I look forward to more discussions in that area and how we’re going to have a well laid out plan as to some of the issues with regard to the decentralization and devolution. I want to say to the Minister and staff of Human Resources, along with the Government of the Northwest Territories, being one of the recipients of one of the top 100 employers in Canada, you are in very good company with a good quality of other groups that receive this award. My hats off to the Human Resources staff to make that happen.
Mr. Minister, I want to talk to you about the Aboriginal Employees Strategy and the numbers that we are seeing within the GNWT with regard to Aboriginal people working within the Government of the Northwest Territories. I also support this strategy to see not only the issues that we have to deal with in our communities and our regions, but how the strategy will support the community of Tulita or the Sahtu. They had 33 graduates last year from Grade 12. It would be good if we had a strong strategy that would say take these 33 future leaders and we’re going to move them, if we have advertising that would want these students or a percentage of these students moving to the GNWT workforce. We are competing with oil companies, Aboriginal governments and other private sectors that will take a percentage of these students who are graduating from Grade 12 in the Sahtu and say, we’re going to move you into our workforce. I’m hoping the Aboriginal strategy will take a grounding approach and start working with these students. That’s the risk. Sometimes we train our people so well that oil companies or Aboriginal governments will take them away. That’s the reality in the small communities. We can count on our hands how many positions the government has. That’s a reality. There’s only so much to go around.
Mr. Minister, would you be able to provide that type of solid, regional type of training plan that we can proudly say to our graduates we, as a government, have a plan for you? If you choose to come and work for us, we will take care of you, just like the former Premier of the Northwest Territories spoke at the Teacher Education Program. He said, if you graduate from the Teacher Education Program, we’re going to have a job in one of our schools in our communities; or the Nursing Program, students who go to the Aurora College Nursing Program. We’re going to put you in one of our communities, if you choose to, or work at Stanton Hospital. I’m looking forward to that type of result from this Minister and his staff in the life of this government, so I can go back to the Sahtu, speak at the graduation ceremony and say that we prepared that and we have a strategy that will work. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I hear the Member loud and clear. The Regional Recruitment Strategy is one of the things that we have been talking about to start addressing these particular challenges. We are talking about on-the-job training and other opportunities for youth, but not just youth, people who are interested in becoming employees of the Government of the Northwest Territories.
For students, there is a significant amount out there and I think Education, Culture and Employment does provide some fantastic student loans that will help individuals fund their way through college or university. But when individuals come back, we’ve already had internship programs to put youth/returning students in jobs to give them an opportunity to consolidate their learning on the job, which will give them the skills they need to apply on any job they wish to apply on in the future. We’ve had some pretty good successes with the Internship Program. We want to continue to run the Internship Program.
We’ve also been very, very proactive and working really hard to hire summer students when they come back. This past year was the highest number of students we ever hired. I say that with caution, obviously, because we can’t guarantee that we’ll always be able to get the same number of students. Money and work does play a factor and it’s going to get tougher and tougher to increase those numbers, but we’ll work as hard as we can to employ as many students as we can reasonably hire. That’s a great opportunity for students to consolidate some of their learning, develop some skills that will be useful when they are applying for jobs in the future.
I talked already about the Regional Recruitment Strategy and some of the on-the-job training programs that are there for both non-statutory as well as statutory jobs. These are all things that I think can really help individuals who may lack an education but have the ability to do work and specific work. I’ll give you an example. Many, many years ago, one of my first jobs in the Government of the Northwest Territories was an on-the-job training program, an affirmative action on-the-job training program. By developing profiles and strict training plans and double filling positions with Aboriginal candidates, we were graduating 30, 34 Aboriginal candidates into meaningful high-end jobs on an annual basis. We had an 84 percent success rate. We know it will work. I think it’s time for us to look at that model again.
I want to ask the Minister to look at the overall recruitment in the boards and agencies and, again, look at our region as the efforts. We need to put strong directive efforts to our boards and regions to hire the people who are qualified, who can go through this program and go through some programs so that our people in the region, vis-à-vis Aboriginal people, can be in program manager positions or higher, other than just being a front desk receptionist or administrative assistant. That is not good with me in my region.
