Thank you. Not all of those jobs are advertised at the same time, but they are in the process at some stage. Some of them could be at the point when the departments are putting together the information needed to go to advertisement. Some will be in advertisement. Some will be in the interview process and some will be at the offer stage and some could be at the appeal stage. So, this is a flow through. So, if 70 jobs are advertised at one point, I would say that’s a sufficient number to correlate with the numbers I’d given the Member earlier. Thank you.
We have just under 5,000 people employed in the Northwest Territories with the GNWT. We know that it’s a typical figure, 15 percent vacancy at any one time. The Minister only talks about the back end of the employment process. At the front end of the employment process is the same amount of people coming in as going out. So we have a constant number of about 700 or more vacancies in the Government of the Northwest Territories at any one time, but yet we only have 10 percent on the webpage being advertised.
Let’s get to new results and find out where we’re going with this problem. What did the Minister learn and how many new Northerners did we hire at these expensive job fairs when we’re not even advertising them here? He says we don’t advertise them all. Well, who are they for? Who? You know?
Let’s find out how useful these job fairs have been hiring people to bring them north, because I can tell you the stats say we’re losing people, not gaining them.
Thank you. I didn’t indicate that we weren’t advertising the majority of them. We are advertising the majority of the jobs. There are some jobs that do go through other methods. That’s true that people are able to secure positions that are not necessarily at the advertisement stage. Sometimes an individual could be getting a position through transfer assignment. Sometimes the department, after a couple of attempts and failure to fill the position do go to a casual position and fill with a casual position. Sometimes there is a contractor filling the position. So they are at various stages, but essentially I guess a good number to look at is anywhere in the 500s that are turning over each time. Of that, about just 300-plus or so require university degrees.
What we do know is that the majority of individuals in the Northwest Territories that are available in the workforce, people with university degrees, 98 percent of people with university degrees in the Northwest Territories have jobs. So when we’re looking to fill 300-some-odd positions, university degrees are very difficult to get that type of workforce out of the Northwest Territories. So what we’re trying to do is develop strategies that’ll allow us to hire people into what we consider hard-to-fill positions, university degrees, in the South to also help with bringing people north and then trying to do a campaign with the positions where required college, trades, high school or less in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, we know in the books we’ve had at least 1,100 or more vacancies because of PeopleSoft. The Human Resources Minister has just mentioned, you know, well now we’re maybe talking about 500 or more. Fifteen percent, as I said, is close to 800 job vacancies here in the Northwest Territories.
The fact is, unemployment rates continue to rise and the only thing that brings unemployment rates down is people give up looking for work. Not employment rates have risen; unemployment rates have dropped strictly because they have just given up.
So how do we fix the population decrease? I need to hear an answer from this Minister, and I’ll ask again, how have the results been and what have they delivered on these southern job fairs, because if they were a great source of hiring new people, our population numbers wouldn’t be dropping.
We recognize that the population in the Northwest Territories has dropped, but in the GNWT, from the last time we were able to print the PeopleSoft report, which was October 2013, and the next time we were able to print the PeopleSoft report, April 2014, we had a decrease in the overall vacancy rate.
The Member is right; the overall vacancy rate back then was 1,150. I gave various reasons as to where those positions lagged, but that number has gone down to 1,031 at this point. So we have decreased that number by approximately 120 persons and that vacancy rate number. Now, that 1,030 are spread out through the various categories of recruitment, like I indicated, positions being filled by contractors, casuals, in-active positions and so on. So there’s a spectrum of positions in the GNWT that would be considered vacant. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For some time, I’ve been asking the various governments over the period of time as an MLA, and I’ll ask the Minister this question pertaining to the Department of Health and Social Services. The Stanton Hospital and other health facilities have a high population of Aboriginal people. I’ve been asking people within the positions of government, how can you get the Aboriginal foods into the hospitals, for example. What’s happened? Can we get our country foods into the hospitals in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member as well as other Members have actually asked this question before. Following up from those requests for information and the desire to have more traditional foods in our facilities, which we agree is an incredibly important thing to do, our traditional foods help to promote healing, healthy eating and all those types of things. So the Department of Health and Social Services is currently doing some research and developing an action plan to improve the availability of traditional foods within our facilities.
The Traditional Foods and Facilities Action Plan and Recommendations Report, we’re hoping to have that completed in January 2015 so that we can bring it to the Standing Committee on Social Programs for discussion.
