Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Under this clause, as well, the way it is being worded, there is some concern in terms of the powers that fall onto the Minister here. I guess the first one, it says, “if the Minister is of the opinion that an employee identified for layoff under subsection (1) is suitable for continued employment in the public service, the Minister may appoint the employee without competition to any position...” So the first one is of the opinion. So it is, I guess, the Minister’s opinion, and what constitutes what the Minister believes is right rather than what the resume or somebody’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that the Mental Health First Aid is a great training tool, a great counselling service tool. I know that we’re doing a revamp of the Mental Health Act.

In the case of the revamping of this new Mental Health Act, is the government, physicians, RCMP, counsellors still following the old Mental Health Act and all the provisions that are included in that Mental Health Act to give the people that need assistance when they need it, or are we will using the old Mental Health Act while we are revamping a new one? Thank you.

I appreciate the effort that the Minister and his department have been doing in terms of corresponding with the leadership in the Beaufort-Delta, but all he has to do is also look at some of the recommendations that were made and some of the past NWT coroner reports. Specifically, there was one I remember reading on a rehab centre for alcohol and drug abuse here in Yellowknife. Like it said, 70 percent of all suicides over the last five years were alcohol and drug related, seven out of 10.

Has the Minister looked at creating some type of rehab centre, whether it’s a day shelter or some other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will take that invitation and hopefully I can make it. It depends on our committee schedule for next week. However, sometimes to get the best results and hear what’s really happening is to talk to people on the ground level.

Is the Minister willing to sit down with the victim service coordinators next week and just have a general talk on what their needs are to help them do their job better for residents of the Northwest Territories? Is he willing to make the time next week to sit down and listen to what they really need? They’re the ones who are dealing with the...

Mr. Speaker, from the family violence report card that I most recently went through, I think there’s about seven victim service coordinators. I could be wrong, though. But I know the community of Inuvik, we do have an issue in terms of keeping that position staffed because it’s only a half-time position and the responsibilities, the work and the effort that these victim service coordinators go through to get victims to the courts to jail or even the hospital or counselling, it goes above and beyond their scope of work and practice, and sometimes beyond the work hours that they’re actually...

Like I said, there is a lot of waiting time for counselling, so even if the victim coordinators can get our victims to counselling, they still have to wait to go and see them, and even treatment.

They also provide information on the criminal justice system, the court processes and notifications on the status of their cases. They also help victims fill out court-related documents and, as I said earlier, victim impact statements.

Today I want to recognize all our victim services coordinators in the Northwest Territories and the great work that they do.

I will be asking questions later to the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are a lot of good arguments for and against the amendment before us. There are a lot of options out there. We put this and we do have a lot of vacant positions within the GNWT. We see it during business plans. We most recently got on a topic during one of our last sessions, but we also developed this Regional Recruitment Program where we can actually help individuals succeed and go up into a higher level within their departments. I don’t see that, but whether or not that’s being used or utilized are questions that I had on this earlier in the year. We are supposed...

I’m not too familiar with the Staff Retention Policy, but if there are provisions in there that respect that, but it’s also stated in this clause that it’s still under the opinion of the Minister here. Should those type of positions happen where the Minister does direct appoint an employee that’s identified for layoff into a position that wasn’t put up for competition but we did have qualified individuals in that department, is there an appeals process for the affected employees in the department where the job wasn’t put up for competition? Is there an appeals process on their behalf, the...

I guess we can look back at statistics and see what kind of direct appointments might have been done in that sense. It is a concern because we do put a lot of power into the Minister’s hands in terms of his opinion on who might be able to take another job.

I guess, moving further down in the clause, it does say, “without competition to any position in the public service…” As I stated in my general comments, we have over 5,000 jobs in the GNWT. We also learned over this past summer’s session that some of these positions are left vacant on purpose.

How does the Minister have the authority to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Mr. Dolynny summarized it pretty good about the…summarized it very good, actually, in terms of what some committee members expressed as concerns in some areas of the clauses that are being brought before us today. In some cases they are just small little changes to the wording, but what I see out of those small little changes are some possible big consequences not only for the department but for our public service sector and people who have been working with the government for X number of years. You can actually be overlooked with some of these possible power...