Bob McLeod

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.

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague indicated, we do have a Greenhouse Gas Strategy. It is one that needs to be reviewed and updated. Every community in the Northwest Territories has a sustainable energy plan. It has been provided for through different levels of government funding. Like the Minister of Environment has indicated, it is very difficult for us to go on our own. We have to know what the United States is doing with regards to climate change and greenhouse gases. Here in the Northwest Territories, we only provide for a very small part in the whole world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I can point out a number of different documents. I can also tell her that the previous two governments created energy strategies that cost about a couple of million dollars apiece both in the 14th Assembly and the 15th Assembly, so we do have a benefit of those documents. We have a number of different departments that have different responsibilities. I guess a good place to start would be the business plans of this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the Member giving me the opportunity to blow our own horn. I think I feel that the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee has been very successful and allowed us to make progress on a number of fronts where it would otherwise have been difficult to achieve. I think I can probably list three or four items. The most visible has been the $60 million Alternative Energy Initiative. I think the coordination and facilitation of the electricity reviews, I think that the outcome, I guess the proof will be in the pudding whatever the outcome will be I think would be part of that. I think...

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...