Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very disappointed in this information. USEP, of course, is a very small fund and it runs out in no time at all. Ask any of these students who are looking for upgrading opportunities. The Minister knows full well that due to our lack of an adequate system... And albeit we may have one of the best Student Financial Assistance Programs in the country, we also have one of the worst records in graduating students who are unqualified for their post-secondary education. I’m looking to meet this need. USEP clearly doesn’t cover it and we don’t provide upgrading opportunities ourselves. This is a crime.
I’d like to ask if the Minister will commit to providing that funding, a fund specifically dedicated for that. It’s impossible to guess how many students have given up and don’t even apply for the funding now, because of the sort of negative feedback that I’m hearing from through my constituents. Will the department commit to putting those funds in place?
I must say that we’re very proud of the highest aboriginal graduates in the country in the Northwest Territories. We should be proud of that. The school system, we are currently developing an action plan to deal with that through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. We’ve highlighted the core needs of the community. We’ve visited a Sahtu community already. We’re visiting all regions. They’re providing us solutions that are coming from the communities. This is an area we are very serious about.
Also, at the same time, we are going through a review of the Student Financial Assistance Program. Those are the key areas we are currently undergoing. There is also a labour market agreement that provides funding, whether it be training for students that fall through the cracks. This is federal funding that we’ve taken advantage of.
These are just some of the key areas that we are currently covering for funding. SFA is under review. The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is on the way. We are making great progress in that area. The action plan will be produced out of that discussion.
Thank you to the Minister for those comments. I’m very pleased to hear that that review is underway.
I want to comment on the Minister noting that we have the highest number of aboriginal student graduates. I’m very happy to hear that and I support that, and I think that does say some good things about our system. However, if we’re graduating students who clearly don’t have the qualifications to go on to post-secondary education, what does that say about that statistic? We can’t hide in statistics and we can’t afford to do that. I would ask this Minister to please commit to lobbying the federal Minister to bump up that USEP program to meaningful dollars, especially recognizing that we have failed in graduating qualified students.
I want to reassure that we are not hiding anything within our system. We provide any data that’s available on the Northwest Territories education system, because we want to be transparent and we want to be accountable to what’s before us. That’s the very reason why we’re going throughout the Northwest Territories in all regions to deal with the education matters. We are very concerned about that. We want to come to a solution. There is a solution at the grassroots, communities, who we are seeking advice from. It is happening. The federal, yes, we continuously lobby them through Education, Justice, federal/provincial/territorial Justice Ministers meetings constantly. The First Nations students are being represented at that level and we continually lobby the federal government for additional funding. With limited and also the small jurisdictions, we seem to be always left out, compared to other reservations that receive funding. Those are the areas we continue to have our discussion and possibly have a separate agreement, our uniqueness of the Northwest Territories. I will continue to support that.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s commitments there. I acknowledge that in fact we do, we are very open about these things. Who I’m hearing from, of course, are my constituents who are trying to upgrade. I want to make the point that these are young people who are often starting families, or perhaps are single parents who have extra needs perhaps beyond the norm. They are facing these challenges. I hope and, I guess, I would ask the Minister to commit and consider these aspects of these students without appropriate certificates for pursuing post-secondary, that they be considered in this review and be addressed in the solutions offered in that review.
I’m sure that will be part of the discussion, because there will be a wide range of discussions with the public as well. Any input from the Members will be greatly appreciated, and also the Northwest Territories. If we make changes, it has to benefit the Northwest Territories as well. Definitely this is an area that I’m excited about and I’m looking forward to those changes as well.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for Human Resources some questions about this government’s succession planning.
Our public service workforce is always aging. I guess we’re always all aging.
---Interjection
I don’t know, I got an e-mail from somebody the other day who told me they saw me on TV and said I should go see a hairdresser. Seriously.
---Laughter
Oh, the feedback we get.
Anyway. Our public service is aging. It is prudent for us as a government to do succession planning to find out how we can take people who are interested in careers in the public service and provide them with the professional development, the training, and the opportunities they need to advance in the public service. I have had an inquiry from a constituent who was concerned about an individual who was direct appointed to an associate deputy position, but I believe this person may have been a part of some kind of a program to make sure we have adequate senior level bureaucrats in place for these positions. I thought it might be helpful if the Minister of HR could describe for us what programs the government has in place to create opportunity for people to advance themselves in our public service.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a government, our greatest resource, our greatest asset is our human resources and it’s very important for us to make sure that we have a qualified public service in order to do all the work that we need them to do.
