Thank you for recognizing me, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be directed to the Minister of Human Resources. I won’t go on at length, but we all know about the 1,150 vacancy snapshot information provided by the Minister a few days back. We also know, and I’ll remind the House, that the Finance Minister is being quoted quite eloquently about the 571 jobs they’re pursuing. Mr. Dolynny put on the record today that, of course, he made note that the Department of Health and Social Services has now suspended their human resource campaign to get more people there.
My question for the Minister of Human Resources is: How will the Department of Human Resources actively be pursuing people to fill those much needed health care professional positions that we need in all our northern communities if this government is now leaving these positions at bay? How do we fill these vacant positions and what positions are they?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Human Resources continues to work with all of the departments in pursuit of filling all of the vacancies that can be filled. We are in the stage of running through various competitions. I had indicated in the House several times that at one point when this question was asked, of the 571 vacant positions that we were actively trying to fill, we had filled 165 of them. Of course, since that time there have been more vacancies since there’s a turnover of about 10 percent, so there are new people coming in and people leaving this government all the time.
On the website it says recruitment and retention programs are being suspended effective immediately.
What is the Minister of Human Resources doing to ensure that this is not happening across the departments, across this government? Are we putting Northerners at risk? What is the Minister of Human Resources doing about this?
There are no freezes in hiring. The government continues to hire. We continue to work with the department. The Department of Health and Social Services has a strategic health Human Resource Strategy that they are working on. That portion of the recruitment team was moved from Human Resources back to Health because they are the experts themselves in filling health human resource positions. That is not something that we are doing across the board. There are no freezes by any of the departments right across government. We’re continuing to pursue to fill vacant positions.
Perhaps my interpretation of suspended immediately is much different than the Minister of Human Resources. How does the Minister of Human Resources stand there and say it’s business as usual if the website itself says, and it’s current, that it’s suspended immediately?
How is the Minister of Human Resources doing his job if he’s giving us one answer one way and the facts lay before us that say they’re not recruiting? Are Northerners put at risk? Will the Human Resources Minister account for that?
If the Member is referring to a website from Health and Social Services then that’s, as I indicated, a separate strategy. That doesn’t mean that the other 13 departments across the GNWT have suspended recruiting. We are continuing to recruit staff using the same strategies that we have in place to continue to recruit. What the Member refuses to hear is that in the last 12 months… In a 12-month period we have about 1,600 to 1,700 staffing actions, so if we’re suspending things, then how do we manage to achieve 1,700 staffing actions?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t care if it’s a team effort to answer the question. The point is the questions need to be answered, and the question is this: How many vacancies do we have out there that are not being filled? We’ve all heard this great number of 1,150 positions been vacant for various reasons, 571 actively pursuing. We have a website now that says, by the way, hiring practices are now suspended.
How many positions are out there vacant, not being pursued, and are we putting Northerners at risk whether in a big community or small community? We’ve got people fighting for people in their communities. Get those jobs out there. How many?
I don’t know that we’re putting any Northerners at risk. What we’re doing here is we’re trying to fill the jobs. I’ve explained in the House that there are various categories. Of the 1,150 positions effective October 31, 2013, they are in various categories. I could read off all of the various categories, but one of the categories that the Members were interested in was the 571 positions that we’re actively trying to recruit. For other reasons, some vacancies are there. Some are difficult to recruit, so they are filled with a casual. There are all kinds of other reasons. Some are empty positions, some are dormant positions, some are positions filled by transfer assignments, some are positions vacated by a transfer assignment, some are filled by contractors and some are filled by contract employees. There are all kinds of categories and I’ve explained that in the House. The Member refuses to hear it. Thank you.
