Robert Hawkins

By virtue of inaccessibility, they’re accountable to no one. They’re not even accountable to the Minister. May I use the wonderful occasion to educate the Minister responsible, it’s Section 7 under the Aurora College Act, “The Minister may give direction to the Board respecting exercise of its powers and the performance its duties”.

So, if it’s dutiful and responsible and, guess what, that one word again, “accountable” to its students, it would be accessible to those students, every one of them up there. Frankly, putting all that on one person is baloney, and everybody here knows it.

So, would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too wish to recognize the SADD group. I’ll recognize them as a whole and I’ll thank the Minister of Transportation for highlighting them in his Minister’s statement today. They do great work.

I’d also like to recognize one of our distinguished Table Officers, and I’m sorry to say, my favourite Table Officer – sorry, to the present company – yes, it’s you, Mr. Anthony W.J. Whitford. It’s always great to see you. Although you’re not my constituent, what I’d say is you’re a constituent of every MLA in the North. We all truly dearly love you, sir. Good to see you.

Well, if you want the question, then answer it.

Will you today have the courage to call the Aurora College president and direct an e-mail be publically provided for every single one of those board of governors so they are truly accessible, not hidden in the fray and out of touch?

Mr. Speaker, while the Department of Human Resources was sorting through those 700 resumes, while they found time in some form or fashion to hire five people, were any of those five people that they hired direct appointments? I want to know the credentials of these types of appointments and how he got them. Were they direct appointments or were they true competitions where Northerners could have applied for and at the end of the day the government wasted probably a lot of money on this? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to continue with my questions to the Minister of Human Resources. There was a fair bit of information that he left on the table. I am not sure if he just felt bad that he gave me the original information of PeopleSoft and felt that, boy, we have to stop giving this guy information so let’s just ignore stuff so hopefully he will go away.

I asked, repeatedly, the details of the job fair money and the results, so let’s get to the bottom line here. What were the results of the southern job fairs and what did it cost the people of the Northwest Territories?

We have just under 5,000 people employed in the Northwest Territories with the GNWT. We know that it’s a typical figure, 15 percent vacancy at any one time. The Minister only talks about the back end of the employment process. At the front end of the employment process is the same amount of people coming in as going out. So we have a constant number of about 700 or more vacancies in the Government of the Northwest Territories at any one time, but yet we only have 10 percent on the webpage being advertised.

Let’s get to new results and find out where we’re going with this problem. What did the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the spring this year the Minister of Human Resources had conveyed to Members that there were just over 1,200 vacancies on the books. The Finance Minister had said on the record that they were actively pursuing half of those, and that was 571 jobs. On further drilling down on those books there were 800 vacancies, and may I remind this government we have a 3.4 percent unemployment rate in Yellowknife, but we also have more than 30 percent unemployment rate in the communities. We need these jobs, they’re critical.

So let’s first start off from the Minister of Human...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Everywhere I look, and it doesn’t take any effort at all, you see Northerners dedicating themselves to the success of this great territory. You find people committed in every single corner of our North, whether they’re lifelong Northerners or they’re people who have invested a few short years in getting to know the North. It doesn’t matter if they’re First Nation, Metis, Inuvialuit or non-Aboriginal. So many have dedicated their families to northern values and the opportunities that are before them.

There is certainly much to be proud of. But, as I fear, and certainly...

Mr. Speaker, we know from the Minister’s own numbers that we have well over 500 vacancies. That’s under my estimate, but it’s fine, we’ll use that one. We know that the government had received 700 resumes, as the Minister has clearly articulated, and the Minister clearly said here today before this House, they found five people out of 700 resumes, which begs the question why weren’t we making a bigger concerted effort from his department when we know over 500 vacancies exist on the ground.

Why aren’t we turning these into some type of training positions? We know immediately that would deliver...

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources does not know the cost, and that is a bit of a surprise. I can’t ask the same question because he is going to give me the same answer.

Where did those five people go and what type of positions did we employ people that we had to go to the South and only find five people out of 700 resumes?