I agree with everything the Member has just said with respect to the provision of services and how consistency is certainly the more preferred approach. We continue to have challenges hiring health professionals in the Northwest Territories, especially in some of the smaller communities. We are doing better in some areas than others, but we are still having challenges. This is true for mental health and addictions counsellors as well as community health nurses. I don’t have the exact status of Fort Liard, but I’d be happy to get that for the Member and share that with the Member.
As we move forward with the strategic plan, I’m looking forward to coming to committee and having discussions and stealing your good ideas on how we can improve the recruitment and retention of health care professionals. Obviously, I’d love to have more conversation about what we can do in the communities to encourage our youth to pursue things like nursing and other health related professions.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. We are on page 8-11, information item, active positions, health and social services authorities. Next I have Mr. Moses, followed by Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question here. I know the Minister is familiar with some of the e-mails that have been going back and forth between the Members from the Inuvik region. I see that there are two indeterminate part-time positions that we are losing, but we’re also gaining four intermediate full-time positions. Does the Minister know what those two indeterminate part-time positions are and whether those indeterminate positions are possibly being moved over to full-time positions. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Ms. Mathison.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t have the details on the exact position title. They were internal reallocations done within the authority.
Thank you, Ms. Mathison. Next I have Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of quick questions about the Hay River Health Authority and the positions there. If the department could give me a little more detail and discussion on the union there. They are obviously not a union of ours, but they are highly interested. Have we been having discussions with them about including them in our union? It seems like it’s difficult and inconsistent with this authority versus all the other ones.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The Hay River Health and Social Services Authority is actually outside of the public service, so the employees and the management in that authority are not GNWT employees in any capacity. We do provide funding to them as we do with other authorities. I believe it was in 2005 I pushed to bring the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority into the public service and the price tag at that time was about $2 million to bring in the pensions and whatnot. We continue to have discussions with the authority. We continue to explore possibilities to bring them in. The price tag has increased we believe significantly and we are doing some analysis on that to figure out what the actual cost to bring them into the public service would be. We will continue to have those conversations, but there is no immediate plan to bring them into the public service. Thank you, Madam Chair.
It’s not getting any cheaper. It is something we were interested in seeing, I guess. Is the department going to continue to analyze it? When do you think you will have that analysis complete? When would we be able to look at what the net costs are of doing that?
It’s not an easy task, unfortunately. Because we’re talking about pensions and every authority is running on a… Sorry, that authority is running on a different pension system. We’re pretty much going to have to do a manual calculation on every employee to figure out what those costs would be and what it would cost to bring over. We should be able to get it done by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, but it is going to take a bit of time to do a thorough, comprehensive analysis. Thank you.
I am just wondering if we’ve used any professionals such as an actuary to look at those actual costs.
That was done in the past when we did the assessment previously in 2005. I am pretty sure that’s accurate, I might be off a little bit. We would have to do the same to make sure that if we move forward and it is reasonable to move forward based on cost, that we are basing it on fully understood numbers.
I wonder what the other barriers are, I guess. Is it all financial? What are the complications of not having them in the GNWT system?
I remember this because I was involved in it the last time. The last time we were pursuing it, in 2005, we had to write all new job descriptions to make them consistent with the GNWT format. We had to get them all evaluated and consistent with our form of evaluation, the Hay method of evaluation. Then we were getting ready to move forward with the next step, which would be to terminate their employment with the Hay River authority and offer them employment with the new GNWT Hay River authority. Then we’d have to make sure that all of them would have the opportunity to go through the process where they were protected where they had first right of refusal on jobs. We protected them. So there was a significant amount of work making that happen. On top of that, there is the cost of bringing over the pension and making sure their futures are protected. It’s a significant amount of work.
I wonder what the impediments are having an authority like this outside of the GNWT. What difficulties are we experiencing? There is a cost to that pension, but there is also maybe a cost or a difficulty in operating one authority that is stand-alone and the remainder of them under the GNWT umbrella.
