Jane Groenewegen

What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will support the amendment. I think it is important to get public opinion on this and, hey, there’s an election campaign coming. What a great election issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Speaking of the Premier, I understand it is the Premier who is responsible for the appointment of deputy ministers, and I would be very glad to hear the Premier is going to be involved in this, and I'm sure the people in the public service will be glad to hear that the Premier will be involved in this as well. Like I said, at this moment, I'm not feeling real assured about trying to get the information of these same people who weren't forthcoming with the information, with something as serious as a breach, for over a month. So I would like the Minister's response to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have further questions for the Minister responsible for Human Resources on this breach of confidential information that was held on employees' files. Mr. Speaker, I think that the Minister acknowledges this is a very serious situation. When I questioned him in the House about it before when he repeatedly denied that it had occurred, he responded to the issue of a protocol to notify the people affected, and I quote from unedited Hansard: "I don't know what the exact protocol would be, but you can be assured that we would consider it to be a very serious...

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the Minister would treat this as a matter of some urgency and some importance. I think this shows great disrespect to our public servants if we do not do that. Mr. Speaker, I know that MLAs' information was included in there too, but I am not so concerned about that; I am concerned about the people in the public service who have had this information out there. I do not believe it was out there for a short period of time. I think it was out there for a three-week period. I would ask the Minister to check into that. I would be very interested in hearing back...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Human Resources. Mr. Speaker, as I said in my Member’s statement, members of the public service of the Government of the Northwest Territories are entitled and should expect that the information that they provide to their employer will be treated with respect and it will be kept private and used only for the purpose it is intended.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, May 15, 2007, I asked Minister Dent if there had been a breach of security of information of a private nature for members of the public service through the PeopleSoft...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in recent years, governments have turned more and more to electronic databases to help them manage vast amounts of personal information used to carry out programs and services. In fact, just this week, the Minister of Health and Social Services announced a major partnership between the GNWT and Canada Health Infoway that will see all NWT communities participating in an electronic health records network within the next year.

Such announcements typically hail electronic databases as promising efficiencies and enhanced quality of services. What they fail to...

Question has been called. All those in favour of the motion? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Is committee agreed?

Thank you. I didn’t time that very well. I had one sentence left to say. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues.

I would like to tell the Whites today, on behalf of the many children who they have taught in the North, that they have earned our respect, our affection and our very, very heartfelt thanks. Thank you to them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause