is the wish of the committee? Ms. Bisaro.

I’ve been here 19 years. I guess I can wait one day to hear what the Minister has to say. I think there are some very good ideas out there, definitely from this side of the House, probably from some people in the public who could participate with us in an exercise to look at how we can address the situation.

The Minister mentioned the vacancy in our public service. Just in our employ, or within our purview there are approximately 800 vacant positions that are not filled, so there are many, many fronts on which we can work.

I’d like to ask the Minister, how far will he cast his net of acquiring...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I briefly alluded to in my Member’s statement, the population of the Northwest Territories is declining. This presents problems on many fronts for us as a government. I’d like to direct my question to the Minister of Finance and ask him if he has, and I’m sure he has… I mean, I have my theories about why the population is going down, but I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance if his department has done some extensive analysis of this situation and what kinds of reasons are emerging for this decrease in population.

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.