Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to talk about an issue that we, as MLAs, hear about on a very regular basis, and that is sometimes there are issues in our public service.
Mr. Speaker, we have a very large public service for a jurisdiction this size. We heard questions in this House last week about the Safe Disclosure Act and how if employees have problems in the workplace, they can use this as a vehicle to express concern. However, we also heard from the Minister that not one issue has ever been raised through this vehicle.
The Department of Human Resources has been before us in Committee of the Whole and they have shared with us the evolving revolving door, so to speak, on the issue of staffing levels and staffing needs. The Union of Northern Workers, who represents most of our public service, does have a role to play in bringing certain types of concerns, but my concern is that there are divisions, activities, secretariats, different compartments of people within activities of the government where, through changes, whether it’s consolidation or decentralization, shared services is a perfect example where certain activities like procurement and finance are being consolidated under one roof.
There are all these things going on and some of our departments are large. We know that Ministers cannot delve into personnel issues and ultimately, I would suspect that it is the deputy minister who is responsible for ensuring staffing levels are what they should be and everything is working well in every shop and every office in every institution of our government.
I think that’s a very, very tall order. I think we need – this is my idea, I have an idea for you – some form of an agency, a person, a team or something that can go in, that have the people skills and knowledge of human resources, and hear what some of those issues are and report back to the head of that department and tell them what their recommendations are.
I don’t know if that person or team would be out of the Department of Human Resources, if it would be out of the program review office we’ve heard about, but I believe there is a need in our government to assess this. I think there are some troubled areas from time to time, as there would be in an organization of 5,500 public servants, and I’m not saying this as a slight against anybody, but I think there are often needs that need to be assessed and we need some troubleshooting in this area.
I will have questions later today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
