Glen Abernethy

I can’t tell you why it swelled up to $103,000 in previous years. The actual uptake was only around $20,000 so we felt it was more appropriate to indicate what the trend has been as opposed to whatever this $103,000 was in previous years. Or last year, sorry.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going back a little bit, this corporate human resource section is the section that has that health recruitment unit that we were talking about previously. The GNWT Green Team currently has representatives from 12 of 14 departments, including the Housing Corporation sitting on our committee. There is also one outside agency, the Arctic Energy Alliance, who has committed a member to participate on the committee. The committee has initiated conversations and relationships with the federal government Green Team and is participating in their meetings as well.

Our Green...

Ultimately, as the Member said earlier today, the responsibility for a buildings standard code in the Northwest Territories would ultimately be up to MACA, and we’re absolutely happy to work with MACA, share our expertise, provide any sort of guidance around the specifics that we can, and we will do that if MACA does take that direction.

I’m always happy to sit down with the Member and committee to discuss their concerns and issues, and I’d be happy to discuss this in greater detail with the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe this was brought up during the interim budget as well. There has been an increase of one position at corporate human resources. There was a labour relations advisor that sunsetted. We’re bringing it back. Is that correct? One sunsetted, we’re bringing it back, and then we’re bringing back an additional one to help us with some of the workload in the labour relations division. So two there, one new.

The unit that we’re talking about which is in the corporate human resources is more of a planning unit and delivers some specific programs to encourage people to go into the health professions. The allied health recruitment unit is the unit that’s actually doing the staffing for individual jobs, out there recruiting or advertising for position X and following it through to the hiring of somebody in position X. They’re more the action unit with the actual individual jobs who are doing the actual hiring with the authorities.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is correct; right now we subscribe to the 25 percent better than the national. That’s our target. We do actually direct our staff in the department to meet or beat even the 25 percent and go beyond that. In most cases we do. We’re comfortable that we’re actually beating the 25 percent that we’re targeted for.

With respect to investigate, I’m happy to have the department look at some options. I will not commit to 40 percent at this time because the analysis hasn’t been done and I’m not sure whether or not we can actually get to the 40 percent. I’m happy to...

If a tenant has a concern with something done by their landlord, they always have the ability to go to the rental tenancies officer.

I’ll start with the easy one first. We have been fined in the past and we are expecting to have a fine again this year. I can’t tell you what that total is going to be, but as soon as we know, we will certainly share that information with Members.

With respect to the role of the Department of Human Resources, we provide leadership and guidance. Ultimately it is the departments that are responsible for putting their committees in place and making sure that those committees are meeting on a regular basis and providing that occupational health and safety perspective within the individual...

Thank you, Madam Chair. In the Department of Human Resources within this – it’s actually not in this section, it’s in the corporate human resources section – there is a recruitment and retention unit that’s responsible for the big picture recruitment. Planning, figuring out how to convince people to come here, also supporting programs that will actually train people here in the Northwest Territories. Programs that they do run out of there, there are a number of health-specific programs. They do the bursaries, they do the professional development initiative, they do some marketing on the big...