Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Minister who's responsible, which Minister or is it the Premier, that's responsible to give direction to the Ministers to ensure that their departments do have human resource plans?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the Minister at the Department of Human Resources is made aware by other departments if other departments are considering reducing the amount of PYs in any particular community, especially the small communities. I would like to know if the Ministers have an obligation to advise this Minister or the Premier when they are reducing PYs, not necessarily people, but the position in various communities. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, just a question on the case that the deputy minister's referring to. Something about earlier, the Minister indicated that not sure if the federal government would reimburse the GNWT for any benefits that would be now be afforded to the Metis people. Has there been some discussion on that as far as the health benefits that we provide as a government to the Metis? Thank you.

Those are good responses. I believe that it seems to be an issue of the skills of the workforce. What are the mines and the department doing to develop a workforce, an NWT Aboriginal workforce, as per the workforce development agreement inside the socio-economic agreement?

I represent a constituency that is over 90 per cent Aboriginal, and I would like to know if there's anything specific in the socio-economic agreements between the government and the diamond mines that hold the diamond mines accountable for the employment of Aboriginal people at the diamond mine. I recognize that the socio-economic agreement does cover the northern/Aboriginal employment, but I'm particularly interested in how the government will hold the diamond mines accountable for the employment targets for Aboriginal people.

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, creating jobs for northern residents and Aboriginal employees is a major part of the Government of the Northwest Territories socio-economic agreements with the three diamond mines. People who live in the areas most impacted by the mines are a part of the approval process and were a part of the approval process for their construction. These mines are on their traditional territory. Mr. Speaker, under these agreements, the diamond mines committed to build a workforce that was made up with about half northern Aboriginal people. These agreements also include...