Bob McLeod

I should have realized I was talking to the expert on all matters related to energy. Certainly we have a deputy minister group that is coordinating and leading the charge on dealing with greening the government. Certainly with HR we do have a section that’s focusing on greening the government. With regard to procurement, this is something that the deputies will be working on.

I’d be pleased to do that.

I’ve already started investigating where the bottlenecks are and we will be contacting the management in that department that the Member is referring to. We’ll work from there. Certainly it’s a very big concern for our government about the fact that the population of the Northwest Territories has been dropping for about two or three years now. Mind you, not significant, but enough to cause us concern. We will be examining all the different avenues that we can to attract people to the North. We will be launching a number of campaigns.

Mr. Speaker, I did say that, although we are only a small part, we are doing a greenhouse gas review. We will have a Greenhouse Gas Strategy where we will be doing more than our share. I agree with the Member; education is very important to anything that we do. We have the Arctic Energy Alliance, which is funded by a number of government departments. This is something that we focus on continually in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. There is a whole conservation education department. This is one of the priorities for this government. Also through the $60 million of...

Mr. Speaker, like a well oiled machine, we have a number of different charts and a number of different connections. We do have a number of different departments that are responsible for a number of different things. We have a number of coordinating committees that ensure that all of the provisions that have been identified and the different strategies are provided for. The Department of ENR deals with energy conservation, energy efficiency. We also have ITI that has the energy planning unit. We have the Executive and the Premier responsible for the Northwest Territories. In our commission, we...

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Human Resources launched eRecruit on January 4, 2010. Implementation of eRecruit is being managed in a three-phase process. The first phase of eRecruit allows individuals who are interested in employment opportunities with the Government of the Northwest Territories to view job postings and apply for jobs on-line from anywhere in the world.

In the initial two weeks of eRecruit being launched, we had approximately 8,000 visitors to the site. These visitors came from across the Northwest Territories, Canada and a total of 76 countries across the world. From these...

I’ll be working closely with my colleague the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources to ensure that we have a balanced approach when we develop and upgrade our Greenhouse Gas Strategy. I think whatever we do, we want to make sure that we can make real progress in this area, because we all recognize that we are feeling the effects and are having to deal with the effects of climate change.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee is chaired by myself and it’s made up of a number of Ministers that have responsibilities with regard to energy in a number of areas. The committee includes Premier Roland, Minister of ENR, and the Minister of DOT. The issues that we deal with refer to the whole of the Government of the Northwest Territories. Individual Ministers still have the responsibilities that have been assigned to them. As we go along we deal with a myriad of issues and make sure the government is coordinated so that everybody knows what’s going on...

It always helps to have information as to the nature and size of the problem. So any information that I have from the Member or any other businesses that are running into problems may help resolve the problem.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly have heard from a number of businesses about the concerns with regard to recruitment of employees in certain sectors. I guess the first thing I would do is identify the department and program where the problem is and consult with my colleague, the Minister responsible for employment. I guess then I would have follow-up with the federal department responsible. Failing that, we would approach the federal Minister.