Thank you. We’re committed, as is ENR, to hiring all the students we can with the resources we have available. I can’t commit specifically to the number 10, but I can commit to that fact. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and again I thank the Minister for that. I’d like to ask the Minister when the Department of Health and Social Services began planning for the requirement for summer students where they fit inside the department, when did that planning start?
Thank you. There’s a common planning process. The Minister of HR laid it out. It’s tied to our business planning process, the funds that are going to be available, the means to look at this particular piece of work that’s done in addition to all the other program demands and getting the information out so that students are encouraged to in fact file and put their names on the system. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Justice, and it’s no surprise there’s a bit of a theme going on here. My questions are also related to summer students. It’s well known that summer students can start to submit their resumes anytime, basically anytime after Christmas and into January. So I would assume that there are an awful lot of students who are well prepared and who do have their resumes in in January, February and March, but at this point in the year we’ve only hired about maybe not quite two-thirds of what we hired in total last year. It seems to be a very, very slow machine. I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice when the first student that is currently employed for summer of 2011 was hired by the department. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Within the Justice department we’ve been working closely with the Department of Human Resources since December to identify those students. We try to keep track of the students that have potential to be lawyers, or in that capacity. So of the students that we have, there are approximately eight students and some of them have started. I don’t have the specific dates of when they started, but we want to get those students on board, all of them, as soon as possible, if they’re not on board already. Mahsi.
Thank you. I’d like to ask the Minister, he mentions that there are eight students that are hired at the moment. He also mentioned that the department tries to get students on board as soon as possible. I really appreciate that attitude on the part of the department and I believe there was a previous Minister who indicated that they have most of their students hired already.
Students, when they’re coming out of university, have four months to try and make some money to get them through the next university year and the sooner we can hire them, absolutely the more money they’re going to make and the better off they’re going to be. I’d like to ask the Minister, if there are eight students hired at the moment, last year the department hired 11 -- and to use what, according to my colleague Mr. Menicoche is my favourite phrase -- I’d like to ask the Minister if he can meet or beat that number of 11.
Mahsi. Our goal has always been to either meet or go beyond that maximum target that we have, with the resources that we have currently. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister. So with the resources that you currently have in the Department of Justice, I’d like to ask the Minister, will he be able to hire the 11 students that they hired last year. Thank you.
Mahsi. Currently, we have eight students that will be working within the Department of Justice. So that’s the resources that we have. If there are additional resources, by all means, we need to work within the framework or the budget that we’re going to have for summer students. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I have to take that as a no. So I’m really disappointed in Justice if they can’t meet or beat their last year’s goal. I’d like to know from the Minister if he could give us an idea of the number of students, out of these eight students, how many of them will be working in Yellowknife and how many will be working in communities outside of Yellowknife. Thank you.
Mahsi. The information that I do have is eight students will be working within the Department of Justice. I don’t have the breakdown of where they’re going to be working, but I can provide that information to the Members. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are related to Human Resources and summer students and they’re for the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment. My records show me that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment hired 20 summer students last year. Could the Minister please tell me to date how many summer students has the Department of Education, Culture and Employment hired so far this year? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The information that we do have, we have 13 summer students within Education, Culture and Employment. Also, there will be additional student employment within the board operations at the regional level. Mahsi.
Thank you. I’m glad the Minister brought up the boards. I’m wondering what proactive steps, if any, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is taking overall to encourage all the health boards out there to hire as many students as possible. That way we would be getting some students into the community, which I think would be great.
Mahsi. This particular area is always of interest for us, because we have to fill that capacity at the community level and at the regional level. We do enforce and also have a thorough discussion with the education boards to have their targets, specific numbers of students that should be hired on an annual basis, as we do within our GNWT department. So we’ll continue to stress that on an annual basis when it comes to December-January period. Mahsi.
For the record, in my previous question I meant education boards, not health boards. This department is one of the largest departments that we have and it’s responsible for education, culture, and employment. I’m wondering in the employment capacity of this department if this department is taking any proactive action to work with businesses throughout the Territories to find ways to encourage them to employ summer students themselves.
