Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is part of the reallocation of the marketing communications budget from strategic human resources, so the contract services went up to 212 as the Minister indicated, and then we had internal re-allocations for the purchased services budget to move up into the contract services as well. The answer is both. It is part of historical expenditures, as well as re-aligning some of the funding to re-allocate those services into an area management recruitment services from strategic human resources. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Simpson. Mr. Thompson?
We're good.
Okay, Next we have Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want to just dig a little deeper into the appeal process. I recognize that the appeal process is appealing procedural errors, but many of the people that actually launch the appeal thing to appeal process is something else, sometimes like perhaps maybe feeling that they weren't being treated fairly or that there is a bias in the process because the individual that just happens to be the casual that comes out to be the best candidate for the job most times which is kind of indicating to us that maybe if you get your foot in the door and you learn a little bit about the job you can probably beat everybody else in the job. When there's an appeal requested and individuals launch an appeal the officer looks at only the procedure. Usually after this many competitions the government's not making procedural errors, so most times the decision is upheld and individuals lose the appeal. I want to know if there's going to be any system in place moving forward that looks at things other than just the appeal process, I mean, sorry, just the procedural process.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the appeal process is fairly strict and I mean fairly thorough as the Member's indicating and it is based on procedure. I think the Member's talking about something else and I don’t believe at this time we're putting any mechanisms to have that discussion. However, having said that, I'm a strong advocate and I'm encouraging the Members to have their constituents who approach them who have concerns about, you know, their inability to get a job with the Government of Northwest Territories to get in touch with some of the individual client service managers that exist within the Department of Human Resources. These individuals are prepared and ready and willing and able to give advice on interviews and how the interview process works and the Government of the Northwest Territories helps them understand the types of things that they might want to do to be prepared. They are also available to give some advice and guidance on resume writing, on the types of things that they'll be looking for during the competitions, the staffing officers and the hiring departments were looking for in resumes so that people can be better prepared. Our client service team and managers are happy to meet with people and give that advice. We want to work with Northerners to employ as many, but as far as the appeal process it is a procedural review.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman. I recognize that that is the role of the appeal officers to look at potential procedural errors. What I'm asking is, is there anything aside from procedural errors that makes the appeal process almost redundant? If you're only looking at procedural errors and you're not looking at anything outside of that, this appeal process is… You know, as the Minister indicated we may be the only jurisdiction to have that type of process because it's probably not effective because it looks at just procedures. What I want to know is are there any potential or future plans to look at an individual that applies for a job that appears to be a Priority 1 candidate that appears to have all of the qualifications that are laid out in the job ad, and then the individual puts their name in and they lose the job, so they appeal it and they said procedurally everything was fine. But they're not looking at the fact that maybe he was the most qualified person for the job but yet was not considered. That's what I'm asking is there anything outside of just this procedural appeal that could give people an opportunity that should have been getting jobs to get those jobs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, if a P1 candidate applies for the job and is the most qualified and isn't offered the job, it would have to be based on something, either procedural error or the person did not pass a component of the competition. The person would have the appeal rights if they failed the competition or failed the interview. I am not sure what the Member is getting at. We want to be fair. We want to be open. We want to be transparent. We are encouraging people to be ready. We are happy to help them be ready. When it comes to a competition, every individual still has to meet the qualifications, pass the interview, and in turn be offered the job. I am not sure exactly what the Member is getting at. If the Member could maybe be a little bit more clear and help me understand that, it would be great.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.
What I am saying is a qualified Priority 1 candidate goes to interview and does fail the interview, it has nothing to do with the procedure of it, went through all of the procedure, but the individual is feeling that whether it was the written assignment that, according to the individual, was not given a fair assessment on the written assignment, or that during the interview the individual was not considered to be a good candidate by the people doing the interview and got a failing grade. A person that doesn't have a priority status wins the job over the person. The person is feeling that that is what the issue is. It has nothing to do with procedures. Where could that individual go to launch any sort of appeal?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I think I have a better understanding. I think the Member might be talking about systemic barriers or other things that may exist within the system and how we work to address that. We do have an Affirmative Action Policy that all departments are bound to utilize and apply. We do have the appeal process where an individual, if an error in process has occurred, they can appeal. I would suggest that if the Member is aware of situations where somebody is claiming that they were not given the credit that they deserve because they are P1, that is a discussion that I would like to have with the Member. If he has some individuals that he can identify, I would certainly be willing to have that conversation with him.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.
