Debates of May 15, 2007 (day 7)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish I could be talking about the abuse of alcohol today…(inaudible)…with my colleagues, but with a short session I have another topic I have to raise today that’s very important. March 31st is always a significant date in the NWT and it’s the end of the government’s fiscal year. As well, it coincides with the end of many contracts that go along with our NGOs. Today I’d like to talk about one of those contracts, or lack of contracts, Mr. Speaker.

Workers at Aven Manor in Yellowknife saw their contract expire six weeks ago, on March 31st. These qualified healthcare professionals and associated workers, even though they work for an NGO, in my opinion, deserve wage parity with government workers who care for people in long-term care in our hospitals. They are working in the same field and, in essence, they are doing the same job, Mr. Speaker, taking care of our people. For me, this is an issue of fairness and ensuring NGOs are able to attract and retain qualified personnel. If we can’t pay them fairly to do a job the government has handed away, how can we expect them to carry on? I am not going to get into how the government and the department need to enter into good faith bargaining sooner rather than later, but with a pending strike vote before us we need to avoid another Nats'ejee K'eh at all reasonable costs. I know the Minister will tell us that negotiations are the responsibility of the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority and the authority will say that they can’t make an offer without funding approvals from the department and the Minister. But the long and short of it is, Mr. Speaker, we need to put our front-line healthcare workers first and ensure that any potentially affected seniors, people and our families, are not put at risk because of dithering on this important matter. We need to avoid any costly situations that will eat up resources and the time of other healthcare workers who will need to work overtime to cover those short-staffed positions if the potential gap in services shows up through a strike vote. If any wage parity is an issue, we need to find a solution, Mr. Speaker. I would, however, like to remind the Minister that a strike vote could happen within a month or so and typically these situations are never resolved over summers.

Let’s avoid another potential ugly strike and work out a deal as soon as possible as reasonably as possible, Mr. Speaker. That being said, I urge the Minister and the Department of Health to provide the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority the support and financial information they need to enter into successful negotiations so we can deal with this problem and we can get it done once and for all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause