Tom Beaulieu

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the young people that are looking for work today, employment in small communities, specifically the small community employment program centre administered by ECE. Mr. Speaker, as most people know by now, employment rates in NWT small communities are very low. The small communities rely on short-term, and casual, and project-based employment in order to provide for their families. The small community employment program has $1.2 million and that will help put people to work on various projects based in the communities. Mr. Speaker, the small community...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'm just trying to make sure that no students are left behind. One of the things that the Minister just mentioned does tweak my interest, and that's attendance. I actually think we have a solution to attendance and that's to give their parents jobs. Anyways, I'm always talking about jobs and employment and that, you know, one of the main reasons I do that is because I'm trying to increase the graduation rates and have the smaller communities, having educated people able to do jobs that may come to them in the future. Again, looking at just the information...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, so as I understand it, if parent consent is received, an individual comes and does an evaluation on that particular student. The deputy minister spoke earlier of more of a blanket assessment just talking to the teachers who work with the students to do an overall assessment to determine where the greatest needs of inclusive schooling occur. Does that mean that maybe next year or even sometime during this year some sort of shift in the funding of inclusive schooling dollars? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Minister at what grade EDI applies?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, just because we are under the section who has the director, I would just like to ask the Minister what type of process has this department used to ensure that when there are new hires coming into the department, not necessarily into the authorities, but to the department, that the Affirmative Action Policy is being followed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister indicated that the program was underutilized, undersubscribed, so I'd like to ask the Minister if information on how to access small community programs and what type of projects that the small community employment program can be tied to has been distributed to the small communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, that is where we run into problems. If you have a qualified Priority 1 candidate, but there is only one, because for some reason the department makes a decision that it would not be appropriate to only interview one person, I wouldn't know what the problem would be, but if that is a decision made, as the Minister just indicated, there is a possibility of a Priority 1 or non-priority candidate who would be interviewed. And that is where the problem comes. With that scenario, then, if the Priority 1 candidate passes the interview but is way behind in the scoring against...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, under this category I want to ask more questions about recruitments since this category includes recruitment. I am not going to request to go back to the previous category, but I do have an additional question on a Priority 1 candidate and the Affirmative Action Policy. Could the Minister advise me why it would be necessary to go beyond interviewing anyone else if you have Priority 1 candidates that are qualified for the jobs that they are applying for? Whether it be a Priority 1 candidate individual or whether there be several Priority 1 candidates, why...

What I am saying is a qualified Priority 1 candidate goes to interview and does fail the interview, it has nothing to do with the procedure of it, went through all of the procedure, but the individual is feeling that whether it was the written assignment that, according to the individual, was not given a fair assessment on the written assignment, or that during the interview the individual was not considered to be a good candidate by the people doing the interview and got a failing grade. A person that doesn't have a priority status wins the job over the person. The person is feeling that that...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want to just dig a little deeper into the appeal process. I recognize that the appeal process is appealing procedural errors, but many of the people that actually launch the appeal thing to appeal process is something else, sometimes like perhaps maybe feeling that they weren't being treated fairly or that there is a bias in the process because the individual that just happens to be the casual that comes out to be the best candidate for the job most times which is kind of indicating to us that maybe if you get your foot in the door and you learn a...