Debates of August 23, 2011 (day 16)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. During the May sitting Regular Members made it very clear to the government that summer students are a priority to us. While I’m interested to hear the number of students the government was able to hire this year, I’m even more interested to hear what, if any, lessons were learned so that we can make improvements for the next year’s wave of summer students looking for employment.

Mr. Speaker, improvements are clearly needed, not glossy reports or strategic documents, but real-life practical improvements to the practices and hiring procedures, because I still hear stories that some departments are ignoring candidates who are studying relevant programs and instead they are in favour of hiring students because they feel like it, who don’t study relevant programs. It now begs the question: what’s the point of having Human Resources responsible if the department just ignores what HR does by them trying to help?

Mr. Speaker, to date I don’t see any plans to ensure that we’ve figured out how to organize early hiring, how to identify jobs early, and how to get this organized so students know what’s going on. I know it’s been a long time since many of us were summer students looking for work and, Mr. Speaker, it’s been a long time for many of us in this building, and I think that people have a tendency of forgetting what’s important when you’re a summer student. I think our Members have to remember that these are important jobs and these students are very anxious for these opportunities. So they’re waiting for phone calls, but yet nothing comes. They’re waiting for direction and hope, but yet nothing comes.

Our government is ignoring a huge opportunity: our young future workforce. So here’s an idea: what about taking all of the bilingual students and using their efforts to help improve service delivery? We often hear about how important languages are. Well, why aren’t we taking advantage of our bilingual students? What about helping students with their job search skills, which is real-world networking and tailoring skills for their resumes that need to be done? But right now the Government of the Northwest Territories discourages that practice. So they say just put all your resumes into a pool and we’ll figure it out from there.

There are real practical solutions out there and I certainly hope that Human Resources does a huge review at the end of this summer student season to ask themselves are we doing this the best way possible. I can tell you, I don’t think we are at this time.

So the summer students will be going soon and they will be back next year looking for opportunity. So let us not treat our young students, who will be the workforce of tomorrow, so badly, and let’s give them the best experience and opportunity they so rightly deserve. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.