Mr. Speaker, in the Deh Cho, which includes another riding in the Assembly, there are 34 positions that we are trying to actively recruit for. Seventeen of those positions need a university degree and 10 of those positions are college or trades. Very few of the 34 positions are entry level positions, so I hear what the Member is saying.

One of the things that we are looking at with the regional recruitment is to see if individuals who have a high school education with some training for over a year can fill one of the positions that has a greater education requirement, combining experience and...

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation is now providing residents with the option to access driver and motor vehicle services from the comfort of their homes, workplaces or from anywhere else with an Internet connection. On-line driver and motor vehicle services are part of the government’s Service Innovation Strategy. Effective and efficient government is achieved by reducing red tape and connecting NWT residents and businesses with the information and services they need.

It has taken over five years of dedicated work to modernize the Motor Vehicle Information System. Now we have been...

The money remains there, the money is there to perform the tasks that are the responsibility of the individual that is now on a transfer assignment. Those are some of the priorities that are assigned to the department that would be a part of that. So that’s what the money is used for. I don’t know what else that money could possibly be used for other than to perform those tasks in this particular case. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated earlier, the management of the human resources and the budgeting of human resources is a responsibility of the departments. The departments need to use that money for various reasons, and one real obvious reason is when you do have vacant positions and you are in the process of filling the vacant positions, it is a complete process. When you have that many vacant positions, you can’t possibly advertise them all at once. So, they have these vacant positions and they are forced into paying overtime because there is no overtime allocated within the framework...

Yes, I can confirm that that does occur to meet other priorities, to support other positions that are required and also to take pressure off budget to avoid over-expenditures.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The job descriptions are written by the department that will be employing that specific person once the person is hired.

The positions are vacant for various reasons. Two of the position categories that are vacant are the dormant and the inactive and also the to-be-staffed positions, which we use the number or 571 for that specific date as a snapshot. Counting that plus all the other vacant positions in October, no, I’m sorry. I do have a number that is from December 31, 2013, and that is 1,150 positions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The dormant and inactive positions that are not scheduled to be filled in the GNWT as of October 31, 2013, was 161 positions.

These situations have come up a few times. We do look at these on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes the position requires something that’s not exactly in line with the applicant’s experience and qualifications and they end up being screened out. Sometimes they are close enough that we can use equivalencies and their experience to screen them in. So, many of these things are on a case-by-case basis, but we are working with the departments as these jobs come up, and as individuals responsible for making sure the policies are followed, human resource people are working with them to make sure that...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The first thing that we are doing is that we are looking at community-by-community statistics and determining whether or not in a particular community that the numbers of affirmative action positions are low and then we are trying to fill the positions that are vacant in those communities with Aboriginal employees by various strategies that we are undertaking. One example would be the Regional Recruitment Strategy. Thank you.