Bob McLeod

I understood that we had a registry at one time. I’d have to go back and check to see whether it’s still in existence. I’ll be working very closely with my colleague the Minister of Education on this.

We are trying to work closely with those communities the Member referred to. As some of you may recall, in an effort to increase the attractiveness of communities like Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith, in the past we have made the Down Payment Assistance Program available, whereby we assisted first-time home buyers to buy houses. That was with the intention of attracting mine workers.

We’ve also been involved with marketing programs. I think we’ve helped the communities put information advertising their communities at the various mine sites.

Mr. Speaker, in keeping with my commitment to provide regular updates to Members of the House on Human Resources matters, I’m pleased to speak today about a couple of areas where we have made progress in and about services in place as we move forward.

Since the summer of 2006, we have been implementing e-tools to improve the quality and accuracy of pay and information for employees and managers. In December 2007 Aurora College and the divisional education employees started using the self-service Human Resources information system. All government employees of the Northwest Territories are now on...

Based on the applications that we received and the amounts requested from the different programs that were being accessed, we have calculated how much money would flow out this fiscal year. We are anticipating that all the $2.5 million that we had originally budgeted for this fiscal year will be spent, but it’s a cash-flow issue.

Of the applications received, we calculate that $318,000 will be paid out this fiscal year. That's why we're asking to re-profile the remainder, so we can spend it next fiscal year.

I would have to look at that. I think it is an issue of reporting. I don’t think I said I ruled out the question of looking at having persons with disabilities listed as P1s or something. That is something we’d be prepared to look at.

The issue of migrant workers has been a troublesome one for our government for some time. First of all, we have to recognize that we live in a democracy, so people are free to move and live wherever they want, as provided for under the Constitution of Canada.

We have been attempting to address the issues through the negotiation of socio-economic agreements with the mining industry companies, specifically diamond mines, through the negotiation of a socio-economic agreement with the Mackenzie Valley pipeline proponents.

Now, it’s more difficult in the oil and gas sector, because that’s a...

We certainly recognize the considerable effort required to host the Arctic Winter Games, and also the significant volunteer efforts required to make the Arctic Winter Games successful. Our senior managers have committed that they will be very flexible. They will make flexible arrangements for those government employees who are volunteers for the Arctic Winter Games, such that if they have to leave for two hours at three o'clock on any given day, they can make arrangements to be available for Arctic Winter Games work.

Mr. Speaker, as a government we’re always looking to find new ways of improving the morale of our employees and new ways to improve our performance. So it’s certainly something that we would look into as part of our Employee Recognition Program.

As a government, we have a number of employee recognition programs in which we recognize employees who have provided service above and beyond the call of duty and have made recommendations or suggestions that have resulted in savings or improved efficiencies for the government. We have long service awards, we have Premier’s awards of excellence, we have ministerial awards, and we have deputy minister recognition awards. We used to have a program whereby we would have financial rewards for employees, where they were reimbursed a nominal amount for any suggestions that resulted in real financial...

That certainly was the intention of the payroll tax. It comes down to a question of monitoring and enforcement. Wherever we are aware of it, the Department of Finance follows up to make sure that the payroll tax is imposed. It’s more difficult to impose when the payments to individual workers are made outside of the Northwest Territories. That would be an area where we would have to look to see how we can improve the monitoring and follow-up and collection of payroll taxes.