Glen Abernethy

I think that was the answer, Madam Chair.

The government is working and Cabinet has given direction to each of the departments to try and increase their numbers of Aboriginal representation. There clearly are some challenges. There isn’t a significant amount of turnover at the senior management level, which means there’s not a lot of people moving up. The Department of Human Resources has some expertise in succession planning and they’re happy to work with any department and they have made that offer to do some succession planning to move some individuals up through the system. We also have an Aboriginal Engagement Committee engaged...

I don’t think that’s correct. The program was intended to start in ’12-13 and straddle into ’13-14. That was capital that we did in October for the upcoming fiscal year, not the current fiscal year.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Safety in the workplace, I already talked a bit about that and our duty to accommodate officers and working with WSCC, occupational health and safety committees in departments that are being put in. HR is helping by providing advice and guidance to each of the individual departments of the types of things that are needed to be done by occupational health and safety committees. We are trying to work with departments to create some flexibility around those, because we sometimes have buildings where there are multiple departments in it, and having them work together for...

As I’ve indicated, we actually are responsible for writing a significant amount of the policy that the individual departments are responsible for administering. We provide technical advice and guidance on how to apply those policies and procedures, and we provide training that’s available to individuals that are on the occupational health and safety committees. At the end of the day, the application within each department is the responsibility of the deputy minister and I guess, by default, the Ministers.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of things that we’re doing. One of the things that we are doing is the Associate Director/Superintendent Program, which is actually an Affirmative Action Program to bring individuals in and train them for senior management roles. We have about three positions a year, six ongoing at any time, and we are getting good results with that program.

Madam Chair, I can get that information. The 2.42 comes directly from the website and it is a 2012 target, and our 1.8 claims per 100 is based on the number of employees we have. As far as how it is actually calculated, I will get the detail to the Member later.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to complicate things, when we move forward with the union on what was often referred to as whistleblower legislation or whistleblower policy, through discussions with the UNW and how we were moving forward, it’s changed its name. It’s now a Safe Disclosure Policy. It will be safe disclosure legislation. When I’m referring to Safe Disclosure Policy and legislation, it’s really the evolution of the whistleblower discussions that we’ve been having.

As I’ve indicated, I’m really excited to bring this good work that the union and department have done in collaboration...

As I’ve said before, we’ve had this discussion in Cabinet and I have discussed this with the Premier. This is going to be part of the performance measurement system for senior managers and it’s discussed on a regular basis at the deputy head level. Each of the deputy ministers are accountable, and they are accepting that accountability and making the appropriate progress within the departments.

Madam Chair, it is no secret we are behind the eight ball on some of this stuff. This stuff that we are talking about, like the Occupational Health and Safety Policy that is being put in place by the GNWT, is new. If you look at the criteria for occupational health and safety policies put in by WSCC, there is a list of criteria.

We had a committee meeting some time ago, and I actually walked through each of those lists. We are actually beating, meeting and exceeding everything that they have identified needs to be in occupational health and safety. I am happy to re-share that list with the...