Glen Abernethy

I believe the draft response to the community’s letter is actually in my signing book up in my office. We, obviously, would like to have some representatives of the department meet with the representatives in Colville Lake to start discussing exactly what they mean by reintegration program, finding out what the community can contribute or offer as far as resources or what their ultimate plan would be. We have to make sure that all safety and security issues are dealt with. But I’d like to get the department working with Colville Lake sooner rather than later, so I’ll talk to the department and...

This is an important program. I share the Member’s opinion and thoughts. It’s going to be an e-training curriculum. It’s going to be on line. That way the greatest number of GNWT employees and respective GNWT employees can access and start gaining the awareness that they need of the different cultures and realities in the Northwest Territories.

I understand the Member’s point, as well, about getting out with members of the communities, getting into communities, and I as a Minister have committed to getting to those communities and bringing some of my staff with me on a regular basis. I know the...

I’m not sure I understand what the Member means by that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If I understand correctly, the Member is asking about bilingual bonuses that employees can get. That comes out of each individual department out of their compensation and benefits section. So it will show up in every department under compensation and benefits. It’s not broken out specifically because the number changes fairly regularly as people come in that are receiving the bonus, but it all comes out of individual departments’ compensation and benefits.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll just touch on a few of these areas and then we can get into some details where I can answer some specific questions.

With respect to Mr. Yakeleya’s comments about the high cost of energy in the communities, we see that and we recognize that, which is one of the reasons with public infrastructure we have been looking at alternatives and we have been using the Capital Asset Retro Fund to help us deal with those things. I acknowledge that we haven’t gone to any alternatives necessarily in the Sahtu with respect to heating, but we have been working in the Sahtu. One...

Duly noted. With respect to data, we need the data to do the evaluation, so it is important that we continue to pull the data.

Later on when we get to page 7-26, there’s a complete, comprehensive list of projections and previous year estimates and actuals from ‘10-11 on all the dollars that came in from all of the departments, boards and agencies and the government services into the TSC. That money goes into the TSC to evergreen, to cover the cost of providing the services and all of those types of things. I might be missing something so I’ll go to Ms. Gault to see if there’s anything to add.

That’s correct.

Yes, Mr. Chair.

The Duty to Accommodate Policy has been in effect since August 2011. From there, we developed a bunch of policies and protocols that went in place. Those went in place closer to December 2011. There is a position – the Member is correct – that’s responsible for assisting the departments in their obligation and their duty to accommodate. We haven’t done an analysis of the effectiveness of that position. It’s still early days and we’re still trying to smooth out all the ripples and find ways to make sure that the departments understand the policy and that we’re able to provide them advice that...