Statements in Debates
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...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Finance.
Please list all examples for the last 10 years in the departments of Municipal and Community Affairs, Public Works and Services, and Transportation where approved human resources dollars, typically listed under the main estimates category “Compensation and Benefits,” appropriated by the Legislature of the day, where money or monies have been transferred from the intended human resources activity to an operations project, program, service or any other activity for which these funds were not originally approved nor intended.
Fur...
The department agencies can manage their vacancies and variances by meeting their goals, delivering their programs and services while staying within their budgets. So, what that’s saying is departments can manage their money by turning around and moving human resource money over to program money. I can tell you, the Finance Minister has witnessed a claim made by senior management where they’ve chosen to use HR money for program needs.
What is the Finance Minister going to do, after I’ve just heard his last response from the last question when he sat and heard the proof, because he was there...
Mr. Speaker, this Legislature approves money to be directed specifically to human resources. In other words, we dedicate money specifically for jobs. The Northwest Territories as of December 31st, had an unemployment rate of 8.2 percent. We’ve heard that deputy ministers will move money that is intended for human resources over to projects because they want to fulfil their mandate within their department. My view is they are actually breaking direction laid out by the Legislature. In essence, it’s tantamount, in my view, of breaking the law.
My question to the Minister of Finance is: Will he...
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.
---Carried
Most likely, maybe, who knows, we’re not sure and when would it happen.
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 very much, Mr. Speaker. I would like to continue asking questions regarding the vacant positions with the Minister of Human Resources.
The Minister should know I’m not asking him to account for whether it’s the Department of Justice or Education or Finance or those things. I’m asking him from his policy position as Minister and steward of Human Resources.
The Minister just confirmed that some positions have been deliberately left vacant and I’ve been told by some people in the bureaucracy, even as of today, that some positions’ money is being left vacant, and that money is being left...
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...