Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in complying with the information required in these different main estimates, we have done some reorganization to try and make things a little bit more clear. You'll notice that the corporate affairs line was significantly larger in previous years. We have done some reorganization to make it a little bit more effective and a little bit more clear. That $975,000 was in that area previously in corporate affairs.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't have the numbers in front of me for previous years other than last year. I can tell you last year was one of the highest number of summer students that we were able to hire. Fort Smith, this year, as of June 2nd, we have 23 students hired. Last year at this time, we had 33 students hired in Fort Smith. At the end of the summer student season, we had a total of 41 summer students hired in Fort Smith. In Hay River, between the Hay River and the Hay River Reserve, we have 21 students hired as of yesterday in Hay River/Hay River Reserve. Last year, we had...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I get to the question, I would like to just correct an answer that I made yesterday. I said yesterday there was about 32 per cent Aboriginal representation in the public service. Today currently we're actually at 30.8, so it's actually less than I had indicated previously. I've been with the Department of Human Resources now for about six months, and I have actually already directed the department to begin looking at a number of the programs that are available. For example, the Aboriginal Management Development Program is targeted at senior management in the...

I'm looking forward to that conversation, but in light of that conversation I will point out that most of the employers throughout Canada, in fact many places throughout the world, don’t have appeal rights at all. This is something that we felt was appropriate given things like our Affirmative Action Policy and our desire to work with Northerners to employ Northerners. Most employers don’t have an appeal mechanism at all for job competitions and we have I think in many ways gone quite a distance to work with residents of the Northwest Territories. We’re always looking for ways to improve...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we do get a report and a summary from the WSCC, who is administering the Safe Advantage program. I can say that this year we actually did pretty good with respect to our results. We compiled its March 201516 management questionnaire and submitted a response: 92 per cent on part one and 100 per cent on part two. We did pretty good and we did all right on the interview, which resulted in no fine. We will provide the report, when we get it, to committee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through the Premier, I gave direction and guidance to the Ministers that the Premier would like to see us hire as many students as we did last year. We looked at the numbers. We are down from last year right now. As of June 2nd, we hired 217. Last year around this time, I think we were up to 260-something. We are certainly down from where we were last year. As a result, the Premier has sent a reminder letter to all the Ministers and the deputies today indicating that we have to get our numbers up. We are committed to getting to the same type of numbers that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Staffing appeals give candidates with appeal rights an opportunity to be heard if they feel that a procedural error has been made during the competition process that might negatively affect how they were considered as a candidate. With respect to independence, the staffing appeals are reviewed by an independent staffing review officer who is appointed by the Minister of Human Resources and is not a government employee. Amendments made by the staffing appeal regulations which are outlined in the Public Service Act clearly on page one of appendix, well it's on page one of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is a significant piece of legislation requiring a significant amount of work. It will be done in the life of this government. We don't anticipate getting it in front of the House until 2018, which will allow us the time required to get this act into a modern state. In the meantime, with respect to safe disclosure, we do have the safe disclosure policy that was designed in cooperation with UNW for individuals who wish to disclose information or have concerns about things they see within the public service, so 2018.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, if there was only one P1 candidate, we might actually look at a P2 or P3 as well. However, if the P1 passes, the P1 would be offered the job. That is to save time later should an individual not pass. The priority would still go to the Indigenous Aboriginal candidate who is screened in and passes.

There are a number of reasons, but the reason we think that we've seen the greatest increase is the Harassment Free and Respectful Workplace Policy that we have put in has resulted in a number of files and investigations that we need to do increasing. It's a fairly new policy, new program, and I think we expected some ramp up as we're implementing it and we have seen that.