I’ve been contacted by public members who have gone to the job website and are not seeing them there. Of course, it’s a huge concern of theirs that they feel that the government is slapping them in the face when the first whistle stop is Ottawa. What’s next? Vancouver, maybe Edmonton, before Inuvik or Hay River or even Yellowknife?
My question now to the Minister of Human Resources is: What is he going to do to demonstrate that he’s in charge of this file and showing that he’s actively looking for people in the Northwest Territories for these jobs? Because right now, as everybody knows, these small communities have an over 30 percent unemployment rate, and right now they see no hope, and demonstrations like this prove that the government has abandoned them.
The Department of Human Resources does work with all departments in trying to fill the vacant positions in the small communities. We are well aware of the employment rate in the small communities, that they are very low.
If we could fill all the jobs in the small communities, we would do that, and we constantly work with the departments to determine which jobs can be filled, which jobs we’re having difficulty filling and so on. In the small communities, I recognize, as a Member from a small community, we need to have jobs in the small communities, and we are doing everything possible to fill those jobs.
Mr. Speaker, the Bureau of Stats website is an amazing source of information. It says there are about 2,000 people unemployed who are looking for work in the Northwest Territories. That 800 set of jobs would do significant damage to that 2,000 level of unemployed, Mr. Speaker.
The last point I will make, in the Handley government it was 5.65 percent unemployment; in the Roland government it was 6.625 percent unemployment; and now in the McLeod government we are now into 8.15 percent unemployment in the Northwest Territories.
What is this Minister going to do to put a dent into this huge level of unemployment? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I know that we need some infrastructure in the communities where the employment rates are low. Some of those positions can’t be filled unless individuals are brought into the community to fill those jobs, because some of those positions need some qualifications that are not easily attained in some of the smaller communities. The jobs that can be filled in the smaller communities with individuals that have the qualifications in those communities will be filled, but when we have to bring people in…
As I indicated in my response earlier, of the 570 active positions that we are trying to actively recruit across the government, I believe that the number, I don’t have it right here in front of me, but I believe the number was that 325, or something like that, required a university degree. In order to get somebody to fill those positions that has a university degree, we have to have individuals within the Northwest Territories with university degrees looking for work – we have a very small percentage of those people – or we have to go south to try to get those individuals to fill the positions. At this time, unless we are changing the job completely, then that is a completely different discussion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the government doing placement opportunities, giving Northerners a chance. I hear from the public and they are concerned that these job opportunities are being held away from them. In other words, that they’re not seeing these opportunities and benefits. Of course, at the same time as the last point is, they start to ask themselves, why bother to live and invest here with their families in the future if this government shows little interest in them.
I want to know what this Minister is going to do to show that these jobs matter, and that Northerners matter, and we are going to try to hire for some of these 800 jobs that are open. I actually think it is more than 800, but we will get that cleared up here in the next day or two.
What is this Minister going to do to demonstrate that Northerners matter and we care about their families and we care about their investment in the Northwest Territories? Whether they are in a big community or a small community, it matters. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it does matter; I agree. This is a reason why we are trying to put infrastructure into the small communities.
In some of the larger centres, we do have very good employment rates. An example is the employment rate in the city of Yellowknife is over 80 percent; across the country it is 69 percent. The issue is not really because we don’t have infrastructure here, we don’t have infrastructure in the small communities. The low employment numbers in the small communities are due to education and housing and other office space and other infrastructure that’s needed to attract people into these small communities.
We are trying to put those things in place so that it could become a place where individuals could work. Without those things it is very difficult to recruit positions. We are trying to recruit what we can with the people in the communities, but if we have to bring someone in, we have to be able to provide them housing and a place to work. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up on what the Minister of Human Resources continues to keep talking about. He keeps talking about infrastructure.
I fail to understand why infrastructure is such an issue with Northerners being hired, but it’s okay to go to Ottawa to hire people even though we may not have infrastructure here. Maybe the Minister of Human Resources can explain what infrastructure means and, in that regard, why it matters when it comes to employing Northerners but infrastructure isn’t an issue when you go to Ottawa to hire those folks there. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The career fair in Ottawa was one method that we were using to try to attract individuals to the North. They come to the North; they would be subjected to the same type of infrastructure and housing deficiencies as anyone else here.
We are also trying to advertise in the North. We have open houses. We’ve had one in Simpson. We’re going to continue to have open houses the next couple of months in all of our centres where we have career centres. We are going to have these open houses to try to bring people from these communities to the open house and talk about their potential career with the public service.
We are not ignoring individuals in the Northwest Territories. We’re open for business and we do accept people’s applications. People who apply, we accept their applications. We had a lot of applications, and I indicated earlier that we had 1,704 staffing actions last year. Not all of them are hires, but many of those are part of our recruitment process. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we still fail to seem to get the answer to why these 800 jobs are, what I would say, a relative secret. Why would we be hiding these employment opportunities to Northerners? When you go to the website and you don’t see them there but it is okay to take the show on the road to Ottawa, and maybe make one northern stop, what’s the government’s benefit of keeping them a secret? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, they are not a secret, so it would be difficult to answer a question that leads with why is it a secret. Thank you.