We need to have people who can do the job and who are qualified or can be, like you said, trained on the job. That’s a complaint from me for my region. Too many boards pass over a lot of people for whatever reason. We need to be somewhat flexible to say this is a good candidate, maybe like a diamond in the rough. We have to polish some things. That’s the challenge we have and I think the Minister is aware of that.
So for us to be prepared for devolution and other issues we need to work on in the Sahtu, we really need to…(inaudible)…
…(inaudible)…with strategy, it will include all the health authorities and the education authorities. I hear the Member’s comment that we don’t want to just target people for some entry-level jobs, but I don’t think we should forget those jobs as well. Some individuals can get into some of these entry-level jobs, and through hard work, perseverance and taking opportunities as they come, they can advance up through an organization to fairly high levels. Succession planning is important, and sometimes starting at an entry level and working your way up is reality, but we do have to recognize that there are people out there who are probably ready for some more senior jobs or middle-level jobs that aren’t getting those opportunities and we have to find ways to create those opportunities.
Like I said, I’m looking forward to the information we’re going to get from the Aboriginal Employees Advisory Committee. I’m looking forward to some of the work that’s being done on the Regional Recruitment Strategy. I’m looking forward to taking that to committee and having some discussions on that and how we can move forward. As I indicated, we’re going to be moving forward and bringing that to committee prior to business planning so it can help inform the next round of business planning. I’m looking forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the House.
Thank you for the comments and I look forward to working with you as we try to address this situation over the coming years.
Madam Chair, can we take a five-minute break?
I believe we’ve almost completed general comments, so if I can just confirm that we can take a break. Nobody further on my list. Are there any further general comments? Are we agreed that we are concluded general comments?
Agreed.
Alright. We will move to detail after five minutes only. Thank you.
---SHORT RECESS
All right, committee. We’ll come back to order. We’ll begin detail. We are on the Department of Human Resources, page 3-7, department summary, Human Resources, department summary, operations expenditures summary, $42.099 million. We will defer this until after consideration of the activities. Page 3-8, Human Resources, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Page 3-9, Human Resources, information item, revenue summary. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. With respect to the line entry for this page, we have a Sun Life medevac recoveries in the main estimates of $750,000 and we’ve seen from 2012-2013 of only $250,000. We’ve seen about a half million dollar lift in the mains. Maybe if the Minister could explain why the lift and what that number refers to.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. In 2011-2012, that was the first year that we had a revenue target here and we had them originally at $250,000 but the actuals came at $761,000, so we’ve had to make an adjustment so that we don’t have to do a larger correction later in the year. We think the $750,000 is closer. At the end, it will have to be amended to the actuals.
The second part of that question was a definition of Sun Life medevac recoveries.
For a specific definition I will go to the deputy.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. Bassi-Kellett.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Under the benefits plan for our employees we have Sun Life operating and giving us some of the coverage for our medical coverage. We are able to work with Sun Life to recover some of the costs. There’s about 80 percent of our costs that we can recover for certain kinds of services that we provide to our employees. For example, we are able to claim on some air ambulance costs if we have the right kind of situations and documentation in place, so we aspire, of course, to really meet those and maximize out the 80 percent recovery that we’re able to claim through Sun Life.
Thank you, Ms. Bassi-Kellett. Mr. Dolynny.
These recoveries, is this a policy that is easily retrievable for review or is this something that’s just within the confines of the directorate?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m not sure I understand the question 100 percent. Sun Life is basically our insurance provider and under the insurance program we can claim back 80 percent of costs, and for medical medevacs we can claim back 80 percent of the costs in certain situations. We have to obviously fill out paperwork and add justification and then we’re able to charge back as part of our insurance.
I’ll rephrase my question here. There’s obviously a policy that the provider is using or a guideline with respect to the recoverables. As Members, are we able to have access to what that policy of recoverables are about?
I don’t believe that it’s confidential. I believe it’s our insurance policy. I think anybody can look at the policy that Sun Life has with us and that we pay for. If the Member is interested in looking at our insurance policy, I see no reason why we couldn’t share it with him and committee if they’re interested.