Rather than bringing it up for a political sense and discussing it with the Minister, there is nothing in place, then, to ensure that Priority 1 candidates applying for jobs, who are qualified, are given every opportunity into getting a job. Right now, as I understand it, whether you are a qualified Priority 1 candidate or not, you go through the steps that... I cannot talk about specific cases here, but I will talk directly to the Minister about the specific cases. If a Priority 1 individual is going to apply for a job where there is actually an individual filling that position as a casual, that is not a Priority 1 candidate, often that person gets the job. I don't want to start drawing upon the numbers of times I have had that happen with me since I became an MLA nine years ago. What I am saying is, is there any way of protecting or is there anything in the system that will allow a Priority 1 candidate to be given preference because this is what this is about. Affirmative action is about preferential hiring. Is there any way that this type of appeal process would pick up anything that the candidates coming forward feel is unfair treatment, not necessarily procedural error treatment, but unfair treatment, or not, given the full opportunity to present themselves as a good candidate for this job? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. I am going to recognize a reply to that, and the ten minutes is up. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair there are a couple of things I would like to talk to. There is the allegation that some departments are utilizing casuals. I may be not paraphrasing this exactly right. If I don't nail it, I apologize. It sounds like the Member is suggesting that casual hires are being used to train individuals who then get jobs, as opposed to the other candidates who might be applying, which may not be fair. I have heard similar things. It is anecdotal.
What I will commit to do is have the department do a bit of a review over the past year or two. Going back further than that might be difficult, identifying how many casuals in turn ended up directly in positions, through the competition process, that they had been occupying as casual. That will start giving us some numbers and start maybe taking this from anecdote to reality, at which point we can have a more fulsome discussion. I apologize if I missed it, but I think what the Member is talking about to some degree is about some of the systemic barriers that may exist within our system. Individuals may in fact meet the criteria on paper, but they may then result in not passing a competition, not passing a written assignment, not passing the oral portion of an interview. It may be based on systemic barriers. We are currently reviewing job descriptions and how we write job descriptions to try to remove some of the systemic barriers that have been inadvertently placed within our job descriptions to make them a little bit easier to understand and assess. The catch is interviews are based on what is in job descriptions. If we start removing some of those barriers that we put in, it should make it more competitive and fair for individuals who are applying on jobs who might have language barriers or other challenges they are being faced with.
We are also constantly looking for ways to improve our interview process to recognize some of these systemic barriers, language being one of them, that sometimes can be an impediment to passing an interview. As a territory that supports eleven official languages, that is not something that we want to accept or tolerate. We are looking for ways to improve our interview process. At the end of the day, individuals have to be assessed on something. The resumes that are submitted are just one tool. They have to be interviewed. They have to, in some cases, do written assignments. People do have to pass it. If they are not passing, we need to understand why. We are trying to break down some of those systemic barriers that we may have inadvertently created over time. As far as the appeal process, it also has to be based on something. It can't be based on opinion. It has to be based on something that is structured, which is why the appeal process itself is based on procedures. I am happy to work with committee to try to find ways to break down some of these systemic barriers we may have inadvertently created. I am not sure that an opinion portion of an appeal mechanism makes any sense as far as the structure.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Questions? Seeing none. Human Resources, management and recruitment services, operations expenditure summary, activity total, $4,734,000.
Agreed.
Agreed. Moving on. Page 219. Human Resources, management and recruitment services, active positions, information item. Any questions? Seeing none.
Agreed.
