I continue to urge the HR Minister and all the Ministers that when we’re trying to advance our Aboriginal employees that we pay attention to them like we say we do in our plan.
I also spoke about the frustration that individuals are having trying to gain employment with the Government of the Northwest Territories. They apply on many jobs and every time they have to do a personal screening test for each and every job. I can see how complicated and how frustrating that can be.
Does the plan include anything to make it easier for potential new employees to gain employment in the Government of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we do have a Workforce Planning Strategy and where we’re looking at including the strategy I referred to, Regional Recruitment Strategy. There are various strategies that we are employing as a department, working with other departments in the GNWT. Our intention is always to try…(inaudible)…our numbers set out by the Affirmative Action Policy. The Affirmative Action Policy calls for the government to be representative of the population and that’s our goal, so we do work, as a government, with other departments to try to achieve those goals.
We’re moving ahead with some of the committees, like the Aboriginal Employee Advisory Committee and get some advice on them. They’re from across the regions. Aboriginal employees from across the regions are giving us advice on how to move forward on hiring Aboriginal employees into the public service. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Once again, for new employees, entry-level jobs are often overqualified and they don’t get attention for the years of experience and training that the individuals we have.
Does the plan address this fact? Are they reviewing those entry-level jobs and lowering the qualifications because people cannot get in. When you want a new employee, it’s about just getting them in there. They’ll learn the system; they’ll learn the organization and become long-term and valuable employees. Can the Minister look into that?
We can discuss this with the departments. The departments do the job descriptions and through their knowledge, skills and abilities that are typically required for a position that they’re posting. So they need to do a certain job; there are tasks that have to be done; the department determines what type of qualifications that individual needs to carry in order to do that job. So, if we’re discussing with the department on looking at those qualifications that maybe a job with a different type of task in there may be sufficient, then we’ll have that discussion. I’m more than willing and prepared to do that through the deputy to have those discussions with the other deputies in the other departments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, we’re not going to let the Human Resources Minister off that easy because, quite frankly, I don’t think that these goals are being achieved. Often I hear people apply for jobs who have years if not, in some cases, decades of experience, but because they don’t have that actual certification, such as a university degree or a college diploma, they get screened out.
Let’s start off with a simple question by asking the Minister, how often does someone get hired on the principles of they have a university degree, versus the people who’ve brought real life decades of experience? The department must track this because they spend a lot of time evaluating these things. What kind of answer can we get from the Minister on this? We’ll start this question off this way. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I couldn’t possibly know how often that occurs in the government. I indicated in the House previously, we have anywhere from 1,600 to 1,700 staffing actions per year going back I don’t know how many years. How am I able to determine how often this occurs in the government? I would perhaps do a long research and then we would probably be able to come up with this number, but it would mean tracking everybody that qualified up against the individuals that got hired in order to determine that number. Thank you.
Maybe the Minister is starting to grasp the complication behind this particular problem. I’ve got people who have applied with 10, 20 or more years of experience, but they’re screened out and the competition is awarded and they don’t know until after the appeal period is gone, but then again their rights don’t really matter. Of course, they feel they don’t matter because their experience is weighed directly against credentials of the university. So let’s go with this group, and by the way, the footnote I’d like to add is quite often I hear of this complaint, and it’s a good complaint and it needs to be solved, by women and certainly Aboriginal women are screened out because their years of experience clearly don’t matter. So maybe the Minister can help us, help the House, help the public understand how does the department weigh experience on a job and evaluate them against somebody who has the official credential, because it appears right now if you have experience it doesn’t matter, if you have the certification by a university diploma then they’ll look at you? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, related experience does matter. Minimum qualifications, as far as education goes, and related experience matter. It’s written in most job descriptions, if not all job descriptions, that we receive from the department. If an individual has directly related experience in the job they’re applying for, it has a significant impact on whether or not the individual gets hired. If a person has directly related experience, education that may not be directly related, but many years of directly related experience as the Member is talking about today, we will not screen that individual out. The person with directly related experience will be interviewed. Thank you.
Thank you. Recently I had someone who applied or wanted to apply for a job, but of course it says, as a must, they have to have a high school diploma, but their 20-plus years of experience didn’t matter because their job was pre-qualified and they were encouraged to apply anyway. Frankly, they had to make a choice at that high school year severely impacts their life. Somebody defined it as it continues to haunt their life because they had to make the choice that was right for them, but they can’t apply.
So perhaps I’ll ask it this way, how does the Minister see someone with 20 years’ experience – and, of course, he did say related experience matters – apply for jobs like this that they’ve been doing for years, but it doesn’t appear to matter because if they don’t have that high school diploma they don’t even get into the game and they’re told weeks later after the competition is over, hey, by the way, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
Thank you. It’s difficult for me to speak on this. For me it’s a hypothetical case. If the Member has an actual case where an individual has 20 years’ directly related experience and was not allowed to apply for the job that they were doing, I would be glad to hear about the specifics from the Member and we’ll then contact the department and find out what the issue is. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If it’s difficult for the Minister to answer this question, quite frankly it’s difficult for the public wanting to apply for jobs if we don’t know how they can get opportunities that they rightly can do and they’re being blocked at the front door by this little sticker that says if you don’t have the university degree, don’t apply, if you don’t have the college diploma, don’t apply and in some cases, unfortunately, some people don’t have the high school, but they’ve got the 20-plus years’ experience.