That’s one of our objectives, is to work with other potential business partners, as well. We deal with whether it be the Mine Training Society or other NGOs and the business arm. We promote more of a building capacity with the students being hired. Even within our department having a job shadowing and other areas. Definitely those are areas that we need to continue to stress with the potential business partners and we’ll continue to do that.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Given that Education, Culture and Employment is one of our largest departments and it has a mandate for education and employment -- I’ve already indicated that the department hired 20 students last year -- and given that it has quite possibly one of the largest budgets in this government, I’m hoping that the Minister will meet or beat their previous targets. The Minister has already heard this terminology, but I’d like to say if any department out there can beat their target from last year of 20, it should be Education, Culture and Employment, given the sheer size of the department and the fact it has one of the largest budgets. I would like the Minister today to commit to at least meeting the 20, but preferably beating it and increasing the number of summer students that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment hires during this summer.
I think we can either meet or exceed the number that we have, especially when we count the money that we allocate to the education board operations in the regional level. Most of our money, the $300 million, goes to the board operations. If we count those students at that level, I’m sure that we can exceed the numbers that are before us from last year on the ECE area. Those are the areas we need to stress and continue to work with on an annual basis.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll be directing my questions to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger. I, too, am concerned by the summer student hire, or I should say lack of hiring thus far. My first question to the Minister of Finance is: the Department of Finance hired nine summer students last year; to date, how many students have they hired this year both in the territorial capital as well as the regions?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My list tells me we’ve hired nine, all in Yellowknife.
I’d like to thank the Minister. Is the Department of Finance planning to hire more summer students by the end of summer and are they looking to expand into the regions?
There’s a modest presence in the regions and I would anticipate that since it’s now May, almost June, that we’ve probably maxed out, but I would have to check with the department to see if we anticipate exceeding last year’s number of nine.
Would the Minister be willing to commit today that his mandate would be to encourage his Department of Finance, both in the capital as well as in the regions, to hire more summer students if they could make those opportunities available for them?
I will just reiterate the encouragement and admonition that we put out to all departments, as a matter of fact, to hire all the students possible within the resources that we have available.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
QUESTION 124-16(6):
SUMMER STUDENT EMPLOYMENT
FOR PWS
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Public Works and Services. I know earlier he anticipated the questions and tried to generalize everything, but specifically to his department, Public Works and Services hired 17 summer students last year. To date, how many have they hired?
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I answered that question. More specific, we have hired 13 students this year. Our target, again, is to try to max the hire from last year. Of course, we have a budget that we have to follow and it’s going to be a challenge, but I’ve instructed our staff to try to achieve the 17 that we hired last year.
That was a nice clear answer by the Minister and the commitment level from his department, then, throughout the whole hour has been very good discussion and commitment from all the Ministers. Just one last follow-up question. Within Public Works and Services, was there a particular number for the Nahendeh region?
The answer is no. Our practice is to try to hire students based on their program of study. If there are students who are planning to be architects, engineers, information technology students, those are the ones we focus on. Sometimes the level of applicants in those areas is not the highest; then we move into the trades and try to hire people in those areas. If there’s still a void in our numbers, then we’ll hire labour positions.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Human Resources, the Honourable Bob McLeod. Clearly, the Members on this side of the House are very interested in helping our students obtain meaningful employment during their short summer. This work helps them afford to go to school and be successful in their studies. Clearly, we would like to see some progress in the areas this summer. Clearly, you can hear from all the Members, the message is quite loud and crystal clear, that this government must do better, and we’re prepared to help support that type of initiative. We collectively want more opportunities for students in all communities and these opportunities provide great work experience for the students. However, it isn’t a one-time challenge over each year. As a result, we would like to see this government commit to more proactive approaches in the coming years. Will the Minister of Human Resources commit to developing a summer student employment strategy for future years to maximize northern student employment opportunities across public, private and NGO sectors, and ensure that the benefits of bilingual students are appropriately recognized and reflected in hiring practices subject to our Affirmative Action Policy?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. A couple of questions there, actually. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We always do transitional arrangements for the incoming government, and absolutely, if I get the concurrence of all of the Members that this summer student strategy is important to make it a part of the transition information, then I will do so. We will be discussing this at future meetings. We’re quite prepared to do that.
Clearly, this is an important issue. A summer student employment strategy is a very passionate issue, provided by the comments and questions by the Members of this House to the government. If the Minister of Human Resources is willing to accept a letter on behalf of all Members to encourage him to act upon this immediately, would he be willing to act upon it if the Members of this side of the House committed that strongly in writing to cause action right away?
Once I receive such a letter, we’ll proceed with the utmost speed.