Agreed. Page 221. Human Resources, regional operations, operations expenditure summary, activity total, $3,799,000. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just five or six agreeable questions. The first one is when we talk about human resources planning. Has the government looked at talking about summer employment? I realize each department has priority or has to make the decision. But can the Minister please provide a commitment or a working tool so that it becomes part of our mandate or our policy that we will look at employing summer students and that we have a goal in each department and every department is given a goal so that they can fulfil that mandate so that we see summer students come back so that we show that we care about them and that we want them to continue on to get educated and come back north. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Department of Human Resources helps facilitate summer student hires. Ultimately, the hire of any summer student is the responsibility of the individual departments, as the Member has indicated. To help facilitate the hires so that the departments know who the students are, know where they are, know what types of skills they have, the Department of Human Resources does facilitate the application of our summer students into the summer student employment program. This is where all students can come and be registered. As of June 2nd, we have 562 students registered and 217 students hired, which is a little down from where we were in previous years. The department also does provide a couple of different programs. One of them is the progressive experience program. One of them is the related experience program, which does provide a little bit of financial assistance to the departments to actually do some of the summer student hiring to help them offset the cost. Departments are not funded for summer students. In order to hire summer students, they have to rely on some of the money that they may have in the budgets or as a result of vacancies or other things that are happening. Their ability to hire is limited by budgets and whether or not they have some vacancies over time that can actually help them carry some of the students. A number of months ago, I had a conversation with the Premier, who indicated that he would like the departments to at least meet the types of targets they had last year. On his behalf, I did send out an e-mail to the Ministers and the departments encouraging them to meet the numbers that we attained last year. Yes, we are still a little down, but hiring isn't over. Earlier today, the Premier sent a follow-up letter to all of the Ministers and the departments encouraging them to meet their targets in recognition that we are a little bit behind. Cabinet is aware. Cabinet is pushing the departments to hire. The departments have to make the decisions based on what they actually have available as far as money. We provide a little bit of money through those two programs, and we have a complete database of all students who are available. If they are looking for students, and they say I want students with this type of skill, we will send them the resumes based on affirmative action of individuals who meet those particular skill sets.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for the well thought out and well-planned answer. All that information, I am well aware of. I understand the progressive funding out there and the department does a really good job. However, I would really, really love to see this government work, and you take the lead, that the other departments actually have a number in place, and we have the money put aside so that we can hire our summer students so when they come back, they are guaranteed work, so they can continue to go on to school. I understand that through ECE, we have an increase in funding for their tuition and that. It still costs a lot of money to go to school. I am hoping that this department can take the lead and come up with a mandate, working with the Premier, because the Premier is excited about this. I know in the past I have had other Premiers stand in this House and make it a mandate that you will hire students. I am asking the government, you as the lead department, to take this on your own or take the lead on it and work with the departments to earmark money in the budgets so that we can hire summer students. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Mr. Chair, once again, we have a significant number of students who apply. Last year, we had 612 students apply, and we were able to hire 341 of them by the end of what is considered the summer students hire period. We are committed to hiring as many as we can. We do have money. There is money. It is not all coming from the departments through their vacancies. Through the progressive experience program, we have enough money to fund up to 80 positions. This is exactly what the Member is talking about. Through the progressive experience program, we bring back the same individuals who do the same jobs on a regular basis in order to build upon their education and continue to consolidate learning in a particular area. We have enough funding for 80 positions. To all the departments, funding provides a wage subsidy of $330 a week per place of employment to a maximum of $5,000 per student a year. The departments do have to come up with the additional money. The related experience is a little more