Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement today I talked about the layoff of GNWT staff. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance a couple of questions. In this current year of 2017-2018, have the departments of the GNWT been directed to lay off staff for reduction purposes? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in 2018, the budget included 65 position reductions. Thirty-three employees received their layoff notice. Of the 33, five employees have elected to retire; one employee remains eligible to retire; 15 employees have been redeployed; three employees remain on affected status; and nine employees are on a layoff notice period. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The GNWT has policies to retain a priority status when they are recruiting employees to the GNWT. Does that same set of policies apply when there are layoffs being contemplated by the GNWT in I guess sort of in a reverse sense? Would the GNWT look at the Affirmative Action Policy to lay individuals off?
We have a staff retention policy that applies to affected employees, and we take every opportunity to try and find other positions within the Government of Northwest Territories for these employees. The preference would be their home department, but if that is not the case, then we do work to try to find other positions for the employees.
I am familiar with the staff retention policy. In fact, I mentioned one of the retention policies in my Member's statement; giving somebody 80 per cent of their salary for one year to go to school. My question is more: would the Affirmative Action Policy apply the same way when we hire individuals? We use a priority; priority one, priority two, and people who do not have a priority. I am wondering if that policy would apply when you are contemplating layoffs.
For staffing of positions, we do apply the Affirmative Action Policy for the layoff of employees. We have the Staff Retention Policy. It is just the layoffs; so it does not matter -- that is not the right way to put it. The affirmative action would not apply to layoffs as well.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is something that does not make me happy, but it is what it is, and I will move on to my next question. I would like to ask the Minister if the Minister can commit to doing a socioeconomic analysis of staff members when they are laid off. In my Member's statement, I talked about the loss of actual people to the Northwest Territories. If we lay someone off and they take their family and four of them go down south, we lose transfer payments, which could be potentially higher than the salary that we are saving by reducing that position. Again, my question is: would the Minister commit to applying socioeconomic analysis when they lay individuals off regardless of their status? Thank you.
I am not willing to commit to something until I know more about it. We have 5,000 employees within the government system. We have had a number of people the last few years who have been affected. I am not sure where the Member is going with this, if they want us to apply what effect it might have on the family or whether we may lose people or not. I do not think that it's something that we currently do, and it is not something that I am willing to commit to do until I know more about it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
