Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to continue with the Minister of Human Resources on the Summer Student Employment Program. It’s funny; I got a tweet a minute ago saying: “Didn’t you hire somebody from down South”? I think it’s a good question and fair question to ask. I put three job offers out, but they were all waiting for GNWT jobs because they assume they pay much better, it would be more lucrative. That’s part of the issue here, is the fact that a lot of kids are waiting for jobs and they don’t want to take them. They’re hurting the public sector as well. They just want a shot at a job, a little experience and to put some money in their pocket.
I would ask the Minister of Human Resources what type of information they track on re-hires, early hires by the department. If they don’t do this, can they do this for me, and other Members obviously would find this interesting, and capture the last three years, as I said, on re-hires, early hires and by department? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Summer Student Program is one of the programs used to provide experience to students so often they are rehired, the same summer student will be rehired in the department. So if there was a biology student that was hired by Environment and Natural Resources, there’s a good possibility that that individual would be hired after the first year, second year, third year, and we do have those stats. All of the databases in the GNWT, we track all of the students that apply and enter that into a database and all the individuals that were hired by the GNWT are also in the database. So it would be very easy for us to track students that come back year after year. Thank you.
Thank you. I hope at the end of it he meant he was going to supply me that particular information, but I’ll let him make that decision. I thought that was an excellent example, if we hire a student we may consider rehiring them again and maybe they do, but of course if you’re the next bio student that means you need not apply, you have no shots and the fact is there’s no competitive process. So what he’s just done is reaffirmed that any bio student has no shot at any opportunity.
My next question, of course, for the Minister of Human Resources is what type of feedback is done through the Department of Human Resources to reach out to these students that weren’t hired? I think it would be good to get feedback from them and, at the same time, feedback to them. What I mean by that is there may be reasons their resumes didn’t make the top of the list and we could work with them to help them, they probably get no feedback, and at the same time, I’d like to know, and I think the Department of Human Resources would like to know, their feelings and experience of this whole process. If the Minister does this, can he enlighten us and if he doesn’t do this, would he tell us they would be able to do this? Thank you.
Thank you. I just used an example, that wasn’t exclusive to the fact that we would only have one such position that nobody else would be eligible. There could be more than one position of any type. The students, if the Member is asking about feedback from when the students were hired and then as they go back to school we provide them follow-up feedback, we don’t do that. But we do, like I said in December, start to get the word out that we are going to be hiring summer students like we do every year. There’s a Student Financial Assistance e-mail blast that goes out and it goes into the GNWT Bear Facts, on Facebook and so on. Thank you.
Thank you. Not every single year, but I’ve been an MLA close to 11 years now and I’ve tried to hire a summer student some summers, I’ve hired not only two but I’ve had three and let me tell you, it’s quite a treadmill, if I may say, trying to find work for three students, but I know they need the cash. So that now leads me into my next question, which is, is the Department of Human Resources willing to consider maybe a job sharing policy that splits some of the jobs? I mean, it’s not for me to say how we should split them, but by way of example, as the Minister just said earlier, they had 700 applications and they hired about 300-and-some students. My goodness, if we had job shared some of these we could have hired all the students, and at the same time, we would have given them enough money to be able to reach out in the private sector and sort of help them as well. In other words, we’d be helping the students get experience, we wouldn’t be stealing them all from the private sector and we’d be giving more students more opportunities. Would the Minister tell me about a policy or if he’d be interested in coming up with some type of policy like that?
Thank you. I think that this type of policy is something that could be looked at and discussed. We do hire the summer students that come back. Summer students that are looking for full-time employment during the short time that they are out, and need to make enough money to be able to get through the next year in many cases. So when we hire students, it’s often in an attempt to give them a full-time job or seven-and-a-half or eight-hour-a-day job for the full duration of the time that they’re out of school, so the idea of splitting jobs may be something that can be discussed with some of the students, and there may be some students that want to come out and only work half-time and other students that don’t have jobs may want to do a job sharing type of scenario. Maybe that is something that we can look at. We’re not adverse to try to do the best we can for the students. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the end of the day, really I’m after just a couple of simple things: a bit of transparency, a bit of competitiveness and for us to spread every single opportunity out as reasonably as possible. As I said, I’ve hired two, sometimes three students. I try to hire a couple every summer. I try to pay them what I can and more sometimes knowing that they need the money, and the opportunities not only just in Yellowknife but in the small communities are very few and we’ve got to find a way.