The Member is correct that our public service is aging. The average age is 44 years old. That’s the average age of our public service. Sixty-three percent of our employees are over 40 years old. Obviously we need to pay a lot of attention to succession planning. Specifically in the senior management category, over the next five years 40 percent of our senior management cohort is eligible to retire, and over 10 years 54 percent of our senior managers are eligible to retire as well. Obviously, we have a big job ahead of us.
Our Human Resource Strategic Plan identified the need for our government to develop a Succession Planning Strategy, and we're working very hard on that right now.
In years gone past there were programs that were well known to people in the public service. My colleague Mr. Beaulieu, for example, entered the public service under a trainee program, where a trainee for a position was paired up, so to speak, with somebody in senior management and was sent out also for professional development to enhance their skills to become managers in various aspects of government service. What programs exist today? That was called a trainee program. I understand there’s been a MAP program in more recent years. What other opportunities are there that public servants can access now if they want to advance their career with the public service?
Several years ago, when the Department of Personnel was decentralized, the training money was allocated to the departments. There are a number of programs. Right now we have a leadership program with the government. People can apply to be part of this program. Generally they need some support from the department and we have regular training modules that have been established through the University of Alberta. We also have an Associate Director Superintendent Program for aboriginal people whereby we’re trying to increase the number of aboriginal people in senior management positions. We have been working through utilization of transfer assignments whereby we can allow people to obtain experience in different levels of management so that they can move on to higher levels as they progress.
Our Human Resource Strategic Plan 20/20 recognizes that we want to encourage government employees to take advantage of lifelong learning so that they can advance their careers within the government. We are developing a draft succession planning discussion paper. We will be introducing a pilot program and we will be developing a succession planning framework for the government to follow, and we expect that next year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Before I go on, Members, I would just like to draw your attention to the rules that we have. Half of the Members haven’t asked a question yet and we only have 15 minutes left in question period, so both questions and answers, try to maybe shorten them up. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The concern I had raised to me by a constituent was someone who had entered into a certain government department at an associate deputy position. Is it the position of this government that skills at the deputy minister/associate deputy minister level are transferable between departments without any really specific experience or having worked their way up in the ranks in that particular discipline or area of program delivery? Thank you.
Our government operates on the basis of merit, so employees that progress through different promotions and different employment opportunities either compete for the jobs and get them on their own merit or if they are direct appointed or on a transfer assignment. It’s based on merit. Senior level positions like deputies and associate deputy ministers, my experience is that the senior management skills are transferrable; that if you’re working with one department, generally you should be able to manage different levels of departments, and we recognize that in our deputy minister cohort where we have different levels of deputy ministers. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How are people in the ranks of the public service made aware of these types of opportunities that the Minister has outlined? How do they access information to that if they want to get the candidate that’s going to advance into some of these programs? Thank you.
As I’ve indicated many times, the authority for staffing has been delegated down to individual departments, and the majority of competitions are filled through the staffing process and they’re posted on our websites. We are moving to e-Recruit and all of the jobs that we advertise will be on e-Recruit.
With regard to the deputy minister level positions, that is under the authority of the Premier. The Premier decides if he wants to put it out to competition or if he feels that we have sufficient people who are qualified to do it within the public service. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to once again thank the Minister responsible for ITI for working with NWT Tourism and developing a meeting and conference planner for 2011. It’s a great first step. It’s a great document. I’m wondering if the Minister will commit to taking that second step, which is to find some finances to provide some financial benefit or incentive to local businesses, organizations or associations who convince southern institutions, southern businesses to come up north for conferences and meetings. It’s a great place to have a meeting. What are we going to do to help our businesses bring them up? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for raising this issue, because it’s very important for us to continue to find ways to attract visitors to the Northwest Territories. As the Member indicated, there has been a significant decline in the business traveller sector of visitors to the Northwest Territories. With the reduced airfares, especially to Yellowknife, we have a significant increase in the number of visitors to the Northwest Territories; but in the business traveller category, the numbers have decreased by 22 percent, which is a significant number. The dollars that represents is $16.5 million, so anything we can do to increase the number of visitors to the Northwest Territories, we will certainly look seriously at. Thank you.
That’s good news. What I’m looking for is something similar to what’s happening in the Yukon. They have an incentive program that’s available to associations when those associations bring their national and international counterparts to come to the Yukon for conferences. I’m not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination would we spend the kind of money they are, but there are still advantages. A little bit of money can go a long way. Has the Minister had his department explore the possibility of providing some sort of small financial benefit or incentive to our local associations when they go out and encourage their national and international counterparts to come north, anywhere in the North, for conferences and/or business meetings? Let’s get some of that $16.5 million back. Thank you
In follow-up to the questioning by the Member, I did ask my Tourism Marketing Advisory Committee to look at ways to provide financial incentives, and in their view they feel that with the discounts that are offered by hotels and airlines and the promotional items that can be provided by local businesses, that that might be sufficient. I like the idea of looking at what the Yukon is doing. We do already provide a certain level of financial incentives through our SEED program. Thank you.
