Wendy Bisaro

I guess I would suggest that it sounds as though what’s in the best interests of a policy is going to be followed through, never mind the best interests of the employee and/or their families, and I have a problem with that.

Last question has to do with the length of time for us to complete competitions. I believe that the department has an eight week target length of time to complete competitions. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not they have been improving on the length of time to complete competitions in the last year or if they have actually had an increase in the length of...

To the Minister, then, maybe unfilled is the wrong term. What is the policy for decentralization? Do we decentralize positions without somebody in them? When the PY is moved from one community to the next, does the person not go with it? That’s why I’m asking if it’s a vacant position, or if it’s a new position that would then suggest to me that it needs to be filled. What is the policy for decentralization?

Okay. I am not quite sure how to get around that one, but I will ask a different question. This department, I presume, is involved in the issue of decentralization, a policy that this government has put in place in the last couple of years. I would like to know how the Department of HR is involved in the decentralization process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank for the explanations. Just a comment, I am pretty much floored by the fact that the numbers that we have in front of us for this department were not comparing apples to apples basically. These numbers have been fudged, so to speak, to remove the 71 positions from the previous year’s estimates so that the numbers can look good. I’m having difficulty following this, so I can only imagine what somebody in the public is going to be doing in looking at this. They are going to think everything is just grand.

There’s no reference in here to the fact that the numbers have...

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to Ms. Beard for that info. I guess I would be interested in knowing when this review of the Public Service Act might be done, when we the Assembly could expect to see some kind of concrete either Public Service Act LP and/or stand-alone Safe Disclosure Act LP.

To the Minister’s comments, I’m a little confused. The Minister talked about adjusting mains. I have to say, when I look at this document in front of me, I see that the budget for HR – and this is just in the directorate – in 2013 was $3.78 million, in 2014-15 it was $4.4 million and in 2015-16 it’s $4.5...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few comments. I made some last week, and I will repeat some of them because I think they bear repeating, and there are a few other things about the budget that I would just like to highlight.

I said last week that I am quite concerned that we are going to spend ourselves into a corner, into hot water, I think I said last week. We seem to produce money out of thin air sometimes. Admittedly, we can borrow money, but borrowing costs money, and at some point in time – and we’ve been talking about this for a number of years and we don’t seem to achieve it – we have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, and I’d like to initially thank the Minister for the MACA fall update which we received a little while ago. One of the pages in the update talks about municipal access to information and protection of privacy legislation, and this is a recommendation from the Information and Privacy Commissioner which has been stated for many years running. Those recommendations from the Information and Privacy Commissioner have been supported by the standing committee again for many years running. But...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions here. My first question has to do with the desire to draw people into our workforce. We have had, between the two trips to Ottawa, at least one career fair. There have been career fairs, I believe, held across the NWT.

I would like to know from the Minister whether or not there has been any analysis done of the effect to the impact or the effectiveness of career fairs, whether they’ve been held outside of the NWT or whether they’ve been held inside the NWT. Have they been successful and have you done some kind of an evaluation of these...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to raise the idea of a seniors advocate. As seniors represent an increasing percentage of the NWT population, the initial mandate of a seniors advocate could focus on helping seniors who are seeking or receiving health care supports and services.

This is a fairly new concept. Not quite a year ago, the Government of British Columbia announced the appointment of Isobel Mackenzie as Canada’s very first seniors advocate. As the voice of seniors in BC, Ms. Mackenzie has the broad mandate to monitor and review system-wide issues affecting the well-being of seniors...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Have we gotten better or have we gotten worse?