I’m going to ask this question: How is the Minister going to fix this problem? Because we have a lot of good people and my experience, growing up in Fort Simpson, I can tell you some people just had to take paths that they didn’t necessarily like, but by golly they’re dedicated, hardworking and certainly capable and they’re being shut out because of these small things and we can make this happen. I’d like to ask the Minister how he’s going to solve this problem. Thank you.
Thank you. Again, I’m looking at case-by-case would be the way to resolve this issue. People have not come to me, individuals have not come to me and said that they had been working jobs, have 20-plus years’ related experience and then were not eligible to apply. I’ve had situations recently exactly as the Member spoke, an individual that said that they had 20 years’ experience, but they didn’t have a Grade 12 education that was a requirement. I encourage the person to apply for a job at any event. So, I don’t know that is an issue. I haven’t specifically heard that is an issue until today. If this is an issue, it’s an ongoing issue, it’s a big issue, then the Member can provide me specifics on it and I will go to the departments and try to find a solution to get those people to work. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement. It is obvious, and I mentioned it in my statement, that the government is not going to be able to meet the March 24th deadline date that they have for the court date and come forward to the judge with a solution, with an alternative solution to what’s been mandated by the court.
I’d like to know from the Minister at this point, knowing that negotiations are not happening either in Yellowknife or in Hay River, what’s next on the part of the department and the government? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of ECE, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Initially the department has had an exploratory discussion with the Hay River District Education Authority, the Yellowknife Education District No. 1 and also Commission scolaire francophone to determine whether or not alternatives to the court order could be found in both communities.
These are the discussions that we’ve been having with both communities and the government has a responsibility to work with its partners to ensure that school facilities are used in the most cost effective and efficient way. The discussions we’ve been having since September until this last couple weeks have come to a stop. We’ve heard from both Yellowknife and Hay River. The next step will be to present that to my Cabinet colleagues this coming Thursday and then go from there. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister for hearing that it’s going to go to Cabinet this week. I want to talk about the timing. The Minister stated in answer to my colleagues last week that there are two options, we can proceed or we cannot proceed. The amount of time that’s involved so far, it has already been two years since the court decision and it was quite some time before that that both parties were in court, so the Commission scolaire has been looking for this accommodation for a very long time.
I’d like to know from the Minister, if there’s going to be a discussion at Cabinet this Thursday, how much longer are we looking at before there’s going to be some movement on capital planning for these two schools?
As I stated earlier, Hay River Commission and the YK No. 1 have all stated no to the school swap at this point, and I realize that YK No. 1 is still engaging, but March 24th has been a deadline because we still have to go through the appeal process and it is before us and that’s the next couple of weeks. What I’ll be presenting to the Cabinet colleagues will be what’s going to be happening for the next step, and it’s still to be seen. Those are the discussions that we need to have as a government. As part of the capital planning process, what should the next step be?
Thanks to the Minister. In the discussions with Cabinet, again, I want to try and get some sort of a timeline. Can the Minister give me any idea if Cabinet decides to go ahead and put these two schools into the capital planning process, when might we expect construction to start on one or both of these schools?
I can’t really speak to that at this point because we still have to make a decision to move forward on this particular subject. At the same time, there is an appeal process that’s happening as well. All those will come into play, but the specifics of the capital infrastructure, the discussion will be brought to the Cabinet colleagues and then we will let the Members know what will be the next phase of the approach.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, at this point I’m a little surprised the Minister couldn’t give a ballpark estimate of time that it would take to go from planning to actual start of construction, but there we are.
To date, the government has incurred costs in terms of the legal costs in terms of the court costs. The Commission scolaire has also incurred costs. From my perspective as a Member of the Assembly and trying to keep costs of the government down to a dull roar, I’d like to know from the Minister what kind of costs we have incurred to date. I know we are going to incur more costs because it sounds as though we’re going to go forward with further appeals.
I’d like to know from the Minister how much has it cost us to date to take this legal action to try and avoid expanding these two schools.
I did already commit that last week to Member Bouchard, so I’ll definitely provide that detailed information to the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
QUESTION 268-17(5):
GREENHOUSE GAS STRATEGY
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I’d like to note that our current Greenhouse Gas Strategy was released in 2011 and runs until 2015. According to the document, the GNWT is going to start work on a new Greenhouse Gas Strategy in 2014.
As we begin this work, could the Minister tell us how the success of the past plan will be evaluated?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been looking at the cost effectiveness of greenhouse gas reduction initiatives. We’re going to hit the targets we have set for ourselves. We will review those. We will look at all the work that’s been done in the intervening time, the development. We have an extensive amount of work looking at the cost effectiveness, and that will be one of the key determinants as we look at renewal.