So I’m looking, just as my last question, I hate to say I’ve given him a softball, but the fact is I really want to hear what this Minister can do to change our strategy so we can hire and maximize as many summer student opportunities as possible and I’d really like to hear how he’s going to change and do business differently, because it’s important. Thank you.
Thank you. The Department of HR can start to communicate with the departments and discuss that with the departments, if we’re attempting to try to hire as many students as possible within the money that we have in our vacancies, so we can do that. HR, through the deputies, can contact all of the deputies to see if they’re able to maximize the amount of students that are coming in, not only in Yellowknife but in the small communities and the regional centres, because I recognize that that’s been an issue in the small communities as well. So, yes, I’d be more than willing to talk to the deputy and have her work with other deputies to make this a possibility. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Monday, February 17, 2014, during oral questions of the House, the Minister of Health and Social Services and the Member for Range Lake entered into a debate on why the GNWT has not given serious consideration for the quiet addiction we all know as prescription drug abuse. I for one have been a champion both in my prior legislative life and today on this being the sleeping giant of our generation.
Many Health Ministers have come and gone. In fact, we have two previous Health Ministers in this Chamber today who were given equal opportunity to do something, yet did nothing on this quiet addiction.
The overarching question is how can you fix something if you don’t count it or track it? In fact, if one was to use the recent arguments for species management of the Wildlife Act, we’d be witnessing the extinction of many caribou herds at risk, if not legislated to keep a watchful eye.
So the question is why would our people deserve any less right from this government on giving them the same courtesy? In other words, when is the life of a caribou more important than that of a human? Which brings me to today’s issue before the House. We have been given many signs that this quiet addiction is no longer. Case in point: the recent coroner’s report of an Aklavik woman echoes the same issues that have been reminded in 17 previous drug overdose cases from 2009 to 2012 by the same office. How many more of our residents have to die in order to give this government the wake-up call that they’re dealing with a ticking time bomb?
Further to this argument is my overall frustration that this Minister of Health and Social Services is not being fully informed on important files dealing with health and addictions. In fact, seeing not only this Minister pulling out one or two-page briefing notes from the prepared answer binders, when dealing with Member’s questions, is a bit of a disappointment to say the least. These assumed, carefully prepared briefing notes provided to the Ministers are the summary work of many hardworking department people behind the scene. This is fine to a point; however, I would expect that Ministers should know their files and challenge themselves to question the very Coles notes they are given. Regurgitating the work of others does not constitute fact. It does, however, reveal a definite lack of understanding of the truth.
Going back to this Monday, February 17, 2014, exchange, the Minister of Health and Social Services made the following comments on page 14 of Hansard, “Under the Pharmacy Act there is an ability to set up a prescription monitoring program, but due to privacy issues that we’re all aware of, we currently cannot require health care providers to enter information into the program. Because we cannot require health care providers to enter this information, we have not yet set up a program to monitor prescriptions.”
Upon review of the relevant legislation and with this being further reviewed and fact checked by legislative legal counsel, we looked at the Pharmacy Act of the Northwest Territories, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act of the Northwest Territories, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act of Canada in response to the accuracy of the Minister’s comments.
I will be quoting and summarizing the relevant portions of each of these acts pursuant to clearly articulate to the Minister of Health, his deputy minister and his department, the conclusions of these findings.
