I don’t know if the new advisory group had a chance to operate yet, but I think the reality of the situation in our North and some of the issues are that the upper management is non-Aboriginal and when Aboriginals apply for jobs they’re not getting them. I don’t know, those statistics do not show up, but it happens time and time again. I think it happened in Justice recently, where three Aboriginals were not hired and a non-Aboriginal was, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister how would the department track issues like that. Thank you.
Human Resources works very closely with the management of all the different departments to make sure that policies are followed and that the candidates that have the most merit and have the highest priorities of this government get hired for specific jobs.
We’ve looked at our hiring process. We looked at our job evaluation process to try to eliminate the systemic barriers that are either perceived or that have seen to be out there to prevent Aboriginal people from getting into jobs at different levels. We’re told that we put in barriers by demanding very specific qualifications or certifications, so we’ve gone through reviews of job descriptions so that equivalencies will be considered.
Also, with regard to competitions, if you’re a P1 and you are qualified, then you have priority hiring. Those are the kinds of things that the Affirmative Action Policy allows us to do. Even with all of those built-in systems, we’ve been stuck at 31 percent Aboriginal affirmative action employment. Thank you.
The stats have been stable for the last 10 years. We’ve had only, like, 30 percent indigenous Aboriginal employment for the last 10 years and the stats aren’t growing. Some of the barriers are systemic, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister again: in the 20/20 strategy and the new Aboriginal board, is there a mechanism for somebody to appeal a job that they felt they should have got but a non-Aboriginal got it, like in the case of Justice and the Corrections Centre?
There are many other areas too, Mr. Speaker. I get lots of inquiries where Aboriginal people from my constituency applied for jobs but they were screened out, and when you’re screened out you’re not allowed an appeal, Mr. Speaker, and often non-Aboriginals get that job. I’d like to know if there’s a mechanism in our new system that can be used to address that. Mahsi.
We have a staffing appeals process in the government and we’ve been limited by the fact that our legislation, for some reason, is restricted as to only having three staffing appeal positions, but we are making representation to have that changed so that we can have more staffing appeal officers so that we don’t have as much of a backlog.
Not only do we have a system of staffing appeals officers, we also have our human resource officers that go back and review with those that are interested as to how they felt they could improve upon when they go for interviews and also give them feedback on how they thought they performed in the interview process. Those are the kinds of initiatives that we’re using to give people a better opportunity to be successful in gaining employment with the government. But not everybody wants to work for the Government of the Northwest Territories. You have to keep that in mind as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Those that do, I believe, aren’t getting the chance, Mr. Speaker. The word that’s been used in the public is like nepotism, but it’s not really nepotism if it’s someone from your home province. Nepotism is about hiring family and close family members, but it’s more like the buddy system that’s going on. How do we prevent it and how can we track that, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Our government has a number of checks and balances to make sure that doesn’t happen. We also have the conflict of interest requirements and all of these checks and balances that would prevent against nepotism. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and a follow-up on questions that some of my colleagues have already asked with respect to naturopathic medicine and naturopathic doctors. I want to start off with a clarification question.
Yesterday, when talking to the Minister, the Minister indicated the title of doctor is a protected title and that naturopathic doctors should not be using this title. I just need a little bit of clarity under that. I am curious how an individual who can go off and get 10 years of education and graduate from a federally and regionally accredited institution as a doctor of naturopathic medicine cannot be called a doctor. My colleague Mr. Bromley is a doctor. I am curious how this title being protected is sort of captured in the Minister’s statements. Can we not use the title doctor for individuals that have graduated as doctors regardless of whatever field? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am happy to advise the House that Dr. Bob Bromley can call himself Dr. Bromley and if MLA Abernethy were to get a PhD, he could call himself a doctor. However, Mr. Speaker, Section 82 of the Medical Profession Act of the NWT prohibits anyone from using the title doctor, surgeon or physician that may lead people to believe that she or he is a medical practitioner licensed under the act. Individuals are free to practice as a naturopath practitioner but may not refer to themselves as a doctor or a physician. This is based on legal advice we received from Justice. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am really actually kind of glad the Minister read that because that is the point I was trying to make. These individuals are not calling themselves medical doctors in any way, shape or form. If you look at where they are licensed, they are licensed as NDs, naturopathic doctors, which is a completely different education. These people are highly educated. They would never suggest to anybody that they are medical doctors. This goes exactly to the point, Mr. Speaker. There is uncertainty out there, but what these roles are and these individuals do, we need to get legislation in place. The NDs, the naturopathic doctors are requesting it to protect their title so that people understand their role and so that patients of these individuals, people receiving services, are safe.
This is a safety issue, Mr. Speaker. This is about public safety. This is about safety of the provider. The Minister doesn’t seem to be getting that by saying, hey look, everybody can practice, yes. Anybody can practice. Anybody can go up to the Northwest Territories and say congratulations, I am a naturopath, and open their doors and provide any kind of service with no licence whatsoever, with no parameters of scope of practice. How are we going to address this concern? How are we going to get these individuals covered for the public safety and for the professional safety of residents in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the Member I get what he is saying. I get what the Members are saying, Mr. Speaker. This is about a capacity issue. It is about a priority issue. It is about the traffic jam we have with the legislative office.