It does complicate some of the work we’re doing now moving to a shared services model because with that particular authority, we’re going to have to have separate contracts to allow us to have those types of discussions and work together on those particular arrangements. So it does create some complications from having territory-wide shared service and guaranteeing everyone the same standard of shared service as well as shared products, shared purchasing, shared finance, shared IT. It does complicate all of those things.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Next on my list I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to ask the Minister on our indeterminate, full-time positions for the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority, because we’re just approving the numbers here today, we don’t see the full structure of how positions are allocated within the system. Can I ask the Minister, is the authority losing any positions but gaining other positions in other areas? I see there are four and I’m assuming we’ll have all the same positions when I look at this, four new ones, but I don’t see if there is going to be any positions that are lost and more positions put in another area within the health authority. Can the Minister confirm, please?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Other than those positions we already discussed, I believe it’s the same. We will confirm and get that information for the Member. Thank you.
I appreciate that. I know when we’re looking at these numbers, we’re not just looking at numbers and positions but there are people behind these positions and jobs are lost. There’s a chance we’re affecting families. We talk about increasing the population if jobs are lost within the authority. Specifically on the next page when we go into shared services, that’s potentially three families leaving the Beaufort-Delta Health Authority in Inuvik, so it’s really difficult while we approve the numbers fully, that possibly there are some numbers in there that can be affected. I just want to state that for the record. Yes, it would be hard to prove when it can possibly affect families in the region. Thank you.
As the director of finance pointed out, there’s no job loss with these things; some things have been re-profiled. The authorities have a mandate or requirement to provide services to meet the needs of their residents in their particular region and they do, from time to time, have to describe some of their work and change some of their positions and they would come through the normal process to do that to meet their mandate that we approve through this process.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to follow up a little bit on active positions versus inactive positions and how that might affect active positions. It’s my understanding that departments can shift positions from inactive to active status, unfunded inactive to active and funded and vice versa.
Can the Minister tell me, has that been done with any of the positions listed on this page for this fiscal year, and is there a plan to do that at all during the fiscal year that’s not described here? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Thanks, Madam Chair. There are many reasons why a position might be declared inactive. By way of example, there was some structural… I’m talking about the previous page, but just to put some information and context. There were some positions in the directorate, there was a bit of a reorg in the directorate and one of the admin type positions was described, but it was described with slightly different functions but still administrative. It required a new job description and was awarded a new position number as a result. The position number that was there providing similar or like duties was made inactive. So, there are lots of different reasons why positions would be made inactive.
As of October 31st and the information that was provided to the Members previously, there were 33 positions that were flagged to be inactive. Of those, 18 are still inactive, none of which are funded. Fifteen positions are now actually active, four of them are actually filled, one is filled with a casual, seven are relief positions, one is held while an incumbent is on a transfer assignment, and two are in the process of staffing. So, there are a number of reasons positions would be made inactive. I’m not sure that I gave you everything that you’re looking for.
I’m trying not to ask questions that we already have the information on. Yes, we do have that information. We’ve had briefings ad infinitum with the Minister of Human Resources and so on, Minister of Finance, about the reasons, so I think we have some appreciation for all that. I’m just asking, with respect to the ’14-15 year, if any of these are actually inactive positions proposed to make inactive positions into active positions or vice versa and whether you expect to do that during the ’14-15 fiscal year. Thank you.
On page 8-11 it shows 1,392 positions in the authorities. Those are all established funded positions. The authorities manage their budgets, manage their staff to provide the services that are outlined and they believe they need these positions to do them. I’m not aware of the authorities planning to make any of these positions inactive or to reactivate any other positions, but they may, but that is not the expectation. The expectation is they’ll fill positions and provide the services that are required.
Thanks. That does answer the second part. The first part, I guess, maybe I’ll just leave it with the Minister. If he thinks he could provide more information, that would be great.
The positions specific to these and the question specific to these ’14-15 positions, are any of them representing jobs that will be moved from inactive to active status in any way? That may not be something he can provide off the top, but I think that’s the sort of thing that we’re interested in knowing about. Thank you.
The answer is no, because these 1,392 positions are active. They’re not inactive, so there’s no plan to move them from something they aren’t to something that they currently are.
