Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Christmas approached a few months ago, I began to see ads in the newspaper advising Northerners about upcoming GNWT office closures, and I was struck by the contradiction in an ad from Education, Culture and Employment which gave notice of a two-week closure of all offices right beside a slogan proclaiming ECE helps you go places. Hopefully, ECE does that, but certainly not for the two weeks at the end of December and the beginning of January each year.
The motto of the strategic plan for the Department of Human Resources is: public service, public focus. I fail to understand how the government can call itself a public service and then remove that service for a protracted period of time. We’ve had Donnie Days since 1996, and although people have become used to the lack of service at Christmastime, it’s a most difficult time for residents who in an emergency need some GNWT help.
It’s time that we, as a government, review this shutdown situation. If we really want to provide the services to our residents as we profess to do, we must evaluate the value of closing such things as service centres, income support offices, student financial assistance offices. Listen to the names: service, support, assistance. We are definitely not providing any of that with our two-week Christmas break shutdowns.
I’ve worked in the retail service industry for almost 20 years and admittedly things slow down over Christmas and New Year’s, but life does not stop. The problems and the emergencies do not stop happening just because it’s Christmas. What are our residents supposed to do when they need help on December 23rd and no GNWT office is open? Who can they turn to? NWT programs and services are supposed to make life easier for our residents. Two-week-long closures are not a way to provide that help.
It’s time to review the impact of these GNWT Christmas closures. It’s time to consider the importance of service to our residents by the government. It’s time to look at keeping some offices open during the Christmas holidays. We don’t need to fully staff those offices, and I’m not asking for offices to be open on stat holidays, but we should have service-based programs available to our residents at any time of the year.
Current and previous Ministers of HR have often told us that the Department of Human Resources prides itself on its service to its customers, but does that same pride of service, that same culture of service exist in policy and overall government thinking? At a time when we are celebrating 60 years of public service by our Queen, when we’ve just awarded 11 Northerners the Queen’s Jubilee Medal for public service, it is ironic that our government has to be reminded of their duty to provide service for its residents. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
