Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the need for public sector salary disclosure and this is not the first time I’ve raised this particular matter in the House. I’ve cited several provinces across this country that have databases or have even tabled public reports, a sample of course, an excerpt of a public report from Ontario that does this.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Human Resources what’s stopping him from publicly tabling a disclosure paper or document that demonstrates and clearly shows transparency of all salaries over $100,000 and more, and that would include, of course, public sector employees, boards, agencies, et cetera. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding at this time is that there’s a privacy rights issue for individuals not to have their names and exact salaries printed in a paper. GNWT salary grids including everybody that makes over $100,000, that would be the deputy senior management. All of those salary grids are on the Human Resources website right now. Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate that good attempt at an answer by the Minister, because he talked about privacy rights. I’d like to draw the public’s attention, and more specifically the Minister of Human Resources’ attention, to a document I found on Northern News Services website. It’s dated April 27, 1998, and it’s quoted as such that Premier Don Morin, oddly enough the old Member for Tu Nedhe, had succumbed to the pressure of Regular Members and tabled all salaries of these employees with their names attached to that.
So if we’ve done it in the past, what’s stopping us today from doing it going forward? Thank you.
Thank you. Likely the law is stopping us from doing it, but I can check with the Department of Human Resources and if there are no privacy laws that we are breaking to print people’s individual salaries, then I can discuss that further with the Members across. Like, probably go to the committee as opposed to just saying that I’m going to table people’s salaries here in the Legislative Assembly. Thank you.
I suspect that laws have evolved in such a manner that we can only use the black highlighter when we explain things. Quite often Members want information.
I’ve invested quite a bit of time in a document that’s a few pages and it’s potentially a private member’s bill. It’s called the Private Sector Salary Disclosure Act.
I’d like to know if the Minister of Human Resources would be interested in co-sponsoring this act me with so the public can finally have true accountability, which is happening across this country from Nova Scotia to B.C. Now it’s time the Northwest Territories joins the rest of Canada. Thank you.
Thank you. Likely I will not join in the sponsorship of that bill. It sounds like the majority of the jurisdictions are still not disclosing all of the individuals’ salaries publicly. Another thing is that the Territories has a very small population. I suppose when you’re dealing with millions of people, and people make the decision to print people’s salaries, most people don’t know who the specific people that have their salaries printed are. But in our jurisdiction I know that there are very few people and everybody knows everyone, and I don’t think that that would be something that would be appropriate. But I would still check legally. If we can do it legally, then like I said, we’ll work with committee to get something like this done.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s one of the few times we’ll ever say this, but apparently size doesn’t matter on this particular issue. In Vancouver, you just type a person’s name and it will give you the information.
As I tabled in this very House, I only tabled a small excerpt, but in Ontario they go very detailed, down to the name, the position and whatnot.
The last thing I’ll say is I’ve drafted a Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act. Would the Minister be interested in this particular project that I’ve been working on and would he see what he could do to get behind it? Thank you.
Thank you. The department and myself would be glad to review that bill. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
