Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the questions are for the Minister of Finance. I'd like to know how is information being disseminated to GNWT management, GNWT employees and contractors, on whether or not they need to be vaccinated or have the option of PPE when on the work site. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, those communications have gone out in a variety of forms. At this point, our website is currently up to date explaining the policy and has a fairly detailed Q and A on it.
One of the next steps though, Mr. Speaker, and I expect it will be out this week, if not early this week, is that each department was asked to look at their specific work site and provide a determination of what appropriate PPE might be. Everyone's individual work site certainly will have individual requirements that allow them to operate safely if the worker is choosing not to submit their proof of vaccine. So that again, I will say I'm expecting it this week, and indeed, may well be out even early this week that will go through each department, to each worker, and every workplace should be able to access that through their supervisors and as it becomes available, it continues to get posted on our website as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm how many GNWT employees are currently vaccinated? Better yet, can she provide those numbers by department and how many may require accommodation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we don't monitor who is in fact vaccinated or not. What we are monitoring, Mr. Speaker, is individuals who have had their proof of vaccination documentation verified. So what employees in the GNWT will do, they go to the HR website and upload their proof of vaccine and it takes, you know, 24 or so hours for someone to simply review that and verify it, and then they're marked as having had that submitted and been verified. It's fairly quick. And I do have the numbers in terms, I think of a few days ago, of how many in total and by department have done that process.
We're sitting right now at just over 60 percent last time I had the numbers given to me in terms of, again, which ones have been verified. There is no doubt some further ones who are in the process of being verified. And I fully anticipate that we're going to have a number coming in over the next few days. I certainly can provide it by department, Mr. Speaker, but I'd suggest I do that in writing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister, has the department considered the cost associated with accommodation, including the Northwest Territories Power Corporation and the NWT Housing Corporation, and can the Minister provide those costs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, firstly, just the Northwest Territories Power Corporation has its own policies so I'm not in a position to speak to what efforts they may or may not have done on their end.
With respect to the GNWT's policy, we certainly did consider the cost mainly in the form, obviously, of the PPE but particularly of testing. I anticipate the costs of PPE, we're not expecting that to be significant. But certainly the cost of tests can grow to be more significant over time. We do have some estimates. There's ranges of low to high. It depends obviously on what number of public servants we are dealing with. It depends on whether or not that changes over time. So I'll certainly be in a position to provide some of those ranges. And it's something we're going to be very closely continuing to monitor as the numbers come in and we know exactly what numbers we're dealing with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to GNWT employees or contractors entering small communities, will the community have a veto power over or on whether or not persons have to be vaccinated even though some community residents remain unvaccinated? I ask that because in this past week, we had a couple contractors from Hay River go in to a small community one day and they did some work. Next day, they went in and they were told to leave because they were unvaccinated. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so at this point we know what we can control are the -- is the policies as they apply to GNWT employees, and that is the policy that we came out with I'd say fairly early as other governments in other jurisdictions were looking at what they could do to ensure that they are protecting their staff, ensure that they're protecting the people they serve. Any GNWT employees are certainly going to have to follow not only our policy but policies that might be applicable to them if they, for example, attend a municipal building or in any community; if they are required, for example, to do air travel, which, of course, comes with federal requirements. So in that sense, there may well be a number of overlapping guidelines that workers are going to have to follow owing to the fact that a variety of levels of government and private organizations are taking those steps to keep -- to taking all the steps that we know are best placed to keep people safe. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