No further questions.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Committee, we are on page 3-9, department summary, Human Resources, information summary, revenue summary. Page 3-10, department summary, Human Resources, information item, active position summary. Page 3-12 and 3-13, Human Resources, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $625,000. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I could bring this up I suppose under Human Resource Strategy and Policy, but really I’m talking about direction here when I’m talking about the safety practices of the government and the barrier that I referred to in my general comments. I think the department is doing what it can, largely in response to the safety issues and the fines, but really what’s happening is this department provides policy to the other departments and then it’s a matter of trusting them to implement it. That’s not happening. That’s been pointed out by this Minister. He has no control over those departments.
I see here this activity is to provide advice to the Minister as well as the deputy ministers across the GNWT. I think we need some interaction maybe with the Premier and the Minister here to come up with the authority that this Minister clearly needs to have in the area of safety practices for the well-being of our employees across all departments. The Minister knows that. He’s essentially said it. His hands are tied. He’s doing what he can. He happens to be a Minister of a couple of departments, one of which is problematic and we hear that he is working on that and moving on it, but he doesn’t have control over others.
Will the Minister start addressing the issue here and work with the Premier and Cabinet, I suppose, whoever the decision-makers are at this level, to address this and get this Minister the authority to do his job for all of us to the benefit of our employees?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is essentially right. Ultimately the responsibility for these things falls to the individual deputies. A couple of things have happened over the last couple of years that I think are going to help the process. One of the things that has happened is that WSCC, based on I believe it might have been questions raised by the Member in the 16th Assembly and I think myself as well, started providing us a breakdown of what the actual claims costs are by department. Originally we only got it as a government as a whole. That is helping to inform the individual deputies as to the individual problems within their mandates.
The deputy minister of Health and Social Services sits on a deputy ministers committee and they’ve had an opportunity to continually push and explain this. I think the knowledge of the problem is becoming better understood at the deputy head level. I’ve personally had discussions with the Premier about this issue and about the accountability of us as Ministers and deputy ministers to try to address these problems within. Individual Ministers and deputy ministers have a performance review at the end of every year to success or failure in workplace safety, and fines and fees is something that will be considered as bonuses or, sorry, incremental pay is provided. I have been having those conversations.
The Premier is clearly aware of the challenges we face. These are not secrets to us. I have brought them to the Cabinet table a number of times and will continue to do so until such a time as these fines hopefully disappear and we have a safe, healthy workplace.
Thanks for the comments from the Minister. It sounds like he is acting on this. I’m glad to hear that. I hope it works. When there’s a wishy-washy line of authority, you often get a wishy-washy result. It sounds like there’s some firming up happening if it’s actually explicitly stated in revue standards for deputy ministers and so on. I appreciate that. It sounds like a reasonable compromise to try out.
I’d ask that the Minister keep us apprised on that and maybe the Premier to report if that has to be implemented, if there is – I forget the Minister’s term for pay and benefits – action that has to be taken. We’d like to know that this is happening and being effective. I take the Minister’s response and I know that we all understand that where you have wishy-washy lines of authority, it ends up in that kind of response.
I’ll commit to providing committee, on a regular basis, our stats on workplace safety claims that we are paying or the WSCC is paying on our behalf. I can assure the Member that the Ministers take this seriously, the Premier takes this seriously, we’ve had conversations. We don’t like paying $600,000 when we’d rather use that money for programs and services in the Northwest Territories. This is something that with some diligence I think we can overcome. It’s going to take some work, there’s no doubt there, but I think we’re all committed to having these results.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll continue where Mr. Bromley has probably left off here and opened the door here with respect to WSCC continued issues. I’m from a bit of a different perspective on this and I believe the directorate and the Minister have more accountability on our performance than we’re maybe led to believe here.
The Minister has gone on record to use quotes such as ”we are the collaborators of HR management” and he’s also used the terms ”as we provide the tools.” The Minister mentioned $600,000 in claims or penalties. It’s actually closer to $750,000 in claims or penalties in the last two years. If the department and directorate is responsible for the tools, the question I have to ask is, which tools are we using, which tools have we brought forward, which tools are we using or have we brought to the table to help mitigate the current claims growth, the current penalties?