I’m happy the Minister is going to be looking into that. I would say what his advisors are telling him may not exactly be working, because we have experienced a $16.5 million drop in business travel. So once again, I think there’s an advantage to provide small incentives, small financial incentives. We could also go with a base payment with maybe another small fund or amount based on the number it brings, because the more people you bring, the more money you can get. Will the Minister explore the possibility of actually creating an incentive based on the number of people that people can bring up for conferences and business meetings? Thank you.
We are committed to increase the number of business travellers to the North, so we’ll certainly be prepared to look at this area of financial incentives, and we’ll look at what the Yukon is doing, and we’ll also look at how the money that we’re spending through the SEED funding, how that’s working with regard to increasing the number of business travellers. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Member’s statement today regarding the Tuk wind project in the community of Tuk, Mr. Speaker, it appears there’s a misunderstanding between the government and the community corporation on the deal to build the wind project in Tuktoyaktuk. Mr. Speaker, I’m wondering what is the Premier and the Minister doing to clear this up and can he help me to get clarity so this project can go forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for the Power Corporation, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of the wind turbines is one that we’ve been watching as the discussions have been ongoing about purchasing power back through to the Power Corporation. We will continue to monitor that. If the requirement is if there’s call about providing additional information, we will commit to doing that and see what we can do to help have all the appropriate information so that the community can make the right decision. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, other communities in Nunakput have consistent winds for this project. If it does not go ahead in Tuk, can we make sure that communities like Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok can go ahead with this wind program on their own under the same project?
Mr. Speaker, of course we are hopeful that a satisfactory approach can be resolved here with the Tuk community and the wind turbine situation. Of course, if that is not able to proceed, we would go back to the Ministers of the Energy Coordinating Committee and relook at that and evaluate where we can do that and reallocate funds to communities that are willing and where we have the studies to show that wind is consistent enough for wind power. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister reassure the Power Corporation that this wind program represents no significant cost and risk to the community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I will get the information necessary to show the parameters of that project, what it means, the idea. That is why this government is putting capital funds in place to help offset that initial cost. We will get the additional information and provide it to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am hoping this project does not get stalled, because of the 15 to 20 jobs for local hire for this project, where it is all tight work in our small communities. I just want to make sure that this is going to stabilize our power bills, because we have such high power bills in the communities, so it wouldn’t spike on our coldest months of the year.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister reallocate the funds again from Tuk to one of the other Nunakput communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, if the situation in the community of Tuk doesn’t correct itself and we find a satisfactory solution there, we would look at the other communities within that area, or around the Territory as a possibility, but we would look at where there is a wind factor. Again, hopefully we could find a satisfactory report on this. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation some questions.
I raised the issue about the core needs income threshold and the application guidelines for constituents. I just wanted to know if there is an initiative out there that we have lots of homes and they need to be given away this fiscal year, how the process is going and what kind of special accommodations are they making when they are applying the guidelines there, Mr. Speaker. Are they going to stick to the old guidelines or will they be more flexible this year in terms of allocating units and/or agreeing to applications? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am assuming the Member is talking about homeownership units or public housing units. If it is a homeownership unit, as I stated on a couple of occasions, I have asked the corporation to be a little more flexible on how we allocate the units. The application process is done now, so the regions are just analyzing all the information and then we will be able to do the allocations. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I guess one of the single biggest issues that constituents have raised with me is that the people that can afford it and have the good incomes, perhaps double incomes in the smaller communities, are actually being rejected from the applications because they are actually making too much money. But because we have such an arrears with our Housing Corporation, Mr. Speaker, I think these are the type of people that we should have within our Housing Corporation programs. These are the people that are hard working. They are able to make mortgage payments, and thereby the corporation would be able to generate revenue. What is the Minister going to do about addressing their concerns and allowing this range of people to apply for our programs? Thank you.
Thank you. I completely agree with the Member that these are the people that we want to capture, and that’s the reason I’ve asked the Housing Corporation to become a little more flexible in how we allocate. We hear a lot of stories of people that are just over core need income threshold that are being denied and it’s my wish to try and get these people into homeownership. Thank you.
Perhaps the Minister can clarify for me exactly why that rule is there. Why is there an upper limit? In the bigger centres it kind of makes sense, right? I mean, you don’t want to disrupt the existing housing market, but a small community like Nahanni Butte, even Fort Simpson, which is not really a market community either and these people are being denied. So I’d like to know the reasoning why this guideline and/or policy exist. Maybe the Minister can clarify that for me.
