Jane Groenewegen

Mr. Speaker, a few days ago I asked several questions to the Minister on this same topic. I would like the Minister if he could, from his perception, characterize the degree of progress that we have made in dialoguing with our partners on this subject. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee would like to continue on with the detail of the Department of Health and Social Services for the operations main estimates and, time permitting, we could go on to Education opening comments. But I think that we would like to probably have a fairly short day today, so that would give us less than two hours to finish Health. So we’ll see how it goes. I don’t want to get Education officials over here for nothing. So for now, Health. Let’s just say Health. Thank you.

Like I said, without a single exception, this is the report that I hear back from people who try to work with either advocating or assisting people with immigration issues in the Northwest Territories. This is all handled through a Yellowknife office. Would it be appropriate for me today to say to those people who’ve had those experiences, to take the effort to communicate with the Minister and share with him their experiences so that he has some solid evidence with which to go to the federal Minister?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I found the Minister of Human Resources statement interesting today about eRecruiting and the vacancies in the territorial government. The territorial government isn’t the only employer in the Northwest Territories who has issues with recruitment and retention of staff and I believe I can safely say this is an issue in the private sector as well as in the public sector. The Minister indicated that with the new system up and running, that they’ve had a lot of applications come in. There were 587 applications for 112 government positions. These come from a total of 76...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I am pleased to recognize the career and dedication of a Hay River resident who has recently retired from the NWT Housing Corporation. Tom Makepeace devoted his career to working for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

For 26 years he provided excellent service and expertise in everything he worked at, from carpentry to administrative duties and the management of the NWT Housing Corporation district office in Hay River.

Tom completed the NWT Carpentry Apprenticeship Program in 1981. After being self-employed at his company called Makepeace Carpentry, Tom...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do support this motion. I think we need to take a broader look at the whole issue, as Ms. Bisaro said, of the emerging population of seniors and our life expectancy in the Northwest Territories is growing. That’s a good thing. People are living longer in the Northwest Territories, but we have to be prepared for that. So I think that I’m going to support Mr. Krutko’s motion here right now, because there is a particular need in the community that he represents and they took the initiative to sign a petition, which has been tabled in this House. So I think we need to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The last thing that I will ask the Minister is when he does communicate with federal counterparts or folks in the federal government who are responsible for immigration, would he be kind enough to share that communication and those efforts that he will take on behalf of his department with the Regular Members of this House?

It’s a sad statistic that the Northwest Territories is the only jurisdiction in Canada that saw their population decrease in the last census. We have no control over the ability to bring people to work in the Northwest Territories who come from foreign countries, because that is a federal jurisdiction that we’d have no control over whatsoever. I appreciate the fact that the Minister would use his influence at the FBT or with the federal government to make sure that we, as the NWT employers in the private and public sector, are not going to be detrimentally affected by this situation. This...

Besides these endeavours that I have mentioned, Mr. Makepeace was also a dog team racer for a number of years and enjoys gardening and reading, especially books and articles on northern history and energy-efficient housing.

Mr. Speaker, Tom Makepeace is a book of knowledge when it comes to housing and home construction in the South Slave. He is a dedicated and loving husband, father and grandfather. I wish him well in his retirement and hope he will now have lots of time to enjoy his hobbies and his family. I would like to thank Mr. Tom Makepeace for his service to the GNWT and wish him all the...