Jane Groenewegen

I’m going to be supporting the motion. And as usual, I’ll be very brief here.

I’m going to be checking the unedited Hansard for Mr. Miltenberger’s comments. He brought up a capital project in my community, referred to as the supported assisted living facility — as yet to be built — wondering if it should be profiled. Mr. Chairman, when I read the unedited Hansard, if I consider that a threat to a capital project from a Minister in my riding, I’ll be raising a point of order.

I’ll be supporting this motion. Thank you.

A while back, when the remand facility at the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre was closed, there were five positions identified for elimination but only through attrition. I’d like to know: are we still on about that, or has that been taken care of? Have enough people left to accommodate that commitment that was made at that time? I just want to make sure, with these retirements that are coming up or people who are voluntarily leaving or retiring, that those don’t somehow get categorized as those attrition positions that were kind of left over from when the remand operation shut down.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the motion, which is to recommend that the government reinstate the $109,000 for any proposed reductions to nursing services at the North Slave Correctional Centre and the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre, I would like to say that I believe these are important services, and they are there to ensure that the corrections officers are not having to extend their time dealing with health issues. I think that the funding for them should be reinstated.

Our motion is premised on information that we received from the Department of Justice. If that information has changed...

Why was the position vacant? How long has it been vacant, and why was it vacant?

Over the years, I’ve known of situations that existed. They were fairly well known. It didn’t seem like the government could get a handle on them or document them or do anything about them. And the people who worked in those divisions didn’t really want to say anything.

I think there’s a contradiction there. To say you could have whistleblower protection for people to make complaints anonymously or identify situations anonymously — well, if they can do it anonymously, you don’t need whistleblower protection because nobody would know who did it, right? I think the idea is to let people feel they...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee wishes to continue with the consideration of Bill 8, Appropriation Act, 2008–2009, and we would like to continue on with the Department of Human Resources and possibly get into the Department of Justice today. Thank you.

In this case that I’m referring to — and I’m not naming names — it’s particularly concerning because someone else within the same organization, with the same credentials, came forward and requested at the same time that they be granted voluntary separation. So theoretically, their application could have been approved and the person who was losing their job could have moved into that position. But the same manager who identified the person whose position was being eliminated denied the other employee from getting voluntary separation. It would seem this would have to go to some independent...

Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement today I talked about some of the problems that have been raised to me by constituents with respect to the way these position reductions were gone about. I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for Human Resources: can he assure the House today that none of the potentially affected employees were singled out for some reason other than budget reductions on the part of this government?

Mr. Speaker, today I want to talk about the process surrounding the potential job reductions in our public service. I want to restate the disbelief on the part of my constituents who got notices and then approached me, having to be told I had no idea their jobs were potentially affected — people who had worked, many of them, for the GNWT for over 20 years. It was bewildering to have to tell them I did not know their jobs were impacted.

The normal process for any job loss in a Member’s riding would be a letter from the relevant Minister giving the name, job title and reasons why the position was...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize that I haven’t been here the whole time, so forgive me if this question has already been asked. What’s the status of the new whistleblower legislation that could be in the works or contemplated, with the idea that whistleblower legislation might allow people in the public service to report areas that could be interpreted as wastefulness or practices that are not conducive to value for money? I’d like to ask the Minister: what is the status of whistleblower legislation in our government?