Tom Beaulieu

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Transportation staff had met with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada in Norman Wells on February 18th. We presented a water management plan that was deemed acceptable by the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, and with that the work order on the Four Mile Creek Bridge was lifted.

With our Regional Recruitment Strategy, if there is directly related experience, that would be then viewed very closely by the department and the Department of Human Resources when developing equivalencies for a position. If an individual is applying for a job in accounting and does have directly related accounting experience but maybe not the education, then we may use the Regional Recruitment Strategy, and the department may say that this directly related experience would be considered an equivalency, and then that person could be put in the job at that point. But it’s very difficult to...

Mr. Speaker, the departments across the GNWT use the Hay Plan system to evaluate jobs. Essentially when there is a job that is required and the department has put out a job description, that job is then matched with what type of qualifications would be needed in advance, before the job is ever advertised.

Our goal – and we are actively trying to develop that goal – is to try to match the individuals in the communities to these jobs as much as possible. It is unfortunate that so many people that feel they have qualifications and may be close to what they’re applying for are being screened out...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Directly related experience sometimes can be used as equivalencies. When the departments do a job description, in the process of advertising a position then they put in the qualifications, and the minimum qualifications are used to advertise jobs, so an individual that has lot of experience but no education, if the experience they have accumulated over the years of public service is not directly related or does not enhance their possibility of doing the position that’s being advertised then those qualifications would not be considered equivalencies.

Mr. Speaker, I’m working with the Department of HR to deal with all of the departments. We are taking a very close look at what’s happening with 575 positions that are to be staffed.

As the Member can appreciate, we can’t put 571 jobs out there at some stage of vacancy. Some would be just recently vacant. Well, that was back in October, but when you take a snapshot, some have been recently vacant and not out for advertisement yet. Some are going through advertisement, some are being temporarily filled by a casual, a transfer assignment, or some are in the offer stage and some are waiting for an...

Yes, the department is working through the departments. We are doing the Workforce Planning Strategy. We are looking at the Regional Recruitment Strategy that is targeted directly at positions outside of Yellowknife.

We’re also looking at a public service strategy that identifies any barriers faced by priority groups that may want to be coming into the GNWT. We’re trying to develop a methodology to recruit what we refer to in the business as “hard to recruit” positions. Those are some of the things that we’re doing. In addition, I have more detail on the Student and Youth Strategy that also...

I have recently attended the Beaufort-Delta but we didn’t finish our tour. I am prepared to finish our tour that we started. There was an unfortunate death in one of the larger communities over there, so we were unable to finish the tour. I would be willing to finish the tour. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have determined where all the vacancies are by all departments, but at this time I don’t have the community-by-community breakdown of the status. I know that we have moved to fill quite a few of the positions, both positions where we are trying to staff and positions filled by casuals, but at this time I don’t have specifics as to what has occurred in each community. Thank you.

We’d have no problem sending a letter to the roadside assistance providers indicating that this is a public road. If their assistance is to provide roadside assistance on all public roads, that the winter roads that are maintained by the GNWT are considered public roads, we’d have no problem addressing that letter to the roadside assistance providers.

On the two companies that we did contact, they indicated to us that there is a method if individuals that are not satisfied with the Alberta Motor Association for roadside assistance that they are to contact the provider, so we can provide that information to the Members, and also if there are vehicles outside of roadside assistance provided by those two organizations, we will also find out the information for the Member on those organizations as well.