Debates of March 10, 2009 (day 26)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my statement, I talked about a number of policies. I have some questions in regards to the comments in my statement for the Minister of Human Resources. My first question would be to know what policies exist that apply to employees within the GNWT public service. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a code of conduct for employees respecting conflict of interest. We also have an oath of secrecy for employees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Minister and those are the ones that I was aware of as well. By the way, both of those policies are quite valid and they should be there. I think they are important. Relative to some of the comments that I made in my statement that employees are required to report activities to their supervisors, could the Minister advise us whether or not there is an established practice or procedure to request activities outside of an employee’s work environment from the employee? Thank you.

The code of conduct that I referred to outlines responsibilities of employees as to how to prevent themselves from getting into conflict of interest situations and the reporting requirements I am not aware of any reporting requirements for the examples that the Member used in her Member’s statement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Minister. I totally agree that if any employee is involved in an activity that could put them in a conflict or could leave them in a situation where they have access to confidential information, that should not be shared publicly. So I fully agree with the policies that are there, but is the Minister aware -- if he doesn’t know of a practice or procedure -- of instructions that are given to managers, deputy ministers, directors, or senior managers to find out from their employees what activities they are involved in?

I’m not aware of any specific directions that are given to deputy ministers or senior managers other than I know that most employees take it upon themselves to report to their supervisors if they are involved in any organizations and so on, just to be on the safe side, I presume.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I guess that sounds to me as though employees of their own free will are providing this information. That’s not the impression that I was given when I got this information. I would like to ask the Minister if he would be willing to look into this situation and to determine whether or not there are managers who are asking for this information as opposed to taking it from the employee when they offer it of their own free will.

Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I’ll endeavour to do that. Certainly we don’t want employees reporting on things that we have no interest or no need to be involved with.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.