Glen Abernethy

Just for some clarity, not all GNWT employees are eligible for the mandatory with-pay days during the actual Christmas holidays. Every department is asked to do a bit of an analysis of their department to determine which services are continuous or required over the holiday season. Things like health care workers and correctional workers and certain positions in Transportation as well as some positions in Public Works that are responsible for maintaining buildings and actual public safety and some positions in the Department of Human Resources like medical travel; these positions don’t shut...

I am not aware of a global statement that we have with respect to customer service. I believe a lot of the departments, with respect to their actual program areas, have identified a level of customer service or a level of expectation for each of those program areas, but as a global statement, I don’t believe we have one. Once again, I will speak to the department and see if we can track something down in that sense.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don’t really have too much to add. These positions were created in 2008. They both haven’t been re-described; one of them is exactly the same as it was in 2008, the other is switched from an associate to an assistant deputy minister. It doesn’t change the bottom line of the department. We’re still funding it from within the department, but we thought it was important to not have the positions invisible. We thought it was important for people to see the, so we brought them forward that way.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents, entitled “Buying a Condominium: A User’s Guide” and “Owning a Condominium: A User’s Guide.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The positions were both established in 2008 but they were unfunded positions. They were being funded internally. Nothing is really changed other than the fact that we’re identifying them within the position count so that people can see that they’re there. The associate ADM position has been around since 2008 and the senior policy advisor has been around since 2008 as well.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table two documents. The first document is entitled “2011 Annual Report of the Public Utilities Board of the Northwest Territories” and the second document is entitled “Northwest Territories Law Foundation Annual Report for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2011.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. I recently attended the F/T/P meetings in PEI with the Ministers of Justice and I did have an opportunity to sit down with the other two Ministers from the other two provinces and we had the same issues and concerns about Bill C-10. We’re all being affected slightly different because of different realities. Nunavut’s got a bigger problem because they actually have no capacity in their jails whereas here in the Northwest Territories we do have capacity and the Yukon just built a new facility, but the impacts of the bill are going to be the same in many ways. So we have agreed to work...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re working on that right now. We’re very interested to actually identify what those costs are and break them down so that they’re reasonable. Some of the costs are easier to identify. The cost of facilities is certainly an easier cost to come up with, but when it actually comes down to how much it’s going to cost for legal aid and how much it’s going to cost for court time, or even how much it’s going to cost in the facilities itself, because we actually have to do an analysis of the actual cases that have gone through the system and try and figure out how the new...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just like to build upon Minister Miltenberger’s comments. The department does incredibly important work. There are always challenges with any department, but I have confidence that the staff are working hard and doing important things and we will continue to work with the department to make sure that they meet the needs of the Northwest Territories and the public service. I think it’s important to note that we have fantastic staff and they need to be recognized and they’re doing good work. I support the staff of Human Resources. I’ll keep on top of them and make...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We put forward the status quo budget. These positions did exist previously. Both positions were actually established in 2008. The ADM position was previously the associate deputy but we’ve had some changes in the department, so we just re-described it as an ADM to make sure that we’re capturing the proper roles that the people will be playing in the organization. The senior policy advisor has been established since 2008 but they weren’t captured in previous reporting of positions. We just wanted to make sure that they were there so that people could see them.