I’ll leave it at that. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, but I will take the Minister’s word here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Page 8-11, information item, active positions, health and social services authorities. Agreed?
Agreed.
Agreed, thank you. Page 8-13, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $10.016 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple questions here. I mentioned during general remarks that it seems that compensation benefits are going up quickly but I realize that there is forced growth in this area plus some new positions. I’m a little bit concerned about new positions in the directorate. I’m not positive there has been new ones, but it seems like a 20 percent increase over two years is quite a bit if there have not been new positions.
My first question is: Has the directorate been put on notice that a policy of passive restraint is to be implemented for the department in 2014-15? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a couple new positions within this unit. The anti-poverty coordinator position is in this unit. I’m going to go to the deputy minister for the specific details.
Thank you. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Minister noted, there are several new positions in the directorate. The Anti-Poverty Policy advisor is located here, as well there is a federal/provincial/territorial policy advisor position that was previously funded under THSSI that is now funded in here. We have two new forced growth positions to implement the Health Information Act, and in addition, part of the increase you see is two positions that have been moved from another division in the department into the directorate to join with the Health Information Act position. That explains the growth. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I did not address the passive restraint, but, yes, the directorate is well aware, as is in the entire department, of the passive restraint direction. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for that information, both questions. On the first one, I guess I would now have to ask why it isn’t up a lot more. That’s a lot of positions to add for the amount that this department has gone up, a $600,000 increase, roughly, from last year, a little bit less, and I think I counted two, four, five, six positions there. That seems pretty efficient. Just a comment there.
My last question on this page is also related to 8-14, so I’ll be ahead of everybody else by covering two pages at once here. The grants and contributions, $685,000, the second line there. I recognize that $35,000 is for the Tlicho cultural coordinator. Could I get a breakdown by amounts for the $650,000 Anti-Poverty Strategy Framework amount?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The deputy did describe some of the growth, and some of those areas that are growing in the directorate are in direct response to committee and government priorities such as the anti-poverty. A number of positions, as the deputy indicated, are to address moving forward with the Health Information Act and making sure that people understand and that we have the people in positions. It’s about six positions in the directorate. On average, positions are about $100,000-plus, though $600,000 is pretty much the exact growth in this particular area so I think it correlates nicely.
With respect to the Anti-Poverty Strategy and Framework, the $650,000 is broken out into two different pots: $150,000 to day shelters, and for now it’s $75,000 going to Yellowknife, $75,000 going to Inuvik, and then there’s $500,000, which is a fund available for NGOs, community governments, Aboriginal governments to help them address the five pillars outlined in the Anti-Poverty Framework to reduce poverty in the Northwest Territories. We’re currently working on a process with our stakeholders group, and we’ll certainly be having those discussions with committee on the criteria and how we planned to distribute those dollars in a fair process to combat poverty in the North.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. In this process in Committee of the Whole here in the House, this is our process, this is about getting our questions asked and getting proper answers. I just want to mention that if the Minister needs to find a document or have something referred to them, please don’t feel under any pressure. There is no big time constraint here. I just think we just need to relax and make sure we find the right answers. Sometimes when we’re waiting for the microphone to switch on to the Minister, I’m going to wait until the Minister is ready to answer, because definitely in a department this size and this complex and not knowing where the questions are going to come from, if it takes a moment to locate a document, please don’t feel any stress about that.
Next on my list, I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just following up to some of the positions within the, I guess, authorities in general, we have in this part of the department here shared services. We did receive some concerns from some of the, I guess you could say, some of the computer divisions within the authority that there was a presentation given that would amalgamate all the local computer supports from across the Northwest Territories with the TSC, and although there was talk that no positions would be lost, especially full-time positions, the Department of Human Resources said otherwise. I’m just wondering if we can get confirmation today that when we go through the shared services project that no positions are lost within the regional authorities.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. With respect to the shared services around IT, we made a commitment that there would be no job loss in the communities and regions. They would likely, and will be, changing reporting relationships in who they report to, so we are not losing the number of positions. Some of them will likely change slightly and have new reporting relationships, but we also made a commitment to working with our staff to make sure that they are accommodated as well.
