Jane Groenewegen

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Human Resources, this shortfall of 500 and, well, actually 800 positions, but 571 that we are actively trying to recruit, how long has that situation existed? Is this a new trend? Is this something new or is this something that has been on the books and unfilled positions for quite some time now? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m really looking forward to seeing the breakdown of those 571 vacant positions, where they are located, whether that would be in the regions or in the headquarters.

The Minister of Finance indicates that they are actively seeking to recruit candidates for those 571 positions; however, on the GNWT website right now there are 126 jobs advertised. Of these, five are short-term, 10 are terms, and so that amounts to 126 versus 570-something.

I’d like to ask, where are the other 400 jobs being advertised? Are they on some other website? Are they being recruited by boards and...

Well, if the government is actively trying to recruit for 571 vacant positions in the public service at this time, you know, please include us in that challenge. We probably could have some ideas to help you out in filling some of those positions.

I would like to ask the Minister of Finance, on the 800 vacant positions, what kind of monetary dollar value does 800 vacant positions represent? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to throw a few single words out there that the government might want to consider when trying to recruit people for the 800 vacant positions and how we are going to get Northerners first and foremost into those positions and, secondly, how we could attract other people to come here. Let me throw a few of those out: mentoring, sponsorship, job shadowing, transfer assignment, succession planning, partnerships with the private sector, tracking our students when they’re out there, forecasting labour market trends in the Northwest Territories so we can tell students...

Mr. Speaker, your committee would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have quite a few ideas of my own on this. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s budget address tomorrow, and I look forward to working with him on this.

The Minister of Finance cites many of the obvious reasons why our population is going down. I was just wondering: within the government, in order to come up with some creative ways to address this problem, who will be taking the lead role in addressing this? Like I said in my Member’s statement, we can be very optimistic and excited about the future of the Northwest Territories, but the fact is we are going to be challenged in many ways if our population continues to decline.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, it is good to be back in this House and we have a good long stretch ahead of us here where we will get a chance to air all of our concerns and all of our issues. We have been away for a while, so I have a few of them that have built up, I guess, over the time that we have been away and I have a lot of things that I want to talk about in the next six weeks.

The Premier has delivered his address today for the opening of session, and it paints a very promising picture of our future here in the North, and I want to be the first one to applaud the efforts of this...

Can I call the committee to order. We have one item on the agenda today. What is the wish of the committee? Ms. Bisaro.

I’ve been here 19 years. I guess I can wait one day to hear what the Minister has to say. I think there are some very good ideas out there, definitely from this side of the House, probably from some people in the public who could participate with us in an exercise to look at how we can address the situation.

The Minister mentioned the vacancy in our public service. Just in our employ, or within our purview there are approximately 800 vacant positions that are not filled, so there are many, many fronts on which we can work.

I’d like to ask the Minister, how far will he cast his net of acquiring...