Tom Beaulieu

In addition to being in good standing with WSCC, the contractor has to have a copy of the safety plan on site. Also, they have to have regular meetings on safety through the process. Depending on the size of the contract and the nature of the contract, if there are hazardous materials such as asbestos, they have to have an abatement plan for those items. For the real large projects, even our own project officers who go on site, need to have job-specific orientations before they get on site and work with the contractor. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will have the director, Laurie Gault, respond to the Member.

The Department of Public Works takes safety seriously. We are working with industry to ensure that when individuals are on site that not only the main contractor has followed all the NWT Safety Regulations under the NWT Safety Act and that all the subs that go on site also follow that. We have several items, anywhere from clothing to regulations with WHMIS need to be taken by employees. I’m not sure I’m following what self-registration is. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We agreed to that, that we would look at the greenhouse gas emissions outlook for natural gas. We would look at all of the alternative energy systems, including biomass as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my immediate right is Paul Guy, deputy minister of Public Works and Services. To my immediate left is Steve Lewis, director of corporate services; and to my far right, Laurie Gault, director of Technology Service Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that’s not what we’re saying. Safety is still an important part of our work. We are not going to abandon all of the safety programs or anything we have in place for safety. That’s not what we’re saying. What we are saying is, if we develop hard rules saying that individual contractors have to have certain types of specific safety certifications in order to be on our jobsites today, then we will have eliminated the majority of people that are doing contracting in the Northwest Territories today.

So what we are doing is we are working with industry to roll out this...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the 2015-2016 Main Estimates for the Department of Public Works and Services. Overall, the department’s estimates propose an increase of $5.1 million, or 4.4 percent, over the 2014-2015 Main Estimates. These estimates continue to support the objectives of limiting expenditure growth in order to sustain the long-term sustainability of the fiscal framework.

Highlights of the proposed estimates include:

an interdepartmental transfer of $6.1 million associated with the consolidation of the government’s energy functions, along with associated...

Yes, that is correct.

Counting both senior and regular management, we have about 80 Aboriginal women in management. The corporate nature of the GNWT, we have lots of women in management. Fifty percent of our deputy ministers are women.

What happens is when we become specific to how we’re going to fill positions, we always have affirmative action. The Affirmative Action Program looks at indigenous Aboriginal and also looks at women, who always have a priority. So, indigenous Aboriginal women would have the highest priority, and women also have a priority 1 or priority 2 category in this government. Using the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are beginning to move into a lot of safety areas as we continue to work with the Workers’ Safety Commission. We have contracts in place where when a contractor gets on a site, they would have to have a safety plan for the people on site. We don’t believe that WSCC is only there to collect premiums. Actually, we believe that people who are in construction are different than individuals who may be in retail and the requirement for having some safety plan in place on a construction site versus something that just may protect employees against some lighter duty injuries...