Glen Abernethy

We do have a couple programs that are available to help students graduating from college – whether it’s Aurora College or another institution – transition into the workplace. Our Internship Program is that program and it is an affirmative action-based program. We also work with the college to help us identify training within house, programs for GNWT employees to take. So we do work with the college, and as far as the students, we do have the Internship Program.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Right now that’s something that our client service officers do, actually, through the hiring process. When individuals come in, we try to focus and guide them to the community leadership, who can answer some of those questions; you know, identify housing that may be available. Could more be done? Probably. I would say yes. But right now our client service officers are working with communities and individuals to get them the information they need to find the resources they desire.

A couple of things. We’ve put together some Aboriginal cultural awareness training programs that are available to new staff as they come into the GNWT. Also – and I’ve talked about this every opportunity I’ve had to get outside of Yellowknife and into the regional settings – we have a program where we’re willing to facilitate secondments either way with Aboriginal community governments. Where individuals who are working in the Aboriginal community government could come on to the GNWT, give them an opportunity to have some cross-training and learn a little bit more about different areas, but we...

We provide a framework and they do their risk assessment on the exposure as they move forward.

I don’t have that number memorized, but I will commit to getting that to the Member later today or early tomorrow.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s currently being implemented at Stanton and we are experiencing some growing pains with the program, trying to make it effective and work properly at Stanton. It’s going to take a little bit more time before we can come back with an analysis on the benefits and the effects of this particular tool.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have statistics on the number of senior managers we expect are approaching retirement. I’m not actually sure if we have a concrete figure on that, but I will have the department go back and look and provide committee with anything that we might have. We do know, anecdotally, that we have a number of senior managers approaching retirement, which is one of the reasons the Associate Director/Regional Superintendent Program is a positive program that’s helping us develop people who are on the right path but maybe need a little bit more opportunity or experience...

When I talked to the Premier we confirmed that it is, yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going back to the WSCC claims, as I have indicated, we are putting stuff in now; we are trying to address the problem. Some of the stuff is going to take a bit of time to work through. As with any new program, there is bound to be some growing pains, but we have already seen a decrease in 2012. We know there is probably going to be a penalty coming from that. We just expect it to be much smaller, which shows that we have started to make progress. More progress is needed. More diligence is needed. We continue to work closely with the departments so they implement...

I hear you on the scoring frustration. I believe we’ve already had conversations on this and I understand the frustration that some of your constituents are having, and not just your constituents, but others across the Northwest Territories, and the barriers that our system may be actually putting in place unknowingly, which I’m going to go back to my comments on the Aboriginal Employees Advisory Committee. We’re really looking forward to some suggestions they have on the process. I mean what barriers we may be unknowingly be putting in and how we can improve those. So we look forward to their...