Thanks to the Minister. I hope it will be more than that. Both the current Greenhouse Gas Strategy and the relatively new Energy Plan are focused almost entirely on the supply of electricity to our communities and a little bit on heating, yet they all start with graphs showing that our greenhouse gas emissions primarily come from transportation and industry.
How can we claim that our strategy was successful when it did not even address the problem?
When we look at the areas that were targeted, it was successful. The Member is correct; the area of transportation is a big area that has to be addressed and it is a source of major greenhouse gas emissions.
Indeed, transportation is one. The other one I said was industry, which is probably even bigger, and we all know there are flares happening right now in the Sahtu. Perhaps the Minister could tell us what emissions are coming out of those flares.
As of the 1st of April, the GNWT will have new authorities under devolution. This should give us some new tools to deal with greenhouse gases in these sectors that we typically ignore right now.
Will the next Greenhouse Gas Strategy include actions based on our new toolbox? For example, will we be looking at regulating emissions from industry using water licences or air emissions permits?
As the Member talked about flares, he didn’t touch on the success of the Diavik wind farm, which is a major industrial achievement in terms of hitting our targets. In terms of the question that the Member asked with our new authorities and the new toolbox that, yes, as we move forward we’re going to be looking at our new world post-devolution and what opportunities do we have, what areas do we need to look at that we haven’t considered in the past for authority reasons or because we were not in a position to before, so on a go-forward basis, yes.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Good to hear that. The previous Greenhouse Gas Strategy massively overestimated the level of industrial development that would take place in the NWT and now, of course, the Minister claims the lack of development is a success in reducing missions. How to preplan success.
Will the next Greenhouse Gas Strategy take a more rigorous approach and list the emissions reductions that we aim to achieve from each action in the strategy?
The Member, once again, sort of underestimates and doesn’t recognize the significant investment that Diavik did make and it was very important in terms of achieving targets. We will continue to try to aim high. We could aim low and promise low and over-deliver, but we’ll have that discussion with the committee on a go-forward basis as we look at renewal of the Greenhouse Gas Strategy.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of ITI. About eight years ago I decided that I’d like to take a hike on the Canol Trail. At that time, Premier Joe Handley wanted to come along. Basically, the idea was to take some youth out because looking at the situation of our youth and that it might be a good opportunity to talk about the youth, give them some experience about being out on the land and talking with some of the older people and the leaders and what they want to do in life. Over the past eight years this hike has become an annual event.
Given that we know more than the past eight years that we’ve been on the trail, the Sahtu Park Development Committee made some strong recommendations, I want to ask the Minister, what is the department doing in respect to the Sahtu Park recommendations in regard to making some infrastructure improvements on the hiking trail of the Canol?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All the government can do and the department can do today is continue to work with the Sahtu Secretariat and the federal government in ensuring that eventually that park is developed. There are some concerns, of course, from a health and safety perspective with some of the sites that need to be remediated along that route. Also, Mr. Speaker, the federal government wants to retain control over that entire 222-mile trail. So they have a plan to remediate and they also have a plan to monitor after remediating. Our intention is that that land will eventually be transferred to the Government of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
For the last 10 years, I’ve been getting tips, reports, as to the transfer of the Canol Heritage Trail, the sites and reports from the federal government. Our government has been hesitant and reluctant to take over full ownership until all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed on this issue. With regard to the park they built, there are some areas that are not contaminated. Some areas are pretty well as natural as can be since the creation of this world.
Are there things in the plan that would help the young people as to what we can do to improve the safety of the hiking trail for other hikers that do go on the trail?
Capital money for parks is scarce. We just had over $2 million for small capital projects at our parks across the Northwest Territories. Last year we had $50,000 for Doi T’oh and also this year we’re looking at a further investment of $150,000. We’re looking at a cable crossing at Twitya River. That is a treacherous river crossing, as the Member knows. So we’re looking at putting that investment into the area as well.
We need to find further investments as we move along and get that land transferred so we can continue to look at positive developments at that park. Thank you.
The youth that we had out there, about ages 14 to 20 years old from different regions, came to the Canol and we had private sponsors. Certainly, we appreciated the sponsors from this government to take the youth. I wanted to ask the Minister, would there be an opportunity for the young people… From the report I have, some of the recommendations for them to be on the trail for 25 miles, 70 miles, 50 miles, they saw a lot out there.
Can this department sit down with the youth and ask what they’ve learned, take their recommendations and where can we put some emergency shelters, some infrastructure, so we can make the hike more enjoyable yet challenging?
It’s in our best interest to utilize the information. I know the Member has been out there many years with the youth from the Northwest Territories walking the Canol Trial. It is very useful information that he has and the youth who have that have traversed the trail over the years. If there is an opportunity to sit down with the most recent participants on the Canol hike from last summer or this coming summer and look at areas where they believe we could put some infrastructure, we could make the park better for people who are travelling in the park, that’s certainly an area where our staff have a hard time getting out to, so any input the hikers and the Member can provide the department with is certainly in our best interest.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
