Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I had an interesting discussion with the Minister of Human Resources on summer student hiring and I’d like to continue with that.
Members are very concerned about the hiring of northern students returning to work in the NWT for the summer. Based on the return of questions yesterday, the Minister responsible for Human Resources indicated that the GNWT was committed to hiring 263 students; yet, to date there appears to be only about 146 students hired.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Human Resources is the gatekeeper for facilitating the hiring of students -- the Minister, as well as the Progressive Experience Program -- and maintain the student employment database. My question for the Minister is: what is the department doing to encourage departments to access programs like the PEP and increase the number of students they hire? Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you. Mr. Speaker. In December of last year the department met with the deputy ministers of all the departments and advised them of the process for hiring summer students, the need to register on the public registry and the need to have a continued support to hire summer students. We follow that up with regular updates at deputy minister meetings and also letters to the departments. We also raise them at ministerial meetings. So in every opportunity, we encourage departments to increase the level of hiring of summer students. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Last year the Department of Human Resources hired 16 students. To date how many have they hired this year?
Thank you. To date we’ve hired nine summer students and I’d also like to advise the Members that the Progressive Experience Program is also fully subscribed. Thank you.
Thank you very much. When did the Department of Human Resources start planning for hiring of summer students for this spring and summer?
Every year we plan on a continuous basis, but for this fiscal year we started in December 2010. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, although we’d obviously like to see an increase in the number of summer student hires, will the Minister of Human Resources commit to hiring at least 16 students with the Department of Human Resources this summer? Mahsi.
Thank you. The government’s objective is to meet last year’s target of 263 summer students and it’s our commitment for the department to achieve the 16 summer students that we hired, the same as last year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
