Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, during question period I asked the Minister of Human Resources just briefly on the human resource plans. The strategic human resources, I'm kind of reading a bit of the activity here and I'm seeing workforce planning as a part of it. I just want to ask a question maybe about the human resource plans that the departments would have. I want to know: what the status is of the human resource plans from the departments? I just want to know roughly the percentage of departments that actually have human resource plans for their staff.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have some questions on the summer student program. I am a firm believer in investing in our youth and investing in students. Students are out getting their education. We need to attract the person back. We need to treat that student with respect. When they come to the Government of Northwest Territories, we should do all we can to try to make positions available for the students. I would not advocate to create a budget for summer students because, under normal circumstances, I do understand that we have a certain amount of turnover in our system. If we are turning...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes. I had indicated in my question that it was qualified Priority 1 candidates. Just to get this very clear and on the record, the Minister is indicating that if Priority 1 candidates are qualified in accordance with the job description that is put out there, then they only interview the Priority 1 candidates in round one of interviews. We will call it round one of interviews. It may not go beyond that. Is that what I am hearing? That only Priority 1 candidates will be interviewed? Thank you.

Rather than bringing it up for a political sense and discussing it with the Minister, there is nothing in place, then, to ensure that Priority 1 candidates applying for jobs, who are qualified, are given every opportunity into getting a job. Right now, as I understand it, whether you are a qualified Priority 1 candidate or not, you go through the steps that... I cannot talk about specific cases here, but I will talk directly to the Minister about the specific cases. If a Priority 1 individual is going to apply for a job where there is actually an individual filling that position as a casual...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman. I recognize that that is the role of the appeal officers to look at potential procedural errors. What I'm asking is, is there anything aside from procedural errors that makes the appeal process almost redundant? If you're only looking at procedural errors and you're not looking at anything outside of that, this appeal process is… You know, as the Minister indicated we may be the only jurisdiction to have that type of process because it's probably not effective because it looks at just procedures. What I want to know is are there any potential or future...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, committee wishes to continue their consideration of the mains with the Department of Human Resources today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, to be clear, I'm not advocating anything like what happened with the seniors' extended health benefits. I was just indicating that I don't think there's a whole lot of jurisdictions that are extending benefits that are harmonized to the NIHB, as we are in the GNWT. As far as I'm concerned, you know, we would continue to apply the Metis health benefits and pay the Metis health benefits until the federal government sorts out what the overall cost of that decision would be just in the area of health benefits. I'm not seeing a whole bunch of other areas where...

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Mr. Chairperson, committee would like to consider “Main Estimates, 2016-2017,” starting with two departments of Executive in there.

The Minister sort of answered parts of the third question, but to be very clear and focused, I would like to ask the Minister what the mines have identified as the key reasons for failing to meet the target of hiring Aboriginal employees at the diamond mines?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member's statement I talked about the socio-economic agreements that our government has with the three diamond mines. I'd like to ask the Minister of ITI questions on that. Does the government have any way of holding the diamond mines to account for employment targets set out in the socio-economic agreements? Thank you.