I will start with the Pharmacy Act. Section 46(o) of the Pharmacy Act specifically gives the Minister of Health the ability to make regulations establishing and respecting a program to monitor prescriptions including, but not limited to:
establishing a committee or body to administer the program,
respecting the appointment of members to the committee or other body established to administer the program,
respecting the purposes for which the program is established.
respecting the nature of the personal information that may be collected, used and disclosed for the purposes of the program,
authorizing pharmacists to collect personal information required for the purposes of the program and authorizing their employers to permit the collection of such information by pharmacists,
authorizing pharmacists and their employers to disclose the information collected under subparagraph (v) to the Minister or the body established to administer the program,
requiring pharmacists to collect information, including personal information, for the purposes of the program, requiring their employers to permit and facilitate the collection of such information, and requiring pharmacists and their employers to disclose such information to the Minister or the body established to administer the program,
respecting the method by which personal information must be disclosed to the Minister or the body established to administer the program,
respecting the establishment of a system, including an electronic system, for recording, storing and accessing program information, including personal information,
respecting security measures relating to the recording, storing and accessing of personal information,
establishing requirements, restrictions or conditions relating to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by
the body established to administer the program,
any support staff or other persons providing services to the body established to administer the program, and
any person or class of persons to whom personal information may be disclosed,
respecting persons or classes of persons to whom personal information may be disclosed, and
establishing requirements, restrictions or conditions relating to access to personal information by persons or classes of persons to whom such information may be disclosed.
I’m sorry, I know this was a bit long winded, but it is perfectly clear that our Minister of Health may, by regulation, create a program to track the use of prescription drugs. The Minister even mentions this in his response on February 17, 2014, but then alludes to the question whether the existing privacy legislation is applicable in this jurisdiction to prohibit the disclosure or use of information within such a program. Let’s see what the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act has to say about this.
For the record, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, ATIPP for short, applies to public bodies such as our government and addresses how personal information may be collected.
Within ATIPP “personal information” is defined as information about an identifiable individual including, and I will not go through the entire list, but it does speak to name, address, age, marital status and much more.
In dealing with the relevant portions of ATIPP on personal information, it mentions the following:
Section 40: No personal information may be collected by or for a public body unless:
the collection of the information is expressly authorized by an enactment;
the information is collected for the purposes of law enforcement; or
the information relates directly to and is necessary for:
an existing program or activity of the public body, or and the important one,
a proposed program or activity where collection of information has been authorized by the head with the approval of the Executive Council.
Again, the important one is Section 42: The head of a public body shall protect personal information by making reasonable security arrangements against such risks as unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure or disposal.
Finally, Section 43: A public body may use personal information only:
for the purpose for which the information was collected or compiled, or for a use consistent with that purpose.
Again, it is abundantly clear that the Minister can obtain personal information through another entity, such as a pharmacist, if it is authorized by an enactment. However, to be fair, what may be not entirely clear, and to the Minister’s defence, I must add, he did suggest, is whether a private organization may collect, use or disclose the personal information to the Department of Health.
In the jurisdiction of the NWT we do not have the privacy legislation that applies to commercial or private organizations, so for this answer we have to go to the federal legislation that this applies, and this is found in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act of Canada, we call PIPEDA for short.
The main principles concerning the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by an organization is set out in Section 4.3 of Schedule 1 of PIPEDA, which states: “the knowledge and consent of the individual are required for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information, except where inappropriate.”
Further, Section 5(3) provides that: “an organization may collect, use or disclose personal information only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider are appropriate in the circumstances.”
Although consent or knowledge of an individual is usually acquired to use or distribute his or her personal information, PIPEDA does allow an organization to use and disclose personal information without knowledge or consent in certain circumstances.
With respect to use of this personal information, I wish to draw your attention to Section 7(2)(c) of PIPEDA, which states: “it is used for statistical, or scholarly study or research purposes that cannot be achieved without using the information, the information is used in a manner that will ensure its confidentiality, it is impracticable to obtain consent and the organization informs the Commissioner of the use before the information is used.”
With respect to disclosure of personal information, I wish to draw your attention to Section 7(3), which states: “for the purpose of clause 4.3 of Schedule 1, and despite the note that accompanies that clause, an organization may disclose personal information without the knowledge or consent of an individual only if the disclosure is:
(c.1), made to a government institution or part of a government institution that has made a request for the information, identified as lawful authority to obtain the information and indicated that – and it’s a bit further down in number (iii) the disclosure is requested for the purpose of administering any law of Canada or a province.
Finally, a bit further down you see the repeat phrase (f) for statistical, or scholarly study or research, purposes that cannot be achieved without disclosing the information, it is impracticable to obtain consent and the organization informs the Commissioner of disclosure before the information is disclosed.
