Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I was raising the issue of some of these ghost Northerners, or sometimes even commonly called paper Northerners, who get these northern jobs, and as soon as they get them, they move south, but the mining industry will put them on their socio-economic agreements and tick them off in the “have you hired or do you have a Northerner working for you” and they tick off yes.
The issue is, simply, this: How do the mines account and, furthermore, validate that these are a true northern workforce, and how do they officially report this to the GNWT to ensure the information they are reporting is valid and honest? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The three mines were before the Member’s committee last fall. I mentioned to the Member earlier this week that I would be more than happy to set up a meeting between him and his committee, myself and the three mines. We can go over any questions the Member or his committee has. Those questions can be raised and answered by the mining companies. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am simply asking the question how does the government monitor, manage and validate the numbers presented as what we define as a northern working force. In the socio-economic agreements, it is a very specific description that says the mines must live up to a certain amount of workforce. That said, is the government taking it on blind faith or do they validate this? If they validate this, how do they report it? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it is monitored. It is reported and tabled in this House. As to how they validate the numbers, I’d have to go back to the department and try to get a better understanding of exactly how they monitor and whether or not they follow each and every employee away from work and find out where they go and whether or not they have a NWT driver’s licence or health care card. That I’m not 100 percent sure of, but I will find out. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate if the Minister would stop saying they go to my committee. It’s the Assembly’s committee, first of all. Second of all, I think this is an issue that the Minister should be concerned about, not just some of the committee members.
What can the Minister do under the context of monitoring in the sense of do we have a definition of what a Northerner is? We don’t know if these people have health care cards, whether they have a post office box or even if they file their taxes here in the Northwest Territories, so we must have some rules to govern this by rather than just wading into this and saying, how do you validate this. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we do have to work together. I mentioned this, again, in response to some earlier questions on the same matter. We have to continue the dialogue with industry. We have to continue the dialogue with Members. I think instead of just complaining about it, offering up solutions on what could happen, and that is going to happen by that dialogue continuing.
There are reasons that I work with the Minister of Health and Social Services, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. It is a much bigger issue than mines not hitting employment targets. There’s a lot of underlying issues here that we have to work on collectively.
Again, I know it’s a committee of this House. The mines were in front of that committee late last year. I’d like to get them back in front of that committee at the earliest opportunity so that we can come forward with recommendations and suggestions on how we can improve things and do things better. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, my job is to… One of the things is to compliment good work, but at the same time, my job is to point out problems in the system and provide solutions, which I keep providing them but they seem to fall on deaf ears.
So here is one more – and I’m not saying just this Minister; I’m saying many Ministers – would this Minister consider the option of taking a third-party monitoring system by appointing someone to review these so-called Northerners, because he may find that some comply perfectly, which should be supported, and some don’t comply at all. We should be celebrating the good work and certainly pointing out the bad work. Would the Minister be willing to consider a third-party monitoring service to ensure we get the facts on the table? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I know that the mines do pay a northern allowance to employees, and certainly they would do the due diligence on their own employees to recognize whether or not they’re entitled to a northern allowance by where they live. So that would happen. As to whether or not we get in a third party, no, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
