Mr. Chapman.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Of the two employees who were transitioned from term to indeterminate, one was a Priority 1 candidate and the other was a non-priority or non-affirmative action candidate. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chapman. Member.
Mr. Chair, we have been talking about affirmative action here for quite some time. I thought that all departments followed the same process and the same terms of reference. I am just wondering if affirmative action applies in this case of P1s or P2s or whatever it is. This department seems to use the term "Indigenous governments" very often. Every other sentence is about Indigenous governments, Indigenous governments. You have to talk the walk, and I don't see that talk the walk when it comes to P1s. Are they just afraid of setting up our own Indigenous people of P1s, setting them up for failure, like other departments sometimes say? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. I might be a little confused on what the Member is asking, but we want affirmative action people in place. We want to put Indigenous P1s and P2s in our government doing the work representing and working for the residents of the Northwest Territories. There is a hiring process. There is an HR process that we need to follow. We follow that to a T. Sometimes there are effective employees, and if they are effective employees, then there is a system in place where they actually get the opportunity to get the next job available if they're qualified.
To answer the Member's question, yes, we respect the Affirmative Action Policy that the Government of the Northwest Territories has, and we make sure that we want Northerners representing us at the table working for all our Northerners. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member.
Mr. Chair, affirmative action is about P1s, P2s, and so on. Yes, I agree that Northerners have to also be part of the whole concept of employment, and we have a lot of that. Most of the people who work for the territorial government are P2s, and the advancement always seems to be a P2 and not a P1. I'm not saying that all P1s are perfect, either, but when you have people who are in place who could be mentored within an organization, why aren't we taking that opportunity?
The terms of reference with HR, I have a concern about that, especially with Lands. Two main things in Indigenous governments are lands and water. I just feel that using those terms very loosely is unacceptable. There are people who could have filled a position. If a person is an effective employee if they were a term position, is that an effective employee? I don't know. I want to have clarity on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. The Member is talking in regards to our equity lease staff that had a three-year term contract. The collective agreement changed it so that, after 24 months, this person would become an indeterminate position. When they were in that position with equity leases, they were indeterminate. When the funding was gone, that person became an affected employee; they were no longer a term employee, so as the assistant deputy minister explained, because of the new collective agreement, it changed from a term to up to 24 months; then it became an indeterminate, so we needed to follow the HR process but also the collective agreement.
The collective agreement said, if you are an affected employee, you get that opportunity for advancement. The collective agreement also -- or not "advancement." If you are affected, you then have that right to apply for or get another job within the organization if you are qualified to do that position. If you are a term employee, then you are not qualified, but if you basically, to make a long story short -- I apologize. I may be trying to make it confusing. If you are an indeterminate position, you are an affected employee. You get that right to move, get put into a position that you qualify for. That is my understanding of that process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member.
Mr. Chair, I have concerns with the way the HR policy is being implemented across different departments. We hear one thing from one department, from the main department, and then you have another set of rules for another department. The departments have control over whatever they are going to do. I thought HR policies are unified across the board and that P1s with qualifications take priority. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. It sounds like that question is probably for the Minister of human resources, but I will allow the Minister to make a comment.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I may make the water murkier, so I am going to turn to the assistant deputy minister to help out, try to hopefully make people understand what we do. Thank you, Mr. Chair, with your permission.
Thank you. Mr. Chapman.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. When we are dealing with a competition or a competitive process to where we are hiring an individual, we follow the Affirmative Action Policy. Where we have qualified candidates, we screen them in; we put them through the appropriate process, to which we would determine whether they meet our expected criteria. At that point in time, we would hire them. As I indicated earlier, in one of these instances we had a party, one candidate, who met that qualification standard and in the other one the second person was not an affirmative action candidate.