Again, sorry for being lengthy, but you cannot just summarize law. To be accurate, in defence you have to quote the appropriate passages when referring to it.
I’ll be wrapping up shortly here.
It should now be without question this detailed review of all these legislations do lend argument that for many years any Minister of Health could have legally directed – the current Minister prefers to use the word force – particularly our NWT pharmacists the ability to use and disclose personal information to this government for statistical purposes, as long as this information did not relate to an identifiable person.
The key message today: We could have been monitoring prescription drug abuse in the NWT for many years if there was the will to do so and a full understanding of the law, especially the laws we create. Again, as we await the long intended Health Information Act that is currently under committee review, this will further assist in the statistical ability of prescription drug abuse issues in our territory, and I, like many, look forward to that day.
I only ask that Ministers do their homework and not only rely on the one or two-page briefing notes that are provided to them for the sake of debate in this House.
Let me end with page 14 of Monday, February 17, 2014, in Hansard: “We can require individuals to put information into a prescription monitoring program or we can, rather, ask them to do, but we cannot force them to do it at this particular point in time.” He later references: “The Member actually is, in fact, wrong.”
Regular Members are doing our homework with very limited resources. We ask that the Ministers do theirs. For the record, Mr. Speaker, this Member was not wrong. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 12, Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan, be read for the first time. Thank you.
Bill 12, Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan, has had first reading.
---Carried
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. We have a number of items to consider today. We have Bill 5, Bill 10, Bill 11, Tabled Document 4-17(4), Tabled Document 22-17(5). What is the wish of committee today? Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We wish to continue with Tabled Document 22-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2014-2015. We will continue with the Department of Finance and if we finish that, Education, Culture and Employment and if we have time and get through Education, Municipal and Community Affairs. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will resume after a short break.
----SHORT RECESS
Thank you, committee. I’ll call committee back to order. Minister of Finance, do you have witnesses to bring into the Chamber? Minister of Finance.
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Committee agreed?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses in.
Minister Miltenberger, please introduce your witnesses for the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Mike Aumond and Jamie Koe, who were also in the gallery earlier on and I neglected to recognize. I’d like to recognize in this forum that they were there today with the NEB folks. As well, I have Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar from Finance as well. If Mr. Koe looks twitchy, it’s because he’s going to be heading out to the Brier literally in the next few hours, so he’s keen.
---Laughter
No pun intended, hopefully. Welcome, gentlemen. Good luck, Jamie. Yesterday we left off on page 5-9, information item, revenue summary. Any questions?
Agreed.
Page 5-10, information item, active position summary. Any questions? Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Without going through a long description as to what I want, I think the Minister knows. If he could provide me with a summary of what is funded, unfunded and empty positions and the value attributed to that. If he could send it to my office, I would be happy with that. Basically the same questions I asked Minister Ramsay in the Justice department. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Miltenberger.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I will provide that information.
Page 5-10, information item, active position summary.
Agreed.
Page 5-13, activity summary, deputy minister’s office, operations expenditure summary, $89.632 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it belongs here. I wanted to ask the question about legislation. I wanted to say at the outset that I am extremely pleased that we’ve had first reading of the NEBS Act. It’s been a long time coming and I’m really glad that we managed to get that done.
I did want to ask, though, about whether or not there are any plans in the works on the part of the department to make any changes to the Petroleum Tax Act? It’s been mentioned a number of times by a number of Members and I can’t remember all the specific details, but I know that we don’t treat, we don’t tax all of our petroleum products the same. So I’d like to know if there’s any consideration on the part of the department to make amendments to the Petroleum Tax Act. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We expect a legislative proposal to be ready in May.
Thanks. That’s great, glad to hear. Is the Minister at liberty to tell us what kinds of changes are likely to be proposed? Thank you.
At this point they’re mainly administrative in nature. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. My other question has to do with the Financial Administration Act, which I know has, I think, for quite some time, been on their radar for the department to do some work. Can I get a sense from the Minister of when it will come forward to the House for first reading? Thank you.
Thank you. The intention is to have it ready for first reading for October session.
Thanks. That’s great. That’s all I have.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee, page 5-13, activity summary, deputy minister’s office, operations expenditure summary, $89.632 million. Mr. Bromley.
