Wendy Bisaro

I didn’t really hear an answer to my question whether or not I can report bullying that is not happening to me, myself, but whether I can report bullying that is happening to another party.

I would like to know from the Minister if he feels that the policy that we have guarantees anonymity to somebody who is reporting harassment or bullying.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Next on the list is Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask a few more questions to the Minister of Human Resources following up on my questions from before about policies the GNWT has with regard to harassment and bullying in the workplace. My first question to the Minister is, he spoke about training and that it sounds to me as though the training simply explains the program or policy to employees so that they can understand what they may or may not do. My belief is that we need to educate our employees. We need to let them know what bullying is so that they can recognize it and then report it so that we can...

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Next on the list is Mr. Bromley.

Thanks to the Minister. One of the concerns that I have with workplace bullying is overt bullying is readily seen. It’s recognized, and it’s probably relatively easy to deal with, but there’s something which I was thinking about in the last few days that could be considered soft workplace bullying, and it tends to be more sort of the implied threat or suggestion that if you do such, this is going to happen to you or have such and such implications.

I’d like to know from the Minister, if I, as an employee, feel that I have been “soft bullied,” does the system that we have in place allow for me...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of comments in no particular order. I will kind of go through the Minister’s opening remarks.

Initially, in the first page, I am pleased to see that we are working to increase the opportunities, I guess, for film within the NWT. We are starting to have quite a strong industry here. I think, along with Industry, Tourism and Investment, ECE has to recognize that we need to change the assistance we give to our film industry. I think that thought is there, but I don’t see anything in the Minister’s remarks in terms of money or a different way of assisting...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Human Resources. I mentioned in my statement about workplace bullying. I’d like to ask the Minister what we in the GNWT have to deal with workplace bullying. My first question to the Minister is whether or not the GNWT has a policy that addresses bullying in our workplace.

Sure you can. I can try. As I understand it, we have buildings. PWS has assets that need to be maintained and need to be serviced. The Housing Corporation has buildings and has assets that they also need to maintain and service. I know that the Housing Corp hires apprentices and, obviously, PWS does as well, so it would seem to me that there could be a benefit to ensure that we have a settlement maintainer in every community. Maybe we don’t need a full PY settlement maintainer for just PWS, and maybe it’s a job share or whatever, but I’m just wondering if in hiring a certain apprentice are we...

Question has been called.

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Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the Minister’s explanation, but I have to disagree with his assessment because I don’t believe that you can separate the two. I think, by the forum and the Minister agreeing that there is a stigma on mental health, we are simply making it worse. I think, until we start talking about mental health and accepting that it is an issue, some people refer to it as a disease, but until we start bringing that to the fore and accepting that is a problem that we have, we won’t adequately deal with it. I think it’s unfortunate that the forum members wanted to remove...