Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I raised the issue yesterday about direct appointments, and my view is it’s very important to create them in a transparent manner. At no time, of course, did I say I was against direct appointments, but it’s simply based on the transparency of them. In my Member’s statement I certainly spoke about two dozen shared services employees that have been shown the door by this government in its reorg. Now is an opportunity for the Premier to start using his direct appointment authority in an open, transparent, and maybe even a reasonable way.
I would ask the Premier, would he be willing to take all the names of the two dozen shared services employees who’ve been shown the door by this government, and use his authority at the Cabinet table to appoint these folks through direct appointments so their jobs aren’t lost after they’ve dedicated themselves in some cases 10, 20 and 30 years to this public service and are feeling as if they got the cold shoulder.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have various processes in this government, some of which we’ve negotiated through a collective bargaining process, and whenever there’s a change in organization or a change in approach, there’s a process that we have to follow in terms of filling positions. We also have an Affected Employee Policy whereby affected employees have priority on existing positions. I’d be very surprised if there was as much of a problem as the Member is suggesting, so I’d be willing to hear where he sees the problem is happening.
Many of these employees have 10, 20 and 25 years of experience. They don’t meet their numbers, so in other words, they’re too young to retire, they don’t have enough years in the public service to qualify, so even if they wanted to take early retirement, they don’t qualify. Some are being offered these eight-month training programs and told good luck after that. There have been a few who have been able to hit their numbers and said the only option for them is to retire, obviously.
I’m asking the Premier, would he be willing to use his authority at the Cabinet table to direct appoint these employees that aren’t just Yellowknife employees, there are Fort Simpson employees, they are territorial employees and they’re certainly family people who pay taxes. Here’s an opportunity when we have 571 jobs that the government is actively looking at – 24 people only really represent 4 percent of that workforce – here’s an opportunity for the Premier.
The Member is correct; 24 people were affected by shared services, 20 of them have jobs. There are four that have still not been placed, one in the Deh Cho and three in Yellowknife. I fully expect that they will all find suitable, reasonable employment consistent with what they are doing now.
Would the Premier be willing to ensure that these people are guaranteed a job somewhere in the government if, after their training experience, there is no job opening up for them?
I can tell you some of these folks have been doing jobs like they’ve been doing today for 20 or 25 years, and their jobs have been reclassified and they have been told to go reapply for them. By the way, they don’t qualify for interviews anymore. That’s part of the problem here, so I’m asking what guarantees will this Premier provide this sector and what message is he sending by just letting the process roll out by itself with no protection. It sends the wrong message to our territory and certainly the public service. Thank you.
As a government, we look after all our employees. Our employees are our most valuable asset, so I think it’s very misleading to suggest that we are throwing these employees under the bus. As a matter of fact, we do have an Affected Employee Policy. We will be placing these employees. We have told all of them that they will find jobs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Premier saying in this House – and I’d like him to be crystal clear about this – after the affected employees are sent off for re-programming, retraining or reclassification, whatever you want to call it, will he guarantee them positions after this? They are told they are out on their own after they have been retrained and good luck. That’s the message they are being told. The Premier is trying to tell me something different in this House. I want him to be very clear. Will these employees be offered employment after their training program has been done? Thank you very much.
Our government is not recognized as one of the 100 best employees in Canada because we aren’t looking after employees. If the Member has a list of employees affected that aren’t being offered jobs and are being shown the door, give it to us and we’ll fix the problem. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
