Robert Hawkins

Northern job opportunities continue to be denied to the everyday Northerner. Hardworking Northerners want these opportunities, so again I’m saying this not because I am frustrated but I can tell you that they’re frustrated. They’re frustrated because they hear about this job fair in Ottawa, but they are saying to me, why didn’t they do the whistle stops all throughout the Northwest Territories first? Does it mean we can’t go to Ottawa to look for special skills, certain types of hard areas to hire? Absolutely not. It doesn’t mean that. We should show Northerners we care about them first. What...

The Minister said many. Many could be one or two, three or four, maybe even 100. We don’t know, because in my first question, of course, I asked exactly and the question was how much money is being allocated to these jobs. So right now all I can do is use my traditional math provided by the NWT Department of Education, I want to thank them for those 12 good years, not discovery math, which we’re not sitting here guessing.

My next question for the Minister is, if there was a snapshot using the ever famous program called PeopleSoft, as of October 31, 2013, what would that snapshot say of how many...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to continue with questions towards the Minister of Human Resources, and again it’s about the GNWT vacancies. So let’s start with what we know. We know that there are 571 jobs that the GNWT is actively pursuing, and we all know that there are possibly 100 or 200 other jobs that they’re not pursuing. We can only assume that when you consider and extrapolate the numbers the Finance Minister has used that could be anywhere from $10 million to $20 million.

So let’s start with this: How many jobs out there are not being actively filled and sometimes are defined as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to use today’s Member’s statement to once again return to the issue of position vacancies within the Northwest Territories government. One day later, in my view and in certainly the view of many others, is one day no further ahead. If this problem was an onion, we keep peeling it back and the one thing that is certain is that it just keeps getting stinkier.

The reality here is the fact that we just don’t know where these 800 jobs are and how they’re being filled, or in this case how we know they’re not being filled. Questions still need to be answered. Even...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister even knows departments use money for other things other than human resources. So, finally, I keep asking how much is being accounted for all these funded positions, who knows, up to 1,151 as noted by the Minister of Human Resources. How much money is being invested through our legislative process but spent in other allocations? We don’t know. Maybe the Minister can enlighten us. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister just said something really interesting, which is the departments can’t advertise all the positions all at once. That’s an interesting situation, because if you go to the career website, there’s barely 100 jobs there and the Minister just earlier said there is at least 1,150 jobs considered as a snapshot of vacancies. So there’s a variance of at least 1,000 jobs and we know that they are actively pursuing, although we can’t find it anywhere, 571 jobs.

So when I asked the question to the Minister – and I will ask it again – do we continue to fund these positions that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s a reason I keep saying traditional and discovery math and I’ll leave that up for the Cabinet to figure out. So we work with the number provided by the Minister, which is 1,150, we minus the 571 they call it actively pursuing jobs, we also minus the 161 jobs that the Minister says, well, they’re vacant or dormant, we don’t know what’s happening with them, that still leaves us 418 jobs on the table. We have 20 percent of our government unstaffed and certainly funded.

So where are those human resource dollars going? Who is spending them and who is providing the...

I want to thank the Minister for laying out a clear number in front of us. So let’s work with 161 jobs that are not being pursued, of course. So we’ve ignored for just a moment the 571 jobs that are being pursued. Knowing that we have 161 jobs and we use the typical math of about $100,000 per person, that could now put us into the range of about $16 million are out there somewhere just sitting.

Would the Minister agree that some positions are not being filled by departments and that money is being used for other things that the department has on their wish list other than being directed for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think both Minister Ramsay and Lafferty already introduced him, but I wanted to once again reaffirm a welcome to Minister Okalik. I’ve come to know him over the last number of years and certainly have a great respect for him. One thing that hadn’t been mentioned was he’s also, I believe, the first lawyer in Nunavut, if not close to the top, but he’s had such a distinguished career as a politician and we’re certainly glad by all means to see him return to the House in the Nunavut Assembly and I look forward to the good things he’ll continue to do. It’s a great honour...

Most likely, maybe, who knows, we’re not sure and when would it happen.