Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Human Resources. I would like to ask him a few questions to follow up on my statement. I talked a lot about public service, and lack of customer service and lack of service to our residents. I would like to ask the Minister initially whether or not we have a definition of customer services, whether his department has a definition of customer service, or are there standards that the department has that we use when we define customer service. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the past there have been training courses available through the NWT for customer service. I don’t believe those or any courses are currently being offered. As such, I am not sure if we have a true definition of customer service, but I am certainly willing to look into it and get a comprehensive answer whenever I can, at my earliest convenience. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I guess my question went a bit more to the larger definition of service. I am thinking of service to our residents. I appreciate that customer service courses are sometimes offered. I think they have to be offered an awful lot more than they are. To the Minister in the issue of service to our residents in a larger sense, could he tell me whether or not we have standards which indicate, which define the kind of service, the level of service that we should be providing to our residents through our programs? Thank you.
I am not aware of a global statement that we have with respect to customer service. I believe a lot of the departments, with respect to their actual program areas, have identified a level of customer service or a level of expectation for each of those program areas, but as a global statement, I don’t believe we have one. Once again, I will speak to the department and see if we can track something down in that sense.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the commitment to look into this. As the Minister for Human Resources and the Minister responsible for the employment of all the people within our public service, I would like to ask him about the issue of time off at Christmas and at New Year’s. It was negotiated quite some years ago. I would like to know from the Minister whether or not there has ever been any evaluation or review of the impact that that closure has had on the service that we provide to our residents. Thank you.
I don’t believe a review of that nature has been conducted. I can say that there are a number of GNWT employees who really do like the Donnie Days and enjoy getting the time off. With respect to the impact on customer service, we don’t have that information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I am sure that there are employees who enjoy a paid week at Christmas. We all would, I am sure. I would like to ask my last question to the Minister. If there has not ever been an evaluation done, I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit to consider doing a review or an evaluation and look at the benefit or the lack of benefit of keeping offices open over Christmas, whether it be every second day or every day except for stat holidays, half staff, full staff. Would he look at that kind of an evaluation or review? Thank you.
Just for some clarity, not all GNWT employees are eligible for the mandatory with-pay days during the actual Christmas holidays. Every department is asked to do a bit of an analysis of their department to determine which services are continuous or required over the holiday season. Things like health care workers and correctional workers and certain positions in Transportation as well as some positions in Public Works that are responsible for maintaining buildings and actual public safety and some positions in the Department of Human Resources like medical travel; these positions don’t shut down, so not all positions shut down over the Christmas season. Those positions that fall under that category, they actually take their leave during the year at some other point as operational requirements allow. There are a lot of people within the GNWT who are required to provide services over the holiday season. It will stay that way. As far as a review, we haven’t done one. I will talk to the department and I will get back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
