Statements in Debates
Thank you. The issue with the land and location has been resolved. I don’t know the exact location, but perhaps the deputy minister can add to this in a minute.
As far as the communications, we will work with the department and Health and Social Services to make sure that as the project moves forward, we’re communicating with the leadership in Fort Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The majority of the budget for the capital cost for the new shop in Fort Simpson is slated for 2015-16. We have spent some money already on that capital project and there will be some money spent in 2016-17, as well, but as I indicated, the majority of it will be in this fiscal year that we’re talking about today. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The deferred maintenance budget of $5 million is in the capital and we also have $3 million in O and M in deferred maintenance, as the Members are aware. The infrastructure deficit is impacted a bit by deferred maintenance. Deferred maintenance essentially is on infrastructure that is already in place; however, it prevents that from becoming infrastructure deficit by us doing midlife work. Also, when there is time for items that have been deferred, that is the program for deferred, then we then do the work on the building. So we have been able to reduce our deferred...
Mr. Chair, I do.
I do not believe that these were direct appointments. Usually we fill direct appointments for a few reasons, one being that it’s a development opportunity for a person that has a priority 1 status in the government. We also offer those types of development opportunities to individuals that have priority 2 status in the Northwest Territories.
When we direct appoint somebody that has a priority 3 status, which I would assume all of these five people have, then it would be a position that we were unable to fill. Perhaps a scenario could be that the job was advertised two or three times without...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have the costs with me, but we collected approximately 700 resumes and were able to hire five people. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I will have the deputy minister respond to the standards.
Thank you. I didn’t indicate that we weren’t advertising the majority of them. We are advertising the majority of the jobs. There are some jobs that do go through other methods. That’s true that people are able to secure positions that are not necessarily at the advertisement stage. Sometimes an individual could be getting a position through transfer assignment. Sometimes the department, after a couple of attempts and failure to fill the position do go to a casual position and fill with a casual position. Sometimes there is a contractor filling the position. So they are at various stages, but...
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our schedule here shows that this year, this fiscal year that we’re in, we had put some money in the budget to work on the PWS shop. So our understanding is that work was completed. So if it’s not then we will get to the department and back to the Member to find out what may have occurred. We’re surprised to hear that nothing had happened. That’s because it was approved in the budget the last fiscal year.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our PeopleSoft is essentially a snapshot, but the numbers are fairly static throughout the year. So at the point when we did the last print off on PeopleSoft, the last time it was able to give us our semi-annual information, we had 244 jobs that the government was pursuing to fill and 281 jobs that were scheduled to be filled within a short time after that. Thank you.