Tom Beaulieu

It’s not a huge operation, so if we wish to do so, it would be easy for us to evaluate after year one, after adding the vehicle registration, document replacement, registered permits and some self-management for some of the other tolls and so on. Once we are able to do that through year one, we can actually do a bit of an evaluation on it. We were thinking that we would add everything before we did a thorough evaluation. It looks at the outset that it’s going to be a very good system and people seem to like the ability to register their vehicles at home. So this is something we would maintain...

No, I’m not aware of anything that has been approved through the capital budget, but the DOT Access Road Program, although it’s an O and M budget, is used to do the upgrades on open access roads and upgrades to access roads, so we will be targeting that program to improve this road. Then we can also have discussions with the Member over the longer term. If he sees this road becoming a highway standard, then it’s something that we would have to bring back to the House because it would probably be a substantial cost.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the years, after the Jean Marie access road was made passable through all seasons, an additional $1.5 million has been spent on that road to try to upgrade it. The department is going to continue to work on that road and continue to try to improve the road so that it is passable 365 days a year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to speak on a couple of these items brought forward by the Member, then I’m going to ask the deputy to speak on some specific details. I will ask that she speak specific details on the Youth and Student Strategy and also more elaboration on the career fair.

We do attend other career fairs within the territory, but they are hosted by others. The Department of Education will host career fairs and often when those career fairs are occurring, then Human Resources would come in and piggyback onto their career fair and we would have people there from Human...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The regional recruitment was something that the people from the departments have been talking about at the open houses. We’ve had one open house; we’re expanding to open houses in all the regional centres where we have service offices. We’re going to have two days of open house here to cover the city of Yellowknife and because regional recruitment is the intent of that, the strategy is to fill the regional positions, positions out there in the regions that could be also in the communities. It was not discussed in Ottawa. The career fair in Ottawa was not specifically to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right, Sheila Bassi-Kellett, deputy minister, Department of Human Resources. To my left, Michelle Beard, director of HR, strategic and policy planning, Department of Human Resources.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to present the Department of Human Resources’ main estimates for fiscal year 2014-15.

The department is proposing an operations expenditure budget of $23.6 million. This is a reduction of $18.5 million for 2013-14, a decrease of 44 percent. This reduction is largely the result of the transfer of employee-specific services such as pay and benefits, including regional roles, Helpdesk and human resources information systems to the Department of Finance. The transfer includes the compensation and benefits for 78 Department of Human Resources staff who are...

I would be pleased to provide that information to the Member within the next couple of days.

The money that will be used to continue to upgrade the road is from the regular maintenance budget. We could look specifically into the access road budget, as well, this coming year since that is all done by proposal. We would look at the Jean Marie road through the DOT Access Road Program as well. But there is no plan that I’m aware of in the immediate future to upgrade it to the regular highway standards that we have on Highway No. 1, for example.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member brings up a lot of really good ideas for us and to add to some of the initiatives that we continue to work on, some of the strategies, some of the frameworks that we put together to bring people, to recruit people and also to retain people. I think some of the ideas would be difficult to do in the GNWT, and I know that the Member only brings that up as an example, but many of these ideas of job shadowing, being creative and innovative and making sure that we have the right jobs out there that can be filled by the individuals out there. Going to high schools...