The types of things that we want to see, or that you will see in that report, are some successes and lessons learned in other jurisdictions such as Alaska, Whitehorse and as well as Alberta. We’re also looking at new specifications regarding traditional food use, access to traditional food and costs of traditional foods and the use of federally inspected traditional foods. So there are lots of different options we’re exploring and current policies that some facilities already have. We’re hoping to bring all that information together in January and sharing it with committee so that we can move forward to find ways to provide more traditional food within our facilities throughout the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to wish the best of luck to this Minister, because in my tenure as an MLA I have been pushing this issue. There has been so much bureaucratic red tape, goobledy gah, that it doesn’t make sense. The people in my communities grew up on the traditional foods, they are in the hospital, what is so simple to boil fish, moose head and give it to them? They grew up on it, but we have all this red tape. The Minister is now going out and saying we’re going to do a review. I have been at this for 11 years, and our people are dying and they want their food in the hospital. Why can’t we do such a simple thing as the Government of the Northwest Territories bring the traditional foods into the hospital and serve them, because 65 percent of our patients are Aboriginal people and a high percentage of people who grew up on the land with this food. Let’s do the right thing; it’s a simple thing. I want to see action from this Minister.
Mr. Speaker, in order to provide the traditional foods in any of our facilities, we must have policies on how to secure, prepare and serve the traditional foods. We already are providing traditional foods in a number of our communities in a number of our facilities. For instance, at Jimmy Erasmus Seniors Home they serve traditional foods and they have a policy. The Inuvik long-term care prepares traditional food within the unit itself. The Avens has a policy for the preparation and serving of traditional food. The challenge there is that they have a private contractor providing food, so we may not be getting it as often as we would like. Stanton Territorial Health Authority also has a four-week rotational traditional foods menu, so they bring things in on Friday. I understand that the Member is saying that is not enough, we need to do more. The Northern Lights Elders Facility in Fort Smith regularly serves traditional foods. So we are providing traditional foods in a number of our communities.
I hear the Member loud and clear, we need to do more, which is why we are working on the Traditional Foods and Facilities Action Plan, which I am going to bring to you and committee after discussion on how we move forward.
But this isn’t without its barriers. Providing traditional food does have some challenges, and some of the challenges that we have experienced today are basically the availability of regional foods, the distance from local foods, the ability to prepare foods in a traditional way, harvesting costs and access to the equipment, and food services companies using only federally inspected food. So there are challenges. We are working through those. We will be coming back to committee, and I am looking forward to having further discussion as we move forward and provide traditional foods to the residents of the Northwest Territories within our facilities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I look forward to some action here. It is very simple. The fall hunt just finished. Ask the communities, a lot of moose, caribou and fish. It’s very simple. We need it in Stanton. They are doing it in the regions; they are doing it in the communities. Ask the communities. Break through the red tape. We need moose meat. We need people to have their traditional foods in the hospitals. These are the very people that grew up on that.
Why are we making it so complicated? It is a crying shame. This government here is going to do another study. This is my third Assembly. It’s so difficult to put traditional foods in Stanton Hospital, but we can do other things so fast, but with the average of people in the…(inaudible)…it’s difficult. Why do you make it complicated for us? I appreciate the little bit of taste that we’re getting, but I’m speaking for the elders, the people who want boiled fish, want fish heads, want boiled meat, they want that. They don’t want cabbage because they say it tastes like paper. We are dealing with real people here.
I will ask the Minister again to put enough effort, to put some elbow grease behind this motion and this action plan and do it before we close this Assembly when the writ is dropped. That’s what I would like to see.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I have already indicated to the Member, we are going to have a Traditional Foods Facilities Action Plan and Recommendations, January 2015, for review by Regular Members and consideration so that we can move forward and do exactly what the Member is asking us to do. January 15th is well before the writ drops in the 17th Legislative Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Again – and other Members can contest this – we have seen a lot of action plans. Action plans are sometimes five, 10, 20 years. I am asking this one here for the sake of the people in the small communities, when they come to Stanton Hospital that they can have the traditional foods served to them, not once a week. Residential school days are over. We want them to have it every day. I want to ask the Minister to put some muscle behind the action plan to say this is what we’re going to do: every day of the week we’ll have some traditional food served to our people. If you need some help, we have a lot of people here that can help the Minister.
Mr. Speaker, this is something that is important, I clearly hear the Member. I have heard it from other Members, and we are looking forward to bringing the action plan forward and getting their weight behind the action plan so that we can make some changes in traditional food provisions in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to continue with my questions to the Minister of Human Resources. There was a fair bit of information that he left on the table. I am not sure if he just felt bad that he gave me the original information of PeopleSoft and felt that, boy, we have to stop giving this guy information so let’s just ignore stuff so hopefully he will go away.
I asked, repeatedly, the details of the job fair money and the results, so let’s get to the bottom line here. What were the results of the southern job fairs and what did it cost the people of the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have the costs with me, but we collected approximately 700 resumes and were able to hire five people. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources does not know the cost, and that is a bit of a surprise. I can’t ask the same question because he is going to give me the same answer.
