Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask questions directed to the Minister of Transportation. In my Member’s statement today, Mr. Speaker, I talked about better customer service approach on the issuing of things like licence plate stickers, driver’s abstracts, and that’s really what I’m after here, is maybe moving government business forward with an eye to servicing the public a little better.
I want to put on the record, of course, that this is in no way a criticism of the public service of who’s providing this service. It’s just the way it seems to work in this type of area.
Mr. Speaker, Ontario uses kiosks to serve their clients and customers better, to provide driver abstracts, licence plate stickers, and other types of ID. Would the Minister of Transportation be willing to look into that type of aspect to help the flow of the waiting clientele to get these services? Would he be willing to look into this issue and see if it can be addressed and considered going forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad to hear that the Member is not criticizing me for a change.
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The Yellowknife driver and vehicle licensing office handles about 60 percent of all transactions that are required in the Northwest Territories. Over the last while we’ve done a lot of work in redesigning the office adding additional hardware. We’ve reviewed and improved the process. We’ve tried to get a setting that’s more comfortable for our clients and more privacy.
I think that has gone a long way in the last two years to reduce the waiting times to around 21 minutes with a processing time on average of about seven minutes. Most people can go in and out of the office and obtain their documents in less than a half an hour. With the Member suggesting we should have a kiosk like we have here at the airport in Yellowknife, we will certainly consider installing something of that nature in the road licensing office. Thank you.
I’m kind of glad we’re not hurting the Minister’s feelings there as he made a special note here. It’s good to see that he’s sensitive and actually cares about particular issues, for a change at least.
Mr. Speaker, Ontario is leading the way on a number of initiatives of improving services and always with a keen eye to ensure that the services are marked in a way that provides the best quality response times and actions for the constituents, which would be the Ontario people. Mr. Speaker, I would hope the Northwest Territories government has the same type of attitude. The Ontario government has added on-line services, as well as I mentioned self-serve through a kiosk. They’ve even switched their vehicle registrations and give people the option of having a two-year registration so they don’t have to go every year. This is all built around the flow of customer service.
The last thing I want to add is the fact that the hours of operation are a constant concern of many of the constituents. As I pointed out, DMV hours are now better than banker hours, quite clearly, because they open at 9:00 and close at 4:00. Mr. Speaker, some of these concerns are all packed into one issue, which is better customer service. Does the Minister show an interest in some sensitivity to this particular problem, and would he be willing to see if they could investigate and evaluate some of the suggestions I’ve provided here today in a light to provide better service to our people?
As usual, we are ahead of the Member.
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We’ve already investigated what other jurisdictions are doing. The issues and suggestions he raises are very good ones, of course. It’s something we are considering. We need to do a number of things prior to accepting anything new. We need to overhaul our motor vehicle information system that is currently being used for issuing services. It doesn’t allow us to reconcile and line up with anything like the nature of a kiosk or even hooking up on line. So we anticipate that’s going to be done in the next while. We’d like to have a new system or an expanded system on stream and in place in the next couple of years. Of course, that’s going to be dependent on the amount of capital investment we will be able to obtain, but that is our intent.
I have to admit that the Department of Transportation or even this Minister is ahead in some of his ideas. I won’t take that as a criticism. I will say that’s very unusual and welcome to hear that.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the big comments -- and I’ll give the credit to the Department of Transportation -- was to put a TV in there to keep people occupied while they are waiting for service. One of the observations being made is it takes too long to go through, because the average everyday person doesn’t have 15 minutes to run in, because it’s not 15 minutes. It turns into almost an hour. I think the Minister himself has had a lengthy and prolonged experience renewing either his own vehicle registration or licence. So he will be able to understand this problem, I hope, from the eye of trying to get in and out for service.
Mr. Speaker, what is the mandate of the department to set a reasonable target time for an in-and-out service delivered by a public service for clients who need to get these updates? What is the mandate of that and what are we targeting?
As indicated, we reduced the waiting times by approximately 50 percent, so the average now is 21 minutes of waiting. It takes about seven minutes to process the documents. So it’s less than half an hour. We are happy with that. We think if we have electronic support through a kiosk or other means on line, that will improve. That’s where we’re working towards.
The Member is right; I’ve personally gone through the system. I think it took me 15 minutes to go through the system. I also checked with a couple of our staff that indicated -- they went through yesterday -- they waited five minutes. So it depends. I think there are peak periods such as Fridays and times in the year that there’s a high purchase of vehicles or renewals where there may be some congestion, but overall the service is pretty good. However, we’d like to improve the service here and across the Territories. In the Territories, we continue to move mobile systems, and that’s proven very successful also. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the attitude the Minister is carrying here today to ensure that customer service is kept at a high standard, and his approach is to move the issues forward so we can provide better quality service.
Mr. Speaker, the last question is built around timing, which is when can the public see any type of movement forward on this particular issue, as well as where can the everyday citizen provide some input on new suggestions and on these concepts? The Minister says a 21-minute waiting time in the room and I think he said a nine-minute waiting time with the actual customers/clients. That’s still half an hour. Where can citizens provide some input on what they feel is a reasonable amount of time -- because they have coffee breaks and they’ve got to be in and out -- and that type of information? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we have issuing offices in a number of our communities. We have a mobile issuing office. We have an office here in Yellowknife. They can contact any of those. They can contact our staff. They can go on the website or they can contact my office. We’d be happy to hear any concerns that members of the public at large may have. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
