Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are addressed to the Minister for Human Resources. In my Member’s statement I talked about the duty of employers, and particularly the GNWT, to accommodate and reintegrate employees, who have been off the job, as quickly as possible. Some of my anecdotal evidence indicates that that doesn’t necessarily happen within the confines of our GNWT employees. So I’d like to ask the Minister what policies and procedures exist. What timelines do we identify in policy and procedures to integrate, reintegrate or accommodate employees who have been off the job due to injury or illness? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As an employer, our government has a legal obligation to accommodate employees who have a mental or physical disability, to enable them to return to the workforce to their full capacity. The accommodation that we determine it through is information provided by their physicians that sets out their limitations, and we work according to those timelines that generally are determined by the disability that the employee has. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I guess I’d like to know if we are working with statements from physicians, if I have been injured on the job and my physician says that I need an assessment to determine whether I can go back to work, when an assessment is required is it standard policy or practice for the GNWT to go to local resources first before we go outside to get these sorts of assessments done? Thank you.
Each situation has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis in order to determine what accommodation is required. Some of the areas depends on what type of special equipment needs to be provided, what kind of amendment to duties are involved, whether there is retraining involved or whether we have to amend hours of work. If there are assessors here, and I understand we do use local assessors or, depending on the situation, we may be required to go south for an assessment. But, like everything else, if there is the capability here, we’ll use it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I certainly would hope that we would go local and that sending somebody outside would be a recourse of last resort. In terms of training that our HR staff get, I know they are certainly trained in many areas, but in the area of accommodation of workers returning to work after injury or illness, I would like to know what kind of training our HR staff get. Thank you.
Our main objective is to enable employees to return to work as active and productive members of the public service. We do have sensitivity training. We do have a training calendar that outlines the needs. I am pleased to advise that with the passage of our budget, we will be hiring a duty-to-accommodate consultant that will ensure that the employees that deal with this have the proper training or we identify the proper training. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I am glad to hear that we are expanding our view on both persons with disabilities and accommodating people who need to be reintegrated into the workforce after a time away. I would like to ask the Minister, I mentioned in my statement I think it’s important for staff to be trained. I also think it’s important that workers know what things are out there for them, that they need to know our policies and procedures. So what kind of training do GNWT workers get in the area of accommodation and reintegration? Thank you.
We are taking steps to advise everybody that the GNWT workplace is open to all Northerners, and anybody that is planning for jobs with the Government of the Northwest Territories, if you currently have a disability and you require accommodation, we encourage you to identify your needs if you apply and we will accommodate those needs during the hiring process.
As far as training, it’s something that our whole focus is on delivery, service delivery to our clients, and we will provide all the training that is required to our workers that deal with persons with disabilities and ensure that they understand what is meant by duty to accommodate and that they fulfil those responsibilities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
