Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about our employees. Our employees are our most valuable resource. In the budget address, the Minister talked about finding efficiencies and, quite frankly, I think one of the greatest ways to find some efficiencies is to work with our employees. Right now, as I indicated in my Member’s statement, you can go and find bookshelves throughout the government full of reports and analyses that were done by contractors that were managed by our employees. Our employees are smart, intelligent, hardworking, competent people who can do this work. I mean, how often do we see ex-employees of the GNWT getting contracts to do something that they could have done when they were an employee? So to the Minister: we’ve got an opportunity here to work with our employees, to empower them to create some of these efficiencies and get them to do the work. Could the Minister tell me what actions are being done to engage our employees, and move away from heaving so many darn contracts and empower our employees, who are quite competent, to do the work and allow them to do the work? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a number of things being done. For example, I know in some of the buildings, there are green teams being set up across the departments bringing together employees to look at ways to be more efficient, more environmentally friendly and look at savings just from the basic way we do business.
As well, I mean all of the departments, and I would not necessarily agree that we don’t take advantage of the skills and creativity of our employees. We also, I believe, do have some encouragement for that. We have money in the budget to look at trying to find ways to retain employees to make sure employees come back, if they go get trained; students do come back.
So the Member has indicated that we should look at ways, and I’ve been around the government now long enough that we have looked at ways in the past that haven’t worked that well. Maybe there is a time and the Member has direct suggestions about how we could move forward. I’d be happy to hear what those specific suggestions are. Thank you.
As I indicated, I believe our employees are our most valuable asset and, quite frankly, they are involved in the frontline day to day. They see our program delivery. They are involved in our program design, but unfortunately too often -- and this is a pet peeve of mine -- it’s totally easy to see when you look at that report of contracts over $5,000, which is about an inch and a half thick, and you see employees, or ex-employees of the GNWT who have gone away, started consulting businesses and we turn around and we consult with them, and we contract with them, and we contract with them to do things that they could have done when they were our employees, but we now have employees who have backfilled for them and we are not utilizing them other than to get them to manage contracts.
I acknowledge full off that we are using our employees as well, but what I’m suggesting to the Minister is he commit to look at the number of contracts that we’re making with ex-employees and contractors and reduce that and empower employees to do the work that they are more than competent and willing to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We, of course, want the same thing. I’ve seen that document and we are looking and we will continue to look, as I indicated in my budget address, at ways to be more efficient. The amount of contracts, of course, is one area that has a lot of discretion to it and we will be examining as we go forward as a way, that and other things, to try to control our costs. Thank you.
It sounds like we’re saying roughly the same thing, but I’d like to ask the Minister to commit to actually working with our employees and reduce the number of contracts that are being awarded for work that our staff are more than competent and qualified to do in-house. It will save us money. It will allow us to streamline money to where it can be most effective. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We will have to look very carefully, because the Member implies somehow the amount of work we do through contractors, which is a substantial amount of money, will be able to be picked up by employees who, by my own estimation, are fully engaged. It’s partially a reflection of the demand for things to get done as a government that we face in trying to respond to the very high level of expectation. I don’t disagree that there are probably opportunities to be more efficient in how we deal with contracts, and we’ll commit to working with the Members as well as the bureaucracy to see how we can be more efficient. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am wondering if the Minister could tell us whether he’s going to have an RFP out so someone can do a review of our contract use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We would, of course, see who of the existing staff has the skills and the time to try to accept this added burden that the Member would like us to take on. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