The Minister has gone on record as saying we’re probably going to see some more fines this year. I believe that the leadership for this does come from this department. Even though the managers must manage, the tools come from this department. So I want to hear what the department, directorate and Minister here are going to do to address these WSCC concerns.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the tools that we have put in place is the new Duty to Accommodate Policy that became active early in the life of this Assembly. That is a policy that is written by the Department of Human Resources on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories. All departments have to apply that policy accordingly and are ultimately responsible for the results of those policies within their departments. It is a new policy and I have already outlined some of the successes we’ve had with it in the last year. We are seeing some positive results.
We are going to put more duty to accommodate officers out in the field so that we can have even more positive responses. We are also responsible on behalf of the government for trying to set up some parameters around occupational health and safety committees with draft terms of references that departments can use as they establish their own occupational health and safety committees within their departments, which is something that they’re responsible for. That template is available and we are starting to see more occupational health and safety committees popping up in the Government of the Northwest Territories, which is a good thing and something we all want to see.
We do offer some training through the Department of Human Resources that GNWT staff can attend. They still have to get approval from their departments to attend it, but there is health and safety education and training programs offered on a regular basis. We also work closely with the WSCC to make their programming available to GNWT staff as well. We do facilitate some processes, we do have some duty to accommodate officers that are available to departments as they’re trying to deal with some of these individuals that we do have to accommodate and find ways to creatively get them back into the workforce.
I’m not saying that the Department of Human Resources has no responsibility, I have never said that, but a lot of the ultimate decisions are those of the departments, and we put tools and offer advice and guidance so that they can utilize those tools in an appropriate way.
If you go through the list of departments that are out there, we have a large number of departments that have zero claims history. Some stuff is out there, some departments have good success, others not so much.
As I’ve indicated, as the Minister of Justice, we are taking measures and activities within that department to address our challenges within Justice and I think we’re going to see some results there as well.
I applaud the Minister and the department on putting duty to accommodate on the forefront, but I believe this is, by and large, more of a result of an injury and we are doing something with the person thereafter to accommodate. I am talking about preventing injury, the first part of the exercise. What tools or mechanisms? The Minister mentioned training and so forth.
When we have a company, if I use the word loosely, of 5,000 employees, how many safety officers dedicated to safety do we have working for the GNWT whose prime source and prime responsibility is the safety of our employees? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, we have occupational health and safety coordinators in a number of departments, boards and agencies. I can get that number for the Member.
As far as tools and resources that the Department of Human Resources has in place or is preparing to assist in the workplace, we have the Occupational Health and Safety Policy, which is a GNWT policy that departments, boards and agencies are going to have to utilize. We have some incident reporting procedures, which is basically GNWT incident reporting procedures. We have occupational health and safety orientation for workers. We have occupational health and safety orientation for contractors. I have already mentioned the health and safety education and training programs. We have the template, the terms of reference that can be used by individual occupational health and safety committees within individual departments. We have guidelines for workplace inspections. We have guidelines for incident investigations. We have guidelines for safety and toolbox meetings. We have guidelines for developing emergency response plans. We have guidelines for personal protective equipment. These are all things that are available to departments to help them prevent injury in the workplace.
As I have indicated, we do have work to do. We have to continue to push at the departments to utilize some of the tools that are available to them to promote safe and healthy workplaces. I believe we are seeing some results. Our claims history for 2012 is noticeably down from previous years.
I do applaud the Minister and the department for giving this laundry list of tools. I appreciate that we have that today. The question is, what have we done differently or new to adapt to the same terminology that WSCC has with all other companies and businesses throughout the Northwest Territories? If we’re going to be doing the repeat of the same programs and expecting different results with WSCC, my concern is that it is a dangerous precedent that we are moving down.
I would rather see us look at what are the criteria the WSCC is looking for from this government. Are we aligning our strategy, are we aligning our tools to meet their criteria, having made changes, recommendations and policy renewal to adapt our ability to get off this claims penalty list, and to be more in line with every other company and every other business that has to follow the same rules? Are we doing anything to adapt to the WSCC mandate? Thank you.