Where did those five people go and what type of positions did we employ people that we had to go to the South and only find five people out of 700 resumes?
Mr. Speaker, this was a job fair that occurred in Ottawa that was a bit controversial the last time we were in the Assembly. I got the information and looked at it, and the one thing I don’t have but could present to the Member no problem, or to the House, would be the cost of that. That’s not an issue. We can determine the cost of that fairly simply.
What I am saying is that we were able to get the five positions. Exactly where those five individuals came to work, I don’t know. My guess is, a 50 percent guess would be that they probably ended up in Yellowknife because the vacancy rate in the GNWT is split 52 percent Yellowknife and 48 percent outside of Yellowknife. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, while the Department of Human Resources was sorting through those 700 resumes, while they found time in some form or fashion to hire five people, were any of those five people that they hired direct appointments? I want to know the credentials of these types of appointments and how he got them. Were they direct appointments or were they true competitions where Northerners could have applied for and at the end of the day the government wasted probably a lot of money on this? Thank you.
I do not believe that these were direct appointments. Usually we fill direct appointments for a few reasons, one being that it’s a development opportunity for a person that has a priority 1 status in the government. We also offer those types of development opportunities to individuals that have priority 2 status in the Northwest Territories.
When we direct appoint somebody that has a priority 3 status, which I would assume all of these five people have, then it would be a position that we were unable to fill. Perhaps a scenario could be that the job was advertised two or three times without success. So if we’re able to find someone that fits the credentials from the South, it is possible that the individual could go through a direct appointment. That’s possible, but I believe that these individuals went through our job bank and the talent pool, applied on jobs that they saw were available at the time and got those through a competitive process.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Speaker, we know from the Minister’s own numbers that we have well over 500 vacancies. That’s under my estimate, but it’s fine, we’ll use that one. We know that the government had received 700 resumes, as the Minister has clearly articulated, and the Minister clearly said here today before this House, they found five people out of 700 resumes, which begs the question why weren’t we making a bigger concerted effort from his department when we know over 500 vacancies exist on the ground.
Why aren’t we turning these into some type of training positions? We know immediately that would deliver solid results in the communities where the employment rate is over 30 percent. We know it would have a huge impact on people who are already here. It means our government wouldn’t be wasting time flying across the country and doing whatever they’re doing and only getting five people.
At the end of the day, why weren’t we finding better ways to hire Northerners who have invested their lives, their families and their future here?
That’s exactly what we intend to do. We have various categories, like I indicated, positions that require university degrees as an example, and positions that require trades, a position that requires college, as an example. We are developing plans in Human Resources to start looking at the various job categories, so we’d look at the job categories and determine how we can best fill those job categories.
I’m having a lot of discussions with the deputy of HR and we in turn are trying to put a plan together, are putting a plan together, not trying, and then I intend to discuss each of these plans with the Ministers. That is going to be a part of my mandate moving forward with the intent of filling the jobs that have been vacant for a long time and turning the casuals into jobs that people can hold in the Northwest Territories. Also, we’re hoping that once we’re able to achieve filling these positions that we are able to increase the population in the Northwest Territories and prevent the population from decreasing all the time.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Northwest Territories Mineral Development Strategy GNWT Implementation Plan, 2014-15.”
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table the following three documents, entitled “Northwest Territories Species at Risk Committee Annual Report, 2013-2014;” “Conference of Management Authorities Species at Risk Annual Report, 2013-2014;” and “Northwest Territories Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program 2013-2014 Annual Report.”
Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, October 23, 2014, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that this Legislative Assembly, by virtue of Section 5 of the Elections and Plebiscites Act, recommends to the Commissioner the appointment of Ms. Nicole Latour of Yellowknife as Chief Electoral Officer for the Northwest Territories for a term of four years commencing November 1, 2014.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, October 23, 2014, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that the following individuals be appointed by the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories to the Human Rights Commission of the Northwest Territories effective November 3, 2014:
Mr. Yacob Adams of Yellowknife, for a term of four years; and
Ms. Gerri Sharpe of Yellowknife, for a term of four years.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Blake.
Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, October 23, 2014, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that the following persons be recommended to the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories for appointment as members of the Human Rights Adjudication Panel effective November 3, 2014, for a term of four years:
Ms. Kerry Penney of Yellowknife, and
Mr. Colin Baile of Yellowknife.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, October 23, 2014, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that, notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on Thursday, October 23, 2014, it shall be adjourned until Monday, October 27, 2014.
And further, that any time prior to October 27, 2014, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during adjournment, the Speaker may give notice and thereupon the House shall meet at a time stated in such notice and shall transact its business as it has been duly adjourned to that time.
