Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to ask questions of the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on employment in small communities, particularly the client services officer position in Fort Resolution.
Can the Minister tell me if there is any dialogue on how to retain these positions that have been reduced to half time, to full-time positions within the department?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As Members know, the transfer of the positions back to NWT Housing Corporation on the Public Housing Rental Subsidy has been active. As a result, there has been a loss of administration dollars within our Department of ECE. ECE is required to reduce the number of client services offices across the Northwest Territories. Those individuals were also handling the case of public subsidy units, public housing rental subsidy area, and then at the same time the client services officers were responsible for income security. Now the responsibility is with NWT Housing Corporation so we had to downsize the client services officers.
Can the Minister advise me if there are other positions of a client services officer nature that were filled within the South Slave region?
Yes, there have been other positions such as client services officers in a number of communities across the Northwest Territories that fill similar positions. Full-time/part-time employment status is determined also on the clientele caseloads.
Can the Minister tell me if there are any discussions at all in the area of employment rates when the department decided to reduce some of the positions. I’m referring to filling positions in communities that have higher employment rates, reducing positions in communities that have lower employment rates. Was there any of that type of discussion in the department?
There have been numerous discussion and consideration taking into account a number of factors when deciding when and where the reduction will happen, including where the positions were initially established, with the funding and the current client caseload again. So, yes, to answer the Member’s question, these have all been taken into consideration when we were deciding.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister direct his staff to re-establish a full-time position of the client services officer in Fort Resolution and find work in the department that’s appropriate for full-time position status?
I appreciate that the Member is persistent. At the same time, we have to look at the caseload. If there is an increase in the caseload for a client services officer to perform extra duty on income security, this is an area we can definitely look at. We will seriously monitor the caseloads in the region.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
