Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the great honour of attending a function last evening, organized by the NWT Recreation and Parks Association. The event’s focus was to recognize the important work for community groups and individuals that offer support and training for our older population across the Northwest Territories.

Just as importantly, it recognized an active elder in one of our communities who serves to be a role model for his or her community residents. Although there was only one award recipient, there were many nominations for active elders throughout the Northwest Territories and I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Standing Committee on Social Programs conducted its public review of Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Medical Care Act, on January 20, 2014.

A clause-by-clause review was conducted the same day. The committee thanks the Minister and his staff for presenting this bill.

The bill amends the Medical Care Act to reflect a recent amendment to the Canada Health Act. It deems that a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who is a resident of the Northwest Territories as of April 1, 2013, was eligible for insured services in accordance with this act.

Following the committee’s...

It’s kind of related to the job positions that we’re talking about, the vacant positions that are constantly brought forward in the last few meetings here.

I’d like to ask the Minister, how common is this practice within government for the Minister and the deputy minister to be making these types of decisions? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’ll have questions for the Minister of Finance. Discussions with the Minister of Human Resources earlier brought me on to looking at the Financial Administrative Act under Section 32.1(1), the transfer among activities. Although the act – I looked it up – states that the board, on the recommendations of the Minister responsible for an item, may transfer funds among activities set out in the estimates on which the appropriate item is based if the amount appropriated for the item as a whole is not increased.

Can I ask the Minister of Finance, up to what amount are...

The Minister mentioned that for different reasons jobs are vacant and the money is used for other areas.

With some of the challenges that we have within our departments possibly filling the position, would the Minister agree or would the Minister allude to our positions within some of our departments deliberately left vacant so dollars could be used for other areas. Can the Minister please confirm or allude to that question?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to follow up with questions to the Minister of Human Resources here. It’s been brought up many times with the vacancies that we have within our government system. I talked to people back home and some of the concerns they bring up is they constantly see a job posting but it never gets a hiring.

I’d like to ask the Minister, for all the GNWT jobs that we have in the Northwest Territories, who writes the job descriptions? Because we’ve also heard with the college students that a lot of these job descriptions ask for two, three, four, five years’ experience. That...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We heard from the Minister of Human Resources earlier about some positions that might be deliberately left vacant and that brings up the concern that a Minister can take a vacant position or two, which is equal to about $200,000, and use those funds to do certain programs or projects within the department and that’s concerning to me.

Would the Minister look at possibly looking to see if there is a way that this section can be amended to look at the responsibilities of the Ministers in not such a high amount of dollars, $250,000, would he look at amending it to a certain...

So that’s $250,000 that each department is able, under the direction of the Minister responsible, to move within the department. That concerns me about accountability and transparency. So when the Ministers do this practice – I’m not sure how common it is – are there any discussions with committee or are there any discussions within Cabinet on how these dollars are moved within the department under this section of the FAA? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. He did confirm that some positions are deliberately left vacant to offset some of the O and M operations stuff, so why don’t we see those operations in the budget process right from the start and not put these positions out that we agree to? It’s ridiculous how we approve this budget here.

My last question is: Based on the job descriptions that departments write, how does the Minister or what is his goal or his strategy to get our educated students that have no job experience into the job system and into public service knowing that the job descriptions ask for two years’...

Going off some of my colleagues’ questions here, because we have all these job descriptions out there and we also have job postings that aren’t being met. You look on the website and there’s, I don’t know how many there are, but I know they’re not all being filled. We talk about the main estimates and the budget process where we approve these funded jobs for the government and the departments but they’re not being filled.

I’d like to ask the Minister, and he already alluded to this earlier, but what happens to these dollars that we approve for these job positions? What happens to the dollars...