Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and relate to my Member’s statement where I was talking about the reservists. Every other jurisdiction in this country with exception of the Northwest Territories has clauses within their Employment Standards Act which support reservists and their employers. I understand in the 15th Assembly there was some work done on the Employment Standards Act and at that time it was considered to put those clauses in our act. Unfortunately at the time there were no reservists so it was unnecessary.
Times have changed and we now have reservists in the Northwest Territories. I’m wondering what work, if any, has been done by Education, Culture and Employment on the Employment Standards Act to go back and pull out the work they’ve already done and reinsert it into our Employment Standards Act so that reservists and their employers have some protection in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My department has been working on this particular file on the reservists. Under the current act and other legislation that may be before us, individuals serving as reservists may be protected by other legislation or collective agreements providing greater benefits than our act. Those are the areas we are currently exploring.
Not only that but we haven’t to date received any inquiries on this particular matter. There are, from the information that we have, approximately 26 current members of the Yellowknife reservists. We’re fully aware of that and we want to work with that within our department. If we need to make some amendments to our current act, then we need to develop a legislative proposal that may come into this House before standing committee. We need to gather that information first.
To the Minister’s point, in the GNWT we already have collective agreements and rules and regulations that would obviously support reservists from the GNWT participation. That doesn’t help all employees and reservists in the Northwest Territories. The Minister is right that our numbers are low; 26 doesn’t seem very high at this point, but the reservists want to get to a contingent of over 100 people here in the next couple of years. Now’s the time. They’ve done a bunch of the work already. I’m happy to share with the Minister some comments that were brought to me from constituents and concerned people about this particular act. I think the work’s already done. I’m wondering why we can’t take the work that’s been done and get it in front of us right away.
I look forward to the Member’s information that he’ll be sharing with us with my department so we can move this file forward. As I’ve stated, we’ve gathered most of the information, but any information that the Member can provide that would be available to us to proceed with this file so we can deal with this matter that’s been before us within our department. I’ll commit to this House that we’ll continue to work on this file with that information.
On May 14, 2009, the Yukon actually sent it to a bill that amends their Employment Standards Act in this particular area. In this particular act this amendment I thought was quite good, because it actually addresses not just reservists but Rangers as well to provide some protection for private employers. I was wondering if I could get the Minister to commit to having his people review the Yukon amendment and see how applicable it is here in the North as they move forward.
We did have some review of the Yukon within their act and there are some implications in there or some areas that we can definitely look at within our existing act, if we could change or make some amendments that reflect on what the Yukon has. But there are some areas that they do not have, such as imposed penalties for noncompliance or other areas that may not be in the best interests of the Northwest Territories. But definitely, those are some of the key areas and indicators that we need to take into consideration. If we need to make amendments to our act, then this will be before the standing committee if we need to pursue it further. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just in closing, a final question. This is important and timing is essential on this. The reserves are trying to increase their number up to 100 in the next couple of years. If we don’t put this in place soon, there will be disincentives for individuals that are considering joining the reserves due to the uncertainty about protection of themselves as well as their employers. I’m wondering if we can get the Minister to commit to get some action on this file right away and, hopefully, get a legislative proposal in front of committee in the life of this government so we can see something either late in the life of this government or very early in the life of the next Assembly. This does have value. It will help create incentives and it will help protect employers and reservists today, tomorrow and in the future. Now that we have reservists in the Northwest Territories, it seems like now is the right time. Will the Minister commit to getting some action on this in the life of this government? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I believe in due time that will happen, whether it be the end of this government or early next government, but we do have that information that we need to share with the standing committee and providing that and possibly delivering a legislative proposal as the next step. I have committed that to the Member already. Mahsi.
