Robert Hawkins

You would think it would be a very paramount job of the Minister of Human Resources to know exactly how many vacancies we have, not to wait to each quarter or semi-quarter, who knows how you want to paint it.

Why doesn’t the Minister, realizing how important this issue is, while the House is sitting, why doesn’t he know how many jobs are vacant because these are rolling vacancies if someone gets hired, somebody changes their mind and doesn’t want to work there anymore. So we have an average vacancy built up throughout the Northwest Territories government at all times.

Why doesn’t the Minister...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the job opportunities that are being denied the public, for goodness sakes.

On the GNWT’s website there were only 71 postings, half were in Yellowknife and half were outside of Yellowknife.

Where are the remainder of the 500 jobs that the Finance Minister proclaims to the public that they are actively pursuing? I’m asking the Minister of Human Resources, where are the other jobs? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. After that detailed and thorough review of the department, I will now move a motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If anyone doesn’t know, apparently we use PeopleSoft, because I think it has been said at least seven times if not more. Maybe we should have the PeopleSoft program sitting in one of those seats answering all these questions because if we only have information from October and we don’t get new information until April, that has to be at least six months. This is such an important issue.

What is the Minister going to do to ensure Northerners have current information before them so they can apply for these jobs? Because I can tell you, up and down this Valley, all four...

What the Minister failed to say was how many new job openings were created while these 156 jobs are in the process of being filled. At the same time, the Minister says he can’t advertise the jobs because it would be impossible. Why? Well, I don’t know because, my goodness, how do you fill the jobs if you don’t advertise? So can the Minister answer that interesting quagmire he has now found himself in?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A few days ago I went back to my office and on my desk there was a Snickers bar sitting there, and all of us here know what that represents. Well, I certainly don’t care who dropped that off, and as a matter of fact, they could drop a truckload of those Snicker bars off and it still won’t change my resolve to the concern about job opportunities unfairly being denied to Northerners.

It’s simply this: This McLeod government continues to fail its people by not providing those job opportunities Northerners need. Over this past month, many Members were shocked to know that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have three constituents in the gallery and I’d certainly like to recognize and give them their due Grant Gowans, Julie Green and certainly His Worship Mark Heyck. As well, I’d like to acknowledge Chief Minnie Letcher, I haven’t seen you in a number of years and, as well, I’d also like to acknowledge the Anti-Poverty Committee and thank them for their work and their commitment to the people of the Northwest Territories. The work that they do is certainly significant and important. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. He said he would provide the list. Again, I assume it is a breakdown of funded, unfunded, et cetera. I am seeing nods from the staff’s heads, so it sounds like that is everything I need. Thank you.

I guess I don’t have much of a follow-up because, quite frankly, I’m not sure what to say now because I was given the impression that they had studied this and had some paperwork behind it.

I don’t want to tie too much more committee time up on this, but I don’t necessarily think that those are the right things studied, and when you consider the Hay River rack price of gasoline today is 90 cents – 90.1 cents, by the way – it does lend oneself to wonder where the additional 48 cents, almost 50 cents are coming from. So how does a gain of 50 cents between Hay River rack price and Yellowknife...

Thank you, Madam Chair. When you’re near the end of general comments, it hardly leaves anything left to provide a fresh perspective. Rather than going through them all at great length, I will just quickly reaffirm a couple of them very quickly in the sense of I’ll just go over them this way.

I support the concerns highlighted by the Inuvik-Tuk highway raised by Members. I think that’s a project that we have to keep a close eye on. I certainly, and still do, support the concept and the initiative, and it’s just a matter of watching the costs. It’s been raised by Members, not particularly by...