Mr. Speaker, we have, as I stated, outstanding that we have been working on to regulate licensed nurse practitioners who we need to regulate. We need to regulate psychologists who are numerous in numbers who do a lot of work in the Northwest Territories. We need to regulate emergency responders and we need to regulate chiropractors. I said, and I will say it again, I get it. I am saying that we are reviewing the possibility of including that. I fail to see the issue here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, excellent. That is good. I am glad the Minister gets it, but all I hear is that we are going to look at it at some point. We are suggesting and what the people are demanding -- it is not just the naturopathic doctors and the registered massage therapists that are demanding it, the public is demanding this as well -- there are concerns about individuals coming and claiming to be something that they may be, but through a certificate off the Internet as opposed to four, 10, eight years of education. We need the Minister to commit to putting this on that list of four and increasing it to a list of five or six.
The Minister keeps saying that there is too much baggage for this airplane. We want the Minister to commit. Will the Minister commit to, rather than just talking about it, adding it to the list and including it in this umbrella legislation? Two more positions: RMT and naturopathic doctors.
Mr. Speaker, I repeat, we are reviewing the situation. I want to assure the profession that they are allowed to practice in the meantime with the licence they have, we are looking at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow up on the Minister’s statement this morning or earlier today on the traditional economy, the Minister of ITI. I want to start by agreeing with him that the traditional economy is indeed a critical part of our total economy. I support the Minister’s statement on this. I am wondering how much we are doing in the way of measuring this. If we really value it, we should be measuring it. Are we measuring the importance of berries, mushrooms, garden produce, fish and trade of the same between families? I am thinking not on those things that are actually sold and bought but the sort of under the table, not under the table but the domestic economy, if you will. Are we measuring those parameters? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; we have been basically making some broad estimations and I think that this is an area that as we put more resources and more funding into developing local economies and with regards to food and country food, we are going to paying much more attention to statistics now. For example, we have been estimating the value of country food at about $30 million for the Northwest Territories. For the compensation process, we allow the harvesters to factor in the value of harvesting as part of the calculation of the YMIR. This is an area that, as we go forward, we intend to improve our recordkeeping and statistics. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate those comments from the Minister. In fact, the domestic economy is recognized generally as being even larger than the market economy and yet we still don’t have these important statistics on it, so I really appreciate that intent. I look forward to working with the Minister on that.
Will the Minister agree that if we are going to know or talking about here and balance off the various options that we have in development and market economy, will we be measuring the value of child care and home care, the value of education and services provided in the domestic economy so that when we lose those, we know what we are trading off? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps I can speak to the Member to get more information about the detail. In the past we have had difficulty in getting this type of information because a lot of the people that would provide it were questioning what that information was going to be used for. There are some concerns whether it could be used against them and so forth. I think it is a matter of figuring out what information we need and how we go about collecting it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, again, I appreciate the Minister’s comments. I realize this is not commonly done so there is not a lot of good methodology out there, so we have some work to do. Beyond measuring it, I think monitoring could be important. What was the economic impact of the caribou population crash, for example, to our domestic economy? What was the importance of rising mercury in the fish as a result of climate change or large dams, more industrial activity? Do we have the potential to measure those impacts? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in certain areas we do have the potential and information. For example, we have a fairly good idea of the collapse of the caribou populations, how it affected the barren-ground outfitters, for example, and how it affected Yellowknife, because we collected that information on an annual basis, and in fact the outfitters used to generate that information themselves because it was important for them to have the general public understand how much value the outfitters provided to the Northwest Territories.
With regard to how it affected individuals, generally we have to rely on individuals to provide us with the information, because we used to try to collect how much a harvester, how many caribou they would harvest or how much fish and so on, and that information is harder to get and we would collect that information, or we try to collect it on a five-year basis. Generally, again, that’s something that we need to improve our recordkeeping on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks for those comments. I want to just be clear that we’re distinguishing between the market economy impacts and the domestic economy is what I’m talking about here. So nobody has ever come to me from ITI and said you’ve lived on caribou for 25 years and never bought red meat, what’s the impact of this caribou crash? Those are the sorts of things. So will the Minister commit to bring something forward to committee to begin the discussion on this and move towards that? Mahsi.
