Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be for the Minister of Finance on a few things that were in the budget. The first thing I have is about the moving of the territorial parks positions to Hay River.
Can he indicate to me how many positions that includes?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s still in planning, but it will be at least two positions.
I would just like to get clarification on the scheduling of when this would happen and when we would get a report on how that transition will happen.
Work is being done in terms of the planning and potential notification, pending the passage of the budget and April 1st kicking in. If there are people that have to be moved or housed or relocated, those kinds of things, it could take as long as 18 months or two years to make the final move. Political commitment has been made. If the positions are vacant, things may move faster. The Minister of ITI would be well able to speak to that issue when his budget comes before the House. Thank you.
I look forward to those questions in the House. The Minister stated in his budget address, the 2,000 people plan.
Can he give us a bit of an update on where that plan is? Ms. Bisaro discussed this as well. Where are we at? We are one year in. Have we made any successes in getting 2,000 more people to live in the Northwest Territories?
The first year has been a planning year and we’ve been working with industry and we are looking at changes to the procedures. For example, in Human Resources, where we want to be able to go south to job fairs or recruiting, that we’re going to empower the folks that go down there to look at the resumes and do interviews. If the people meet the criteria, then a conditional job offer can be made pending the checking of references. That’s as opposed to the current process where we have to come back and months go by and people wander away. That’s one thing.
We are expecting and the Minister of ECE will be standing up in the House here in the very near future about good news issues where it pertains to the Nominee Program, the expedited process, the number of spaces we are going to have as a government, the ability to really ramp up our efforts in that area that will see a significant influx to the Northwest Territories. We are working with ITI on the work that they do, as well, with Make Your Mark and the other programs they have.
As a government we’ve made a decision that when we go south, now that we’ve sorted out education access to the names of the students in the various communities, want to start budgeting in our travel time to sit down with students in the communities we go to, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, you name it, to take them out and meet with them and do the recruiting that we talk about to ensure we don’t get superseded or bypassed by industry or other recruiters because we don’t make that effort. In fact, when we were down in Ottawa just recently, I and Minister Lafferty and Mr. Beaulieu were at breakfast with about eight or 10 of the students from Ottawa. We talked with them and the good news was that every one of the folks that came to breakfast indicated that they are definitely coming back to the North, but they really appreciated that effort, and that effort will pay dividends.
So, those that scoff or those that say you’ve had a year, you should have 500 people here already, sometimes ready, fire, aim is not the process to take. We want to get our aim clear first, before we pull the trigger, and that’s what we’ve done in this first year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That was a great Minister’s statement. The Minister didn’t talk about the mine workers who fly in/fly out.
How are we working on them to make sure they come back and work in the Northwest Territories and quit flying over our heads? How do we get them to stay in the Northwest Territories?
That is an issue that bedevils every jurisdiction that has a lot of resource development, like Alberta. Probably many of us have been on planes, I know I have, when there’s a shift change coming out of Fort McMurray. So it is a challenge. What is happening with Dominion Diamonds, for example, they’ve taken that issue head on and they are doing away with their incentives and paying of travel back and forth to force the issue. It’s that kind of courageous corporate action that we’re hoping will bear fruit and add to our 2,000 in five year success. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
