Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to follow up on the shocking numbers that I see here. As of May 18, 2011, 3 o’clock, there’s only four people in the Summer Student Program hired in the Sahtu region by this government compared to the South Slave where there’s 36, 42 in total; North Slave region 103. Four students that are given the opportunity in the Sahtu to be hired. I listen to the Ministers of Public Works and Services and Transportation and it doesn’t quite cut it with me. I want to ask the Premier if he would work with his officials and see if there’s any way that these numbers can be increased. Aurora College in Beaufort-Delta hired one student in Sahtu, but in the other communities they haven’t hired any. Can these numbers be improved to maybe five or six, rather than a dismal four?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought I heard Public Works and Services or Transportation in his statement. It went on for a while, so I lost track.
Seriously, though, the issue of student hires has been one that this government has pushed and worked with the Department of Human Resources and all departments to improve on our numbers. The fiscal situation that we find ourselves in, the departments are doing their best to improve on that, but as we’ve heard from a number of Ministers, with our fiscal restraints departments have had to voluntarily squeeze in some areas. We’re still trying to match or do a bit better in some areas than we did previously. There are areas where, yes, it’s weighted heavy. When some departments have only a headquarters function, other departments help balance that off, because we’re into all communities and regions and will continue to try to improve on that.
I mentioned the Ministers of PWS and DOT because he talked a little bit on this issue here. For example, the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority is going to hire four, but in any other regions, none of their health boards are hiring any summer students. This is an agency of something like the Sahtu Health Board. I want to ask if this opportunity can be given the same as the Fort Smith Health and Social Services Authority, which has hired six people.
The fairness and equality is not there. Can the Minister ensure that our regions will also have the same opportunity as the boards in Yellowknife and Fort Smith so that we can also hire summer students? Come on, let’s increase these numbers more than four.
The issue with the health boards is that in trying to get the numbers, some have not been able to provide the additional numbers, so there may be some additional summer students out there that we’re not aware of. The other area is we’ve given them budgets to operate within and we’ve given them the authority to make those decisions, as well. We’ll try to get all the information so that we have fully updated numbers as we progress. I know the Department of Human Resources works with all departments to try to pool all those together and we’ll continue to do that.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