Can the Minister say for certain that every one of these, whether it is 500, 800 or 1,000 jobs that are open today, that we know they are actively campaigning, because I am sure they are not flying around the country wasting people’s time.
Can the Minister guarantee that every one of these jobs is posted on our careers website, encouraging people to apply far and wide? Thank you.
No, I cannot guarantee that all of those 571 jobs will be on the career website and advertised soon; however, I will guarantee that we will be doing a full presentation to committee on exactly what the issues are with the vacancy rates and our complications with filling all of these positions and why these positions are vacant, where they are vacant and where we are having difficulties recruiting. I will assure the Member that tomorrow morning we will be putting a full presentation together and talking about all of the vacancy rates. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, the final question begs the question about, you know, where is the money. Some of these jobs were probably vacant a short period, some are probably vacant long periods, but when you add up to 571 jobs, as stated by the Finance Minister, that’s a lot of money sitting doing nothing.
So the question is: How much money are we talking about and where is it going if it’s not employing people? That answer certainly deserves a little light and the public deserves to know. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, even though the position is vacant, the job still has to be done. Often the positions are filled with a casual, and also when we have some vacancy rates, we create some money for summer students so we are able to hire summer students. It is very important to us as a government, when these kids are out at university or college, when they come back to the Northwest Territories that we try to employ them so they have a better chance of success when they go back to school. Last year we employed 308 summer students. If we had every position filled to the max all the time and there was absolutely no vacancy rate, that would be one program that we would have to cut, the Summer Student Employment Program. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What can the Minister do to show us where that money is going? This Legislature votes for that particular money to be allocated for a very specific purpose. I don’t know the FMB rules that tightly to be able to say if you take that money and spend it somewhere else, you’ve breached that. I can’t say that today, but I am certainly going to look into it. How do we account for that money? If it’s not going to these jobs, the public sees it, rightly, as a slush fund to do whatever they want. So how do we know the money is going exactly to what it was designed for and passed in this Legislature for? Will the Minister explain that and guarantee it and also demonstrate it in writing to this Legislature? Thank you.
The money to hire employees for the GNWT is there and we use that money for that purpose only. We don’t spend it on other things. Tomorrow morning we will be able to demonstrate in committee the full program of vacancies, hires, and we can do comparisons with the main estimates. We are prepared to do all that. We had promised committee we would do that work and we are doing that tomorrow morning. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to talk about the elders in our small communities who have to go through a long-term care facility either in Inuvik or Yellowknife. Once they get assessed in that community, they are better suited in the long-term care facility, providing they have beds. Is it the responsibility of the elders to find themselves in those facilities?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, we want to work with our residents to keep them as close to home as possible, recognizing that we do have some infrastructure challenges. The Housing Corp has been doing a significant amount of work with respect to facilities in the communities to provide some opportunities for elders as they age and have to move out of their own units. We are looking at putting in a long-term care facility in Norman Wells, which would be the first of its kind in that region. So we are doing a number of things, but from time to time we do have residents who do have to come out of their home communities, either come to a regional centre or, if their personal condition happens to be more severe, they might have to come to a place like Yellowknife. With respect to how that is funded, I will have to get that detailed information from the department. I would be happy to share that information with the Member at a later date. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am certainly happy that Cabinet has agreed to put a long-term care facility in the Sahtu for the people of the Northwest Territories. My understanding, from talking to some of the elders, is once they are assessed and with the lack of infrastructure in their communities, they have to somehow make their way to Yellowknife or Inuvik and they have to pay for their airfare.
I want to ask the Minister, if that’s the case, is his department looking at where the elders don’t have to pay for their airfare once they get assessed and they have to come to a long-term care facility for their future needs?
Where it’s medically necessary for an individual to come from one community and reside in another community on a permanent basis where the services are, we do provide financial supports and assistance to help those individuals get here, but it’s got to be medically necessary. Thank you.
Would the Minister be committing to look at past files where people who have left their communities in the Sahtu who have to come to a long-term care facility because of their medical needs where these elders have paid for their own tickets from Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope, Deline or Tulita and that these files will be looked at and proper compensation will go back to these elders?
Where it’s deemed medically necessary by physicians or other health professionals, we would certainly be willing to have that conversation. I would encourage the Member to come to my office and maybe we can discuss the individual cases, because I’m not actually aware of the individual cases at this time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have certainly known elders who have left the Sahtu and have come to me and said we have to pay for their tickets, because they don’t have any money from their $550 a month pension cheque. We have to pay money to get to the centre. The Minister is also welcome to walk into my office to have this discussion.
I want to ask the Minister if he’s willing to look at this file again and properly compensate the elders who have made their own travel arrangements, paid their own tickets to come to Inuvik or Yellowknife.
