Agreed.
Moving on to page 3-21, activity summary, management recruitment services, operations expenditure summary, $3.969 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Agreed. Moving on to page 3-22, information item, management recruitment services, active positions. Agreed?
Agreed.
Moving on to page 3-25, activity summary, corporate human resources, operations expenditure summary, $12.289 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Moving on to page 3-26, activity summary, corporate human resources, grants and contributions, contributions, $115,000. Agreed?
Agreed.
Total contributions $115,000. Agreed?
Agreed.
Moving on to page 3-27, information item, corporate human resources, active positions. Agreed?
Agreed.
Moving on to page 3-29, activity summary, employee services, operations expenditure summary, $14.099 million. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few questions on the benefits. The Sahtu has a special day designated as Sahtu Day, June 23rd. A lot of employees from the Government of the Northwest Territories are Aboriginal and Sahtu beneficiaries and this comes up every year in terms of them taking this day off. They are either told to take it through other benefits that they have incurred or they are asked to look at other initiatives. Is this something that the government would look at to honour Sahtu land claim day because if it hasn’t, then this year it will come up again. Some of the employees would ask that they could ask the government to allow them to take the day off without taking any kind of special leave that they have. I just want to be prepared to tell my constituents when I need to tell them when they do contact me on this issue.
Minister Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was going to say I will authorize a day off for them, but my understanding is that they are entitled to civic leave, all the recognition of Aboriginal days, all days through the Sahtu land claims are recognized as civic, but I will confirm that for the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. He has made my day there, Mr. Chairman.
I want to ask another question. When some of the employees that do have to take off some special leave, I think the government has been pretty good with them on some leaves, like family sickness or there is a death in the family and they have some time off and there are some special circumstances that require more than their time off because of whatever they have to deal with in a family situation. So I think that is on a case-by-case basis, so I am not too sure if there is a general wide policy where cultural leave or custom leave would deal with that issue. So, again, that is something that has been brought up in my office on occasions that employees from the government want to help out with the families. So maybe a brief comment by the Minister would be sufficient.
We do have collective agreements that we are bound to follow, but generally in some of the areas that the Member has mentioned, the deputy heads are designated as the ones that can make the call. I think for the most part we try to be flexible, depending on operational requirements and I guess the severity of the situation. We do try to provide guidelines, but guidelines don’t always apply in every situation. That’s generally the way we operate. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, we’re on page 3-29, activity summary, employee services, operations expenditure summary, $14.099 million.
Agreed.
Moving on to page 3-30, information item, employee services, active positions.
Agreed.
Moving on to page 3-33, activity summary, regional operations, operations expenditure summary, $4.627 million.
Agreed.
Page 3-34, information item, regional operations, active positions. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a question on page 3-34. The breakdown from ‘10-11 in comparison to the page that appears, this is for regional operations, the regional allocation of employees on page 3-10, when I compare the two the numbers are different for the South Slave and the Beaufort-Delta. They’re out by a couple of employees and I’m just wondering why that is because if you go into the new year they seem to be accurate, but for ‘10-11 the reporting is just off a little bit and I’m just wondering why. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to ask Michelle Beard to respond to that.
Ms. Beard.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reason for the difference is the positions that you’re referring to came out of the strategic initiative funding. So originally they were located in the headquarters and then were moved out into the regional positions. So what you’re seeing is internal allocations of positions from headquarters positions into the regional positions.
That was my question, I was just trying to understand how many actual positions we were increasing regional operations by. Was it the seven or was it five or four? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We’re actually increasing them by seven.
Okay, page 3-34, information item, regional operations, active positions.
Agreed.
So if you can turn back to page 3-7, Human Resources, department summary, operations expenditure summary, $42.421 million. Agreed? Mr. Ramsay.
Just one quick question, Mr. Chairman. On the contract services, I’m just wondering why we’ve gone up $1.4 million. Maybe just a quick explanation on that. Thank you.
Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That’s because of the 20/20 money and also money for collective bargaining. There are three collective bargaining negotiations that we’re getting ready for. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Let’s do this again. Human Resources, department summary, operations expenditure summary, $42.421 million.
Agreed.
Does committee agree that we have concluded the Department of Human Resources? Agreed?
Agreed.
With that, I would like to thank the Minister, thank the witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, could you escort the witnesses out?
What is the wish of committee? Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.
---Carried
Can I have the report of Committee of the Whole, please, Mr. Krutko.
Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Tabled Document 133-16(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates, 2011-2012, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Motion is on the floor. Do we have a seconder? The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
---Carried
