Tom Beaulieu

Yes, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources new management has looked at that facility for a possible relocation of the Shell Lake operations into the Arctic Tern facility.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The building has been completed. We had form-jacked the foundation. It was completed as of January. We have inspected the building and it’s ready for reuse by another department if need be.

I was going to but the Minister changed… No.

---Laughter

No, I have not had consultation with the Minister of Health on using that facility for a treatment centre at this time.

I don’t have that information with me here. I don’t know how many bed facility that was back when it was used as a young offenders facility, but I can get that information for the Member.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to pay tribute to the late Mary McKay of Fort Resolution. Mary was born August 9, 1938, and passed away on July 6, 2014, at age 75. Mary passed away from natural causes.

Mary was born and raised in Fort Resolution and lived in Pine Point for a number of years with her late husband, Louis McKay, who worked at the mines. After Pine Point shut down, Mary and her family relocated to Fort Resolution.

Mary was always a stay-at-home mother and enjoyed being there for her family. She liked to cook, bake, visit with family and friends and pass the time as she...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Bill 30, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act, be read for the second time.

This bill amends the Public Service Act to expedite the appointment of employees in order to fulfill a duty to accommodate to permit employees identified for layoffs to replace in vacant positions without disrupting the continuous employment status and to remove potential conflict of interest in the process of granting leave for political candidacy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, although the operational requirements are something that is a factor in granting immediate leave for an individual to fight a fire, none of the departments or any of the managers that work for the GNWT will withhold leave when some firefighters have an immediate need to leave to fight a house fire. None of that leave will be unreasonably denied, but like I indicated, there is an operational requirement as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT has various leave for volunteer activities. Some of the leave is laid out in the Collective Agreement and in the Human Resource Manual. We have civic leave, where an individual employee of the GNWT can take up to 15 days to work with public boards, community councils and committees. There is other leave, as well, for something we refer to as sporting leave for people who are athletes, officially designated coaches, managers, head officials and so on, and GNWT allows up to eight days for that type of activity. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Bill 30, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act, be read for the first time. Thank you.

Thank you. A representative public service is a priority of this government. We have asked, through my office I have talked to the deputy minister of Human Resources and advised the deputy minister of Human Resources that I wish to see all of the human resource plans from all of the departments, that she was to talk to all of the deputy ministers across the GNWT to look at the human resource plans and determine how the departments are going to raise the level of Priority 1 candidates in each of the departments. So we are doing that. We’re examining that to determine how the numbers look now so...