Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I truly do appreciate the commitment of the Minister to look into that and provide further information to us on this side. Sick leave hours for employers are concentrated in the Health and Social Services authorities and in the Department of Justice. While I can understand how health and social workers are often overworked and need to take sick leaves, it's not clear what is happening in Justice. Can the Minister explain these patterns of sick leave and what are we doing to improve employee wellness? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister for his response. Our government is spending a lot of money, more than $11 million between April 2016 and mid-February 2017, on overtime. Can the Minister explain what efforts we are making to reduce overtime, and whether that includes hiring more full-time staff at a reduced cost?

Merci, Monsieur le President. I would like to recognize one of our Pages, Michael Le. He is a resident of the Frame Lake riding, and he is a student at the Weledeh School. I just want to thank all the Pages for their work during this short sitting and congratulate them all on their selection for serving us and working with us over the duration of the last week. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River North, that Bill 30, Health Statutes Amendment Act (Cremation Services) be read for the second time. Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Public Health Act to clarify that the Commissioner may make regulations respecting cremation and crematoria. This bill also amends the Vital Statistics Act to define cremation and crematorium and prohibit cremation except by a funeral planner in a crematorium operated by a funeral planner. Merci, Monsieur le President.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I have two written questions today. For the first one, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The Minister provided Regular Members with the most recent version of its School Funding Framework that I tabled in the House yesterday. Can the Minister:

Identify the number of students enrolled in junior kindergarten alone, and in kindergarten to grade 12 cumulatively, and each school offering the Junior Kindergarten Program in 2016-2017;

Provide departmental projections of the above for 2017-2018; and

Identify differences between current K...

Thanks to the Minister for his response. I am not sure they are actually in the public realm yet, and that is why I am asking. So he has got commitment to share them with this side, and I am sure he is going to make sure that they are posted immediately to the Infrastructure website, but the economic advisory committee, has his deputy minister made the appointments to that body yet?

Merci, Monsieur le President. I have some questions for the Minister of Infrastructure. Can he tell us when these fabulous new airport improvement fees are actually going to come into effect? Is it going to be July 1st? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister again for that information. I am glad that he recognizes that overtime is stressful on our employees, and that the idea of relief workers is a good one. I will be tracking this during the rest of my term, certainly. As I mentioned earlier today, though, a great deal of the overtime is concentrated in Health and Social Services authorities, and Stanton hospital alone accounted for 18 per cent of the overtime costs. This may not come as a surprise to our healthcare and social workers, but I believe this is causing a lot of stress and burnout. What is our government doing to...

Merci, Monsieur le President. Earlier today, I offered some observations on statistics for employees as provided by the Minister of Human Resources, now the Minister of Finance. There appear to be about 100 vacant, undetermined departmental positions at any given time. Can the Minister explain whether this is comparable to other jurisdictions, and what efforts we are making to improve our recruitment efficiency? Merci, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. On February 14, 2017, I sent a Valentine's Day message to the Minister of Human Resources, in the form of a set of written questions regarding vacancy and overtime statistics. I recognize this was a complicated and lengthy set of questions, and that the department likely had to expend a fair amount of effort to pull together that information. I sincerely thank the Minister and his staff for pulling the information together.

Today, I offer some observations on that data tabled in this House on May 25th. The vacancies in our department for indeterminate positions...