Debates of October 13, 2004 (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, further to my Member’s statement earlier today, my question goes to the Minister responsible for FMBS, the Honourable Floyd Roland. Could the Minister tell this House what measures he’s taken to accommodate the extra work that’s been necessary to go through the files of all the correctional officers and the extra files that would have gone to that office from the health care professionals who have had their jobs re-evaluated over the last few months? I would like to know what extra measures he’s taken as the Minister to accommodate this task. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Minister responsible for FMBS, Mr. Roland.

Return To Question 205-15(3): Calculating Retroactive Pay For Employees

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in Ms. Lee’s Member’s statement, she hit all the points that are very accurate in the fact that we have a very heavy workload for the individuals in the payroll office. As the Premier stated earlier, as a government, we’ve decided to live within our means and tried to do what we can with what is available. Unfortunately, on this side of the equation, we are not considered frontline workers, so when the government looks at reduction scenarios, it’s that end of the boat that ends up taking a fair bit of the brunt of any reduction scenarios of past governments. We haven’t added any new positions.

Over the past summer, unfortunately we had a number of months -- approximately four months -- where we were understaffed in that area and trying to complete the workload. We are back on track. It is still taking some time, as the Member noted, and we are continuing to work with the staff and trying to get back up to speed with that. I would like to point out that there are a total of 39 retroactive payments on the Justice side. We have 13 remaining and hopefully those will be concluded by mid-December.

On the health care side, there were 226 retroactive payments. Hopefully by the end of November, we will be concluded; there are about 12 left of those. So we have been doing our job, as slow as it has been – and we have to apologize for that – but we just don’t have all the resources to put extra staff in place. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your first supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I suppose in my statement I laid out the problem and the answers. The reason I did that is for regular people with common sense, it’s really hard to believe that a government that runs a billion dollar budget, that were given the money to pay for these retroactive payments, that they could not find any resources within to accommodate this extra task and to say that it was a budget-cutting measure or that it’s a lack of money. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Maybe it speaks to a lack of an efficient computer system. What kind of payroll system do we have? We have millions of dollars going through the payroll system, and a person has to actually go file by file, page by page, to look at all the hours of work. This really speaks to a non-functioning system.

Mr. Speaker, in my private conversations with him, I have asked…

Ms. Lee, do you have a question?

Supplementary To Question 205-13(5): Calculating Retroactive Pay For Employees

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is one I asked before to the Minister and one that he said he would consider. He said he would consider giving interest for the money that he’s been keeping that belongs rightly to these people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Further Return To Question 205-15(3): Calculating Retroactive Pay For Employees

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First let me say, for the record, I have not been keeping money from the employees myself. We have been working to try to correct the situation. Mr. Speaker, an example of what has to be done on a lot of occasions, especially on the Justice side, because there are so many shift changes, acting appointments and so on, that in one employee’s case, there could be 200 transactions that have to be looked at and adjustments made going back to the point of the change. One case could take 200 different transactions to come up with the final number that needs to be paid out. On the specific question of the interest, we have looked at that and the Financial Administration Manual does not allow for us to pay interest, so we have not gone in that direction. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Supplementary To Question 205-15(3): Calculating Retroactive Pay For Employees

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can I ask why this cannot be done? We have over 2,000 or 3,000 employees and we have a computer system. This is the year 2004. We have approved a lot of money for computer systems. Why does this have to be gone through manually? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lee. Ms. Roland.

Further Return To Question 205-15(3): Calculating Retroactive Pay For Employees

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been upgrading our computer systems and we continue to do so. One of the problems we find is we are still pulling back departments into an area where we can use the same platforms, as they say, in the computer world and have systems talk to each other. Still, the fact remains that even though it’s in the system, when a retroactive agreement is reached we have to go back in the file. Depending on the timeline that’s involved and how many changes the position has taken, whether it’s acting, a new pay level or up to a new pay range, there are many factors that have to go into it such as overtime, acting pay and casual pay. We have to look at all those things and make those adjustments to the point of the date the agreement was reached. We have been doing our work. It’s been slow. We have been understaffed over the summer. My understanding is we are back up to staffing levels. We had to hire more people and we’ve done that, but that is within the existing arrangements we’ve had and resources we had. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Supplementary To Question 205-15(3): Calculating Retroactive Pay For Employees

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister indicated that there was a total of 30-some employees who were entitled to retroactive pay. My information is that there were 52 correctional officers, but no matter what number you look at, it’s really quite unbelievable that it takes a whole year to go through 52 files. I want the Minister to answer the question that he hasn’t answered yet, and that is whether or not he will pay the interest for those who haven’t gotten the money for a whole entire year by the end of December. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Further Return To Question 205-15(3): Calculating Retroactive Pay For Employees

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe I did answer that. When the Member asked this of me, I did commit to looking into it. We have looked into it and under the Financial Administration Manual, section 803-4(3.1), there is no provision for interest to be accrued and paid out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Question 206-15(3): Driver's Licence Renewal Process

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is to the Minister of Transportation, following up on my earlier Member’s statement with regard to people under hardship and duress due to the lengthy process about getting renewals for drivers’ licences. Would the Minister be willing to reconsider implementing the notices for renewal for peoples’ drivers’ licences? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Transportation, the Honourable Mr. McLeod.

Return To Question 206-15(3): Driver's Licence Renewal Process

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last session Mr. Hawkins raised concern around the security of the driver's licence and I’m happy to say that in the last while, we’ve had a lot of discussion with the national organizations regarding the security of drivers’ licences and how we can move forward with incorporating a licence that would be used across different jurisdictions. We are anticipating doing that over this coming year. At that time, we certainly looked at a number of different things: the cost it would take to incorporate this into our system, the equipment that we’d need here in the Territories. So while we are doing that I would gladly direct our staff to take a look at providing notices once again if that’s something that is feasible for us or something that we can accommodate. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Supplementary To Question 206-15(3): Driver's Licence Renewal Process

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me a warm feeling that the Minister wishes to be so accommodating by looking into that, so I would thank him. Mr. Speaker, recognizing the difficult hardship and the fact that some of my constituents, as well as constituents of all of us, have to take sometimes up to a month to get renewal if they happen to forget to renew their licence in the proper time, would the Minister be able to give me his firm assurance today he will direct his department to put people ahead who have to go through the full process again and receive ultimate priority in getting their licensing back because of the disruption to their life? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Further Return To Question 206-15(3): Driver's Licence Renewal Process

Mr. Speaker, we would be happy to work with the people that have to renew their licences. We have to recognize we only have so much we can do in terms of accepting and moving people forward. There has to be some responsibility taken by the people who have a driver's licence and the people that have to renew them. So there is a very clear process on how and when you should renew your licence and people have to take responsibility. However, we can try to accommodate as we usually do with people that have to go through the process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Supplementary To Question 206-15(3): Driver's Licence Renewal Process

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Minister could elaborate on possibly trying to accommodate, recognizing that there are single parents out there who still have to deliver children to school and pick up groceries. As I pointed out earlier, we still have people out there who do drive for a living. So maybe if the Minister could let me know on how he plans to look into this problem by trying to accommodate as I have mentioned. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Further Return To Question 206-15(3): Driver's Licence Renewal Process

Mr. Speaker, I’m not making any commitment for special accommodations here. We have a process and if we can in any way be more accommodating with those recommendations by the Member, we would certainly be willing to make that, but we are not looking at incorporating anything special for people that forgot to renew their licence at this point. Thank you.