focused. It is actually focused on 24 placements for Health and Social Services authorities to provide a wage subsidy of $525 per week for placement to a maximum of $8,400 or 600 hours. This is mostly for individuals that are pursuing health careers. The intent there is also to bring back the individuals throughout their education, so they have an opportunity to consolidate learning for their education. We are putting a good pot of money into supporting the departments already. On top of that, the departments do fund the remainder through their internal budgets. There isn't a pot of money just for hiring summer students outside of progressive or related experience programming. If the committee members feel this is something we need to invest in, this is a discussion we need to have as an Assembly as to whether or not putting dollars in there is something that we should be doing or whether we should continue just trying to utilize the programs that exist. I am sure that Cabinet is listening. I am listening. Happy to have the conversation if this is a priority of the Legislature.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am aware of my time here, so I will try to be succinct with my comments. Great job with the 80 with the progressive experience. Even a better job with the 24 with related experience, which is in the health care system, which is great. Well done. But we are missing other fields, and we are missing this opportunity. I am not talking about all students coming back north. I am talking about our P1s, and our P2s, which are our priorities as government. That is what we should be looking at doing. I am hoping that we can hear something from you guys that we can talk about it. I am hoping Cabinet listens and hears and the Premier hears the message so that we can get this done. You have shown a lot of leadership, and I applaud you for that. We are talking 104 positions, which is important. We are still short, and I am trying to see that the government looks at our youth, which is our future. We want these people back here. If we don't make the incentive to bring them back… I know that ECE has done some stuff, which I applaud them for that, but we want to get our youth back here. Waiting to get them back here is to respect them and give them the employment and show them that they have done well going to school. I am hoping that you can do that. Can you provide us with a breakdown of the communities, number of jobs that are there? I know you have made that are available in the past. Can we get that information to committee? I think you say you do that every Monday, but can we get those things to us broke down into our communities as well? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister, I am going to allow a reply. The ten minutes is up.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I have committed to getting those numbers. I can certainly have it provided by communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Sometimes the numbers are one or two, so we want to be cautious about confidentiality, but we will get those numbers to you: as of June 2nd, 562 applications, 217 hires. There are still some offers out there that aren't fully counted in that. I do hear the Member. I know the Ministers hear the Member. We have to think about magnitude here. There has to be work too. There has to be meaningful work for these summer students to do. Hiring summer students and not having them do anything that is going to help them develop a skill set or help them build their resumes is not particularly helpful. The GNWT is not the only employer out there. We have lots of students coming back. We will certainly do our best to hire as many as we can. There are some questions. I have heard a lot of individuals say we are paying some of these summer students incredible sums of money. We are paying them based on the collective agreement that we have negotiated with the UNW base and the work that we are having them perform, there has been a lot of discussions about those types of thing, whether we should create a category of summer students and have them do temp-type work or random-type work. But those would need to be defined and evaluated and compensated. All of these things do come with a price tag. Every one of these things comes with a price tag. Happy to have further discussion on this. Happy to hear what the Members have to say. But as a caution, there are other employers. We only have so much money. We are working hard to, at least, meet previous year's numbers, and we will continue to do so.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Recognizing Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, under this category I want to ask more questions about recruitments since this category includes recruitment. I am not going to request to go back to the previous category, but I do have an additional question on a Priority 1 candidate and the Affirmative Action Policy. Could the Minister advise me why it would be necessary to go beyond interviewing anyone else if you have Priority 1 candidates that are qualified for the jobs that they are applying for? Whether it be a Priority 1 candidate individual or whether there be several Priority 1 candidates, why would we interview anyone else at all? According to the Affirmative Action Policy, should we not just go to the qualified Priority 1 candidates and interview them first? Thank you.
Mr. Minister.