Madam Chair, it is no secret we are behind the eight ball on some of this stuff. This stuff that we are talking about, like the Occupational Health and Safety Policy that is being put in place by the GNWT, is new. If you look at the criteria for occupational health and safety policies put in by WSCC, there is a list of criteria.
We had a committee meeting some time ago, and I actually walked through each of those lists. We are actually beating, meeting and exceeding everything that they have identified needs to be in occupational health and safety. I am happy to re-share that list with the Member and committee, if they are interested, outlining what is going to be in our occupational health and safety. It is new. It is taking into consideration programs and successes from different organizations. Once again, I am happy to share that. As I indicated in committee, it meets and exceeds what the WSCC is actually asking for in Occupational Health and Safety Policy.
Madam Chair, if it meets and exceeds WSCC policies, then hopefully we won’t see the penalties that we have before us and a lot of the so-called charges to which have amounted substantially. Again, I wish the department well this year and hopefully we can mitigate some of those costs.
I am going to stay on the same page and ask another question. This has to do with an initiative and program that was established in 2011-12. The Minister made reference to it earlier, called the Associate Director/Superintendent Program, which was aimed to increase the number of Aboriginal employees in senior management.
Can the Minister give us a brief overview how successful has this been? Has this been reflected in the estimates that we see before us?
I am just wondering, Mr. Dolynny, if that wouldn’t be under management and recruitment services. I’ll allow the Minister to respond if he wishes.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going back to the WSCC claims, as I have indicated, we are putting stuff in now; we are trying to address the problem. Some of the stuff is going to take a bit of time to work through. As with any new program, there is bound to be some growing pains, but we have already seen a decrease in 2012. We know there is probably going to be a penalty coming from that. We just expect it to be much smaller, which shows that we have started to make progress. More progress is needed. More diligence is needed. We continue to work closely with the departments so they implement the policies that are in place. We expect to see some better results over time.
I don’t want anybody to have the illusion that the GNWT is an unsafe place. The Member mentioned it earlier; the WSCC has a target. It is not an average. I think it was said that it was an average before and it’s not an average. A target of 2.4 or less loss time claims per 100.
We work really hard to promote a safe workplace. Right now our average is 1.8. I think we had 80-some claims last year that were time loss, but our average is 1.8 time loss claims per 100. We are not an unsafe workplace. We had some challenging worksites where we are having some poor results. That will be Justice, Stanton and Beaufort-Delta. But overall, I wouldn’t say that we are an unsafe workplace. I think that is important to support our employees out there that are working in safe environments where they are not getting injured.
With respect to the Associate Director/Superintendent Program, for 2013-14 we should be advertised in March and April. Going back to your initial intake, the first two graduates have completed the program and have actually taken on full responsibility for the positions they are being developed for. One is in the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority and the other is a MACA superintendent in the South Slave. As we move forward and individuals complete the program and are placed, I am happy to provide those statistics to the committee.
Thank you, Minister. Your time is up, Mr. Dolynny. I will allow you a further question. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It is just going to be a clarification question. The Minister mentions a number of 1.8 claims per 100 and the average of 2.4. Can the Minister and the department provide the statistical backup in terms of how that number was calculated, given the information and how the details around that where they came up with that 1.8? Thank you.
Madam Chair, I can get that information. The 2.42 comes directly from the website and it is a 2012 target, and our 1.8 claims per 100 is based on the number of employees we have. As far as how it is actually calculated, I will get the detail to the Member later.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. We are on page 3-13, Human Resources, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $625,000.
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will move on to page 3-14, Human Resources, information item, directorate, active positions. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will move on to page 3-17, Human Resources, activity summary, Human Resource Strategy and Policy, operations expenditure summary, $6.774 million. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Since last year there has been some shift scheduling software that has been added to the fold. This rolled out, I believe, in March of 2012. PeopleSoft, I believe, is the terminology that is being used at the department.
Can the department give us an idea, has this helped with the mitigation of overtime and with the help of calculations of time off in lieu?
Thanks, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s currently being implemented at Stanton and we are experiencing some growing pains with the program, trying to make it effective and work properly at Stanton. It’s going to take a little bit more time before we can come back with an analysis on the benefits and the effects of this particular tool.
