Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll have questions for the Minister of Human Resources right now. We’ve all been made well aware of the experience and certainly the security issues that have happened around Stanton Hospital where many of our staff have come under some scares due to a security issue. My fear, of course, is that Stanton may be more of a symptom of problems as opposed to a particular one. Rather than focusing strictly in on Stanton, which would probably be a mistake at this particular time, I want to look broadly across our public service and ask the Minister of Human Resources what would his department be doing, knowing that, I believe, in 2013 we’ve had a couple assaults on health and social services staff, and I know we’ve had some assaults late in 2014. What we’re noticing is a bit of a trend across the continuum of the public service, and I just want to make sure our staff are certainly safe and we’re doing the proper assessments.
Specifically to the Minister of Human Resources is: What type of assessment is being done to ensure our staff across the territorial government are working in safe environments and they have protection and access to resources to ensure their safety?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I’m going to remind people in the public gallery to turn your cellphones off. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. These types of incidents can be brought up to the occupational health and safety committees. Each department has an occupational health and safety committee, so those would be vetted through those committees.
With this recent trend of incidents at Stanton or even downtown in some of our offices or anywhere else, for that matter, there’s been a bit of a trend. Has this not stimulated the need for this type of discussion to ensure that our employees are safe, and as such, what about the government taking initiative on doing an assessment to ensure our staff are not only safe but have the proper resources at their beck and call as and when necessary?
Thank you. As we do here in the Assembly, we go through a safety drill. My understanding is that each of the departments through that committee can do safety drills for their own departments or their own floors and offices. I’m not sure how recent or how often these safety drills occur. I can check with the Department of Human Resources who, in turn, will have to check with all of the departments and we can get an update on that. But that would be the process. Thank you.
Again, I appreciate the answer from the Minister, but we’ve got a bit of a trend here where some of our employees, be it at Stanton or at some of the downtown offices, and not only recently but there has been over a number of months in a couple of years that the staff have been in jeopardy or some type of peril because of these types of incidents. Rather than waiting for the occupational health and safety committee to make its recommendation or even to meet for goodness sakes, what proactive approach is the Minister of Human Resources doing and directing through policy to ensure our employees are safe rather than waiting until an incident happens and then figuring, well, maybe we should talk about it? Thank you.
As I indicated, it would be something that does go through the Occupational Health and Safety Committee. However, I can touch base with the deputy. I believe that Human Resources holds responsibility in the safety area of all employees in the public service. I’ll ensure that I hold discussions with the deputy minister, who in turn will discuss with the other deputies to see what type of safety plans are in place for the safety of our staff across the entire public service not only here in Yellowknife but across the whole territory. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for that because this lack of safety trend is quite alarming and it’s not just about one facility, it’s about all our territorial staff. I’m going to quote Minister Abernethy’s comment the other day, “Our staff are the most valuable resources. They are the backbone of our system and we need to ensure that.” I want to make sure that the Minister is very clear on exactly what he’s going to do and when we’re going to do it, because I don’t want to wait for yet another incident to happen for anyone to be standing by and saying I told you so. We don’t want to be talking like that. We would like to be speaking from a proactive point of view of how we’ve done this, how we’ve approached this and continue to be relentless for the safety of our employees. Seeing news reports that the employees only find out about these particular plans via Hansard is not a right approach. I want us to be as proactive as possible so we’re not talking about this in the future. Thank you.
Thank you. I agree. I will contact the deputy minister of Human Resources as soon as I am able to do so, most likely tomorrow morning. We will have that discussion and she, in turn, will contact the rest of the departments to see what type of safety plans are in place for the safety of our public service. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