What I can say that would provide a little more information around this is: when we are running term positions, we have a much lower number of applicants on those competitions. Most people who are looking for indeterminate work, they are not going to submit an application in many cases for what they would consider a term employment. They like that benefit of having indeterminate status, and so we do not get the number of candidates, nor do we get sometimes the quality of candidates in those situations. I think that led to a very low number of applicants during the initial process, so we did not have many at that point in time. I actually sat on the board whenever we did the hiring of those positions, and the numbers were much lower than we had anticipated. We had actually some decent numbers in a couple of the regions, but they were much lower in others. That is one of the limitations from running term competitions.
When it comes to an affected employee, as the Minister pointed out, when someone goes through the process to where their funding or in this case the funding for their position was then running out, we have to deal with them as an affected employee under the Public Service Act, and so that takes a very different approach. From that standpoint, we utilize the provisions under that Public Service Act. I can say we did utilize the services of human resources. I reached out personally to the regional superintendent, and we walked through what was happening. In that situation, they provided us with very good advice through the process, to which we arrived at the outcome that we were. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chapman. Are there any other questions on this section? No further questions. Please turn to page 315. Lands, operation, operations expenditure summary, 2021-2022 Main Estimates, $11,153,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Sorry. Minister.
Thank you. With your permission, I would like to switch out our assistant deputy minister to our deputy minister again. With your permission, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witness from the Chamber and bring in the new witness. Lands, operations, operations expenditure summary, 2021-2022 Main Estimates, $11,153,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Planning and coordination, beginning on page 317, with information items on pages 320 to 322. Questions? Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is about the securities and project assessment line item on page 318. I notice that the actuals were a lot larger for 2019-2020. I am just wondering if that is like the sunsetting or finishing of a project, like maybe Cameron Hills or something like that. Could the department confirm? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Yes, so that is securities coordination. Is that what you were looking at?
[Microphone turned off]
[Microphone turned off] ...is decreased due to sunset of funding for the shortfall in compensation and benefits at devolution. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I do remember that in our previous briefing. Thank you. I am looking at the grants, contributions and transfers, noticing that that is the line item on page 319, or the line items. There is a decrease to some of that funding. However, the 2019-2020 was a lot higher than the budgeted, as well. This, my understanding, goes to Indigenous governments to help them. I always think there could be more support there. Plus, we are moving to a more virtual, unknown sort of world when it comes to consultation and engagement. I mean little "C" consultation, as well. Could maybe the Minister or the department speak to whether this is an accurate number, why those numbers have changed a little bit, and what they are doing to adapt to the virtual world for consultation? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. For that detail, I would turn to Ms. Macdonald.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Macdonald.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In 2019-2020, we were oversubscribed in our contributions related to land use planning initiatives. There was a lot of work done in the south, south east of the NWT. In the current year, we are still providing funding, but a lot of the meetings that would be face to face have either been cancelled or done virtually. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Macdonald. Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to sort of reiterate then, the department does anticipate that the costs of doing this type of work is going down due to COVID-related issues? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. Yes, correct.
Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does the Minister and the department feel like this is an adequate amount of money, or is it, at some point, we should be looking to increase funding in this area? I'm always all about giving our money out to community groups and Indigenous organizations so that they can spend the money there versus spending it may be here always. If the Minister could speak to that, that would be great. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. Presently, what we have here right now is adequate. We've been able to be able to utilize our existing budget, and if we find shortfalls, we try to find it within. Presently, we feel that money that we have budgeted for is adequate. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to beat my colleague from Thebacha to the question and ask about the two sunsetting positions in Tlicho there on page 320. I am assuming those, again, are some of those positions that were mentioned earlier that had been moved to other locations within the department, just to confirm? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Page 320? You know what? It's probably even better if I just go to the deputy minister to get clarity. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Deputy Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a point of clarification, on page 320, the Tlicho actually indicates an increase in positions, and that is for the Wek'eezhii land use planning office. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy Minister. Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's been a really long day, Mr. Chair, so I'm just going to leave it at that. Thank you.
