Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I talked about the hundreds of volunteers that are working in Hay River, and some of those volunteers are GNWT employees, so I have questions for the Minister of Human Resources about what leave is available to GNWT employees for volunteering for community events.
Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT has various leave for volunteer activities. Some of the leave is laid out in the Collective Agreement and in the Human Resource Manual. We have civic leave, where an individual employee of the GNWT can take up to 15 days to work with public boards, community councils and committees. There is other leave, as well, for something we refer to as sporting leave for people who are athletes, officially designated coaches, managers, head officials and so on, and GNWT allows up to eight days for that type of activity. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the next question I have is I understand this leave is something you probably have to apply for, but I’m wondering if we have any agreements or any leave in place for short-term demand or quick demands on volunteers, such as firefighters in the Northwest Territories. My colleague from Inuvik talked about his firefighters and department. In Hay River we have a strong firefighters group as well.
I’m just wondering: what agreement does a firefighter have to have with the GNWT to take immediate action when there’s a fire?
Mr. Speaker, as far as the training of the firefighters goes, for that aspect of it the GNWT will provide five days of leave. If a firefighter at work is called to a fire and needs to take leave for that day when they’re fighting a house fire, I think that is something that we don’t have specifically covered in our HR Manual, but it’s something I think that the GNWT, as the manager of that employee, allows an individual to go and fight a house fire if they’re part of the volunteer group.
However, some of the other things that may be important to this questioning is that right now the GNWT is doing a comprehensive review of all of the planned leave, to try to determine the best way to move forward with this leave and also recognizing the fact that the GNWT has probably the best leave from most public services across the country. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the question about the short-term leave for firefighters has come up over the last couple of weeks when we’ve had two major fires in the community. I’m just wondering: in that review, will there be something that once you have a firefighter on staff, that basically there is no requirement; he or she can be called on demand for the firefighter services once they’ve agreed that they’re allowed to be in the GNWT and be a firefighter at the same time? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, although the operational requirements are something that is a factor in granting immediate leave for an individual to fight a fire, none of the departments or any of the managers that work for the GNWT will withhold leave when some firefighters have an immediate need to leave to fight a house fire. None of that leave will be unreasonably denied, but like I indicated, there is an operational requirement as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the other volunteer groups that have come to me recently is the Canadian Rangers, obviously a great volunteer organization, as you all know.
I guess the question is: What are the leave requirements for GNWT staff that are members of the Rangers?
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, civil leave used for participation in community councils, public boards and other committees, other volunteer organizations around the community. The Rangers are used extensively for search and rescue, as well as firefighters. CASARA have their leave when an individual is out on the land, lost. In that case the Rangers would fall into that leave. When the Rangers are exercising, as I’m sure the Speaker is aware, then the leave will be granted under the civil leave. Thank you.
Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