I am happy to work with the Member. I am happy to walk down the hall to his office. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I have a return to written question asked by Ms. Bisaro on February 7, 2014, regarding reallocation of funds for junior kindergarten. Ms. Bisaro requested a breakdown, by department, showing where the reallocated $1.8 million in funding to implement junior kindergarten in 2014-15 in our smallest NWT communities will be found.
Mr. Speaker, the $1.8 million to implement the optional, play-based Junior Kindergarten Program for four-year-olds in 29 small communities across the Northwest Territories in 2014-15 will be sourced from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.
Ms. Bisaro also asked from which line of the department’s budget the reallocated funds will be sourced and the amount for each budget line. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment will be re-profiling existing education authority contributions. These are the operations and maintenance contributions for the operation of school programs, which are projected to total $152 million in 2014-15. The re-profiled funding will come from adjusting the K to 12 pupil-teacher ratio, or PTR. It is important to note that although the PTR will be adjusted to accommodate the implementation of junior kindergarten, PTR funding will still remain above the minimum legislated PTR level. In the NWT, a large part of the calculation of the amount of funding provided to education authorities is determined by looking at the number of students and how many teachers and support staff are needed for those students. The legislated pupil-teacher ratio is 16 to one, whereas current funding levels to education authorities are actually much higher, at about 13 to one, which is almost $11 million annually above the legislated requirement.
The total projected cost of implementing junior kindergarten, based on the school year of July 1 to June 30, will be as follows:
In the 2014-15 school year, the cost of implementing junior kindergarten in 29 communities is projected to be $2.8 million annually;
In the 2015-16 school year, the cost of adding regional centres – Inuvik, Fort Smith and Hay River – is projected to be $1.7 million annually; and
In the 2016-17 school year, the cost of adding Yellowknife schools is projected to be $2.5 million annually.
The total cost to offer junior kindergarten in all of our communities, a goal that will be accomplished in September 2016, is projected to be $7 million annually. This cost will be absorbed by education authorities over the three-year implementation time frame and on an ongoing basis. We anticipate that there will be minor infrastructure investments required in some of our schools to make sure they are equipped for four-year-olds, but this cost will not be borne by the education authorities.
Ms. Bisaro also asked for the amount of reallocated funding that will be sourced from each individual education authority. Mr. Speaker, five education authorities will end up receiving a slight increase in funding as a result of junior kindergarten, while five will experience a slight decrease. Of the five education authorities experiencing a slight decrease, the greatest decrease, over three years, is just a 1.2 percent reduction in their total funding.
Specifically, over the next three years and annually thereafter, we are projecting that the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority will experience a net decrease of 0.4 percent, or $122,000 to their funding; the South Slave Divisional education Council will experience a net decrease of 0.9 percent, or $207,000; the Tlicho Community Services Agency will experience a net decrease of 0.1 percent, or $19,000; the Yellowknife Catholic Schools will experience a net decrease of 1.2 percent, or $214,000; and the Yellowknife Education District No. 1 will experience a net decrease of 0.3 percent, or $62,000.
Over the next three years and ongoing, we are also projecting that the Commission scolaire francophone will experience a net increase of 2.5 percent, or $104,000; the Dehcho Divisional Education Council will experience a net increase of 0.1 percent, or $7,000; the Detah District Education Authority will experience a net increase of 0.8 percent, or $14,000; the Ndilo District Education Authority will experience a net increase of 4.2 percent, or $91,000; and the Sahtu Divisional education Council will experience a net increase of 3.1 percent, or $408,000.
Mr. Speaker, our education authorities are run by professional administrators who I am confident will be able to manage a reduction of 1.2 percent, or less, over three years, especially considering that our education authorities are sitting on projected accumulated cash surpluses that total $8 million this school year. Mr. Speaker, given the fiscal realities we face, we are confident this is the best approach to funding this important and exciting new program for our children.
Let’s not lose sight of the big picture. We are talking about a minor financial impact in exchange for introducing free, optional, play-based, full-day junior kindergarten for four-year-olds across the NWT. Mr. Speaker, this government has heard what parents have said, and we are responding. The research clearly demonstrates that a quality daycare program for four-year-olds will not only improve school success but success in life as well. This, Mr. Speaker, is what junior kindergarten is all about. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Government of the Northwest Territories Anti-Poverty Action Plan, Building on the Strengths of Northerners, 2014-15 to 2015-16. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table the report of the Action Canada Fellows, entitled “A Question of Future Prosperity: Developing a Heritage Fund in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table page 8 of today’s News/North, entitled “Devolution Dishonoured, Premier Sold out Aboriginal Partners to Get Devolution Deal.” Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Wednesday, February 12, 2014, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River North, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends the government allocate 25 percent of new resource revenues annually to the NWT Heritage Fund, commencing in the 2014-15 fiscal year.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 17, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 18, motions. Item 19, first reading of bills. Item 20, second reading of bills. Item 21, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, with Mr. Dolynny in the chair.