HON. GLEN ABERNETHY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, when a job ad is put out, the criteria is determined based on what is identified in the job description. I have already indicated we are going to be going through job descriptions trying to remove some of the systemic barriers. Should a P1 candidate apply, and meet the criteria outlined within the job description, they would be interviewed. If there were three P1s, they would be interviewed. If there were one P1 and one P2 and 40 P3s, we would interview the P1. If that person passed we wouldn't have to go any further. If that person did not pass the interview, then we would look at the P2. If that person did not pass the interview, then we would certainly be looking at P3s and other candidates. The Affirmative Action Policy is pretty clear that if there are P1 candidates who meet the criteria established within the job description, they would be interviewed. If there are 40 P1s who meet the criteria, we will try to identify the ones who have the highest ranking as far as meeting the criteria.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes. I had indicated in my question that it was qualified Priority 1 candidates. Just to get this very clear and on the record, the Minister is indicating that if Priority 1 candidates are qualified in accordance with the job description that is put out there, then they only interview the Priority 1 candidates in round one of interviews. We will call it round one of interviews. It may not go beyond that. Is that what I am hearing? That only Priority 1 candidates will be interviewed? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, if there was only one P1 candidate, we might actually look at a P2 or P3 as well. However, if the P1 passes, the P1 would be offered the job. That is to save time later should an individual not pass. The priority would still go to the Indigenous Aboriginal candidate who is screened in and passes.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you. Mr. Chairman, that is where we run into problems. If you have a qualified Priority 1 candidate, but there is only one, because for some reason the department makes a decision that it would not be appropriate to only interview one person, I wouldn't know what the problem would be, but if that is a decision made, as the Minister just indicated, there is a possibility of a Priority 1 or non-priority candidate who would be interviewed. And that is where the problem comes. With that scenario, then, if the Priority 1 candidate passes the interview but is way behind in the scoring against the other two persons, Priority 2 and Priority 3, in that incidence who would get hired?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Minister.
If the Indigenous Aboriginal candidate passes the interview, the offer would be made to the Indigenous Aboriginal candidate as long as he or she passes the interview.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have some questions on the summer student program. I am a firm believer in investing in our youth and investing in students. Students are out getting their education. We need to attract the person back. We need to treat that student with respect. When they come to the Government of Northwest Territories, we should do all we can to try to make positions available for the students. I would not advocate to create a budget for summer students because, under normal circumstances, I do understand that we have a certain amount of turnover in our system. If we are turning over nine per cent of the public service, as an example, we will say 400 people roughly, at that point in time in which it takes to recruit 400 people, there could be a two-month lapse, say hypothetically. We have 400 people changing over approximately two months. That creates quite a bit of a surplus in that area. That surplus is being used to hire summer students. This year, many summer students have been advised that, due to the budget reductions in the exercise that we are currently going through right now, they were not able to be hired because of this budget reduction. I received a call from the media asking me what I know about that as a former Minister of Human Resources, and my response was we are on a status quo budget. We have an internal supply right now from April 1st to June 30th. There should be no change in what is occurring this year than what has occurred last year. Departments are out there saying due to the budget reduction exercises we are unable to hire the summer students that we need to hire. That was my response. I don't know whatever happened with that. It was a question that was posed upon me. I would like to know if the exercise that we are going through right now has any impact on the hiring of summer students this year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through the Premier, I gave direction and guidance to the Ministers that the Premier would like to see us hire as many students as we did last year. We looked at the numbers. We are down from last year right now. As of June 2nd, we hired 217. Last year around this time, I think we were up to 260-something. We are certainly down from where we were last year. As a result, the Premier has sent a reminder letter to all the Ministers and the deputies today indicating that we have to get our numbers up. We are committed to getting to the same type of numbers that we had last year. I can't speak for the other departments. But I have given direction to both my deputies that I would like to meet and, if possible, exceed last year's number, but certainly meet. The Department of Human Resources is very close to meeting our numbers from last year. The Department of Health and Social Services is a little bit down, but we are looking and we are trying to find ways to hire as many students as we can. The Member is right. The departments do utilize some of their dollars through vacancies to help fund some of the casuals. If there are no vacancies, obviously it does make it difficult. But we know that we run, at any given time, around 400 vacancies. It is constantly changing positions. But it is a similar number, constantly changing positions. I don't know what some of the departments are saying to some of the summer students around the layoffs. If they are, I would suggest that that isn't consistent with the message that Cabinet is giving the deputies. As I said, the Premier has sent out an e-mail today indicating that he would like all the departments to at least meet last year's numbers. The summer is not over. We are still hiring. We are still looking to hire and we will continue to hire. We will work hard to reach last year's numbers.