Thank you, and it’s our intention to do so. We’re starting in a number of regions where we’ll be piloting programs and we will definitely be going to the committee for feedback and information. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Minister of Justice in regard to the policing in small communities where we don’t have a permanent RCMP presence, but more in line of trying to add policing services to our smaller communities. In light of the decision to look at establishing a position in Fort McPherson, it was welcome news for the community of Tsiigehtchic, but we’re seeing some challenges in regard to the actual delivery of the program in the communities. I think even the RCMP have identified some areas that they have issue with in regard to not only providing the service but being able to actually physically spend time in the community, have an office to work out of, have a telecommunications system in place so that they can relay between themselves and back into Fort McPherson by radio communications. I think that those are the things we missed on that decision. So I’d like to ask the Minister exactly what are we doing to improve and equip the RCMP and the communities with the resources they need to adequately provide policing services in those communities, ensuring that we have the equipment and the facilities to operate out of? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Those communities without RCMP detachments, we provide services through nearby detachments such as Fort McPherson. We’ve allocated a position there specifically for Tsiigehtchic and the Member is referring to equipment and mobile units such as radios. That equipment is outdated. We work with the RCMP “G” Division to upgrade that equipment and through the federal expenditures they have the capital expenditure programming and we have our own investment into those communities, as well, to upgrade such equipment that officers need to use. There’s been a visit from the RCMP detachment commander to Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic to meet with the community leaders and the bylaw officers to improve those lines of communication. So those communications will be ongoing and we need to improve even more. Mahsi.
Thank you. Again, I noted from the information I received in regard to a report from the RCMP, one of the issues that they identified was the lack of office space availability in Tsiigehtchic for the RCMP so when they go they’re able to do their work, they’re able to work out of an office setting and able to process the paper that has to be processed as part of their investigation. So what I’d like to know is what is the government doing to accommodate them by finding office space in those communities where they have to physically do their paperwork, interview witnesses or deal with the individuals that they’re dealing with? So what are we doing to provide the adequate office space that they need to operate out of in these communities?
Mahsi. Those are the areas where we need to work with the community, such as Tsiigehtchic, what kind of service that can be provided at the community level. RCMP “G” Division comes into the community and they do have an overnight facility, but it only has one bed in there. So that creates some challenges when we have to have two officers in the community. But at the same time, we as the GNWT work with “G” Division as well to identify those key aspects of what’s required at the community. So we’ll continue to work with the Member and the community to identify those key areas. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Time for question period has expired; however, I will allow the Member a supplementary question, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regard to the last fiscal year there was some 72 calls made from the community of Tsiigehtchic requesting services in the community which required the RCMP presence. So I’d like to ask the Minister what do we do to ensure that those 72 calls have been responded to and how long does it take to respond. So is there a way that we can track these calls to see exactly what action was taken and if any action has been taken? Thank you.
Mahsi. I can assure the Member that every opportunity I get to meet with the chief commanding officer, those communities without the RCMP detachments, it’s always addressed, improvement into a visit to the communities by RCMP officers and we have done that. But there’s always room for improvement, especially with winter road operation. With Tsiigehtchic, since April of last year until December there’s been visits almost every month, with the exception of November because of freeze-up, and there’s been a DARE program that started at the school in October and it was supposed to be rolled out in January. So those are just some of the examples that the RCMP officers are involved in, in the schools, involved in the community. Definitely there’s more room for improvement, again, for visits, but this has been addressed with the chief commanding officer and I’ll continue to stress that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister that now there’s a new operational motto that’s in place for policing in small communities, can the Minister assure us that this policy will be distributed, and more importantly, that communities will have input in regard to ensuring that we find improvements in policing in our small communities by enhancing the policy and putting in the adequate resources that are needed to ensure that we do have the policing services that we do require and ensure that they also have the equipment that they need to do their job? Thank you.
Mahsi. This is a foremost priority for our Justice department, whether it be at the national level or the territorial level. At any federal, provincial or territorial Ministers meeting, serving the small communities without RCMP detachments is always on the agenda. I assure the Member that we’ll continue to do that because we’re quite unique in the Northwest Territories versus other provincial jurisdictions and geographically our remoteness, travelling to the communities by charter plane. So, Mr. Speaker, this is a priority for our government, priority for my department as the Justice department to focus on those communities, provide those RCMP services that do not have a detachment. So, Mr. Speaker, that is one of our priorities. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
1.
Would the Minister provide a breakdown of all payments made by Discovery Air Inc. on its Opportunities Fund loan and the balance owing on the loan as of January 1, 2011?
2.
Would the Minister provide details of any amendments to the Discovery Air Inc. Opportunities Fund loan agreement since the original agreement was entered into?
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure if I’m right in order. I wanted to revert to item 5 on the Order Paper but I believe Mr. Krutko has a written question.
The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
WRITTEN QUESTION 4-16(6):
NEGOTIATED CONTRACTS FOR HOUSING
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. My questions are for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.
Please provide the number of negotiated contracts and the amounts of each one for housing in the communities of Aklavik, Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic issued to local contractors over the past five fiscal years.
Please provide the number of contracts and the amounts for each one for housing in the communities of Aklavik, Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic issued to contractors based outside of those communities over the past five years.
Please provide the list of all contracts for housing in the communities of Aklavik, Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic, including the contractor and the amounts for each contract, over the past five years.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery.
---Unanimous consent granted
