Glen Abernethy

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...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. By legislation we’re responsible, as a government, to provide inspections on certain types of things like electrical, elevators, boilers, pressure vessels and gas safety. But for a little bit more detail, I’d like to go to Deputy Minister Guy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is correct; it’s actually an error within the Department of Human Resources and it needs to be put into the right category.

Not sure I completely understand the question. The Department of Human Resources used to show these positions even though they didn’t necessarily work for the Department of Human Resources. To be consistent, given that this is a supernumerary training position, they will no longer show under HR’s establishment but we still have those training opportunities available and we will put individuals in those training opportunities. We will always try to have those training opportunities full. We’ll always be training somebody in the regional Superintendent/Director Training Program. There are three...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Once the UNW Collective Agreement is ratified officially by both sides, we will have a six-month time period to complete the interim whistle-blower protection. It isn’t going to be legislation. It’s going to be interim protection that we’re going to work in partnership with the union and other stakeholders to put in place. That’s going to be our first priority, to get that in place. Once that’s in place we will proceed with the LP for whistle-blower legislation. As I’ve committed to before, we hope and want and expect that we will have whistle-blower legislation...