Tom Beaulieu

Part of the reconstruction of the hospital is to add a wing or a section onto the hospital while we are doing the hospital. So the hospital will actually expand in size by an additional 30 to 40 percent. That does include a wing to the existing hospital, if that is what is most efficient. Thank you.

The department supports the other departments by trying to increase and implement opportunities in the decentralized positions. We work with the departments to attract and develop a labour market where it is needed, where we are decentralizing positions. We work with them to recruit those positions. We work with the departments in trying to develop excellent terms of employment to retain those jobs and we ensure that the division that is in the 17th Assembly is something that we try to reduce results by making sure that whenever there is a decentralized position identified by the departments...

I’ll have the deputy minister respond to that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has been determined that the Stanton Hospital still has a lot of building left in it. It was built with the concept that at one point there would be a full mid-life retrofit, and we can’t shut the hospital down.

There have been many incidents where they have done mid-life retrofits to hospitals and they continue the operation of the hospital. It would be difficult for us to relocate the hospital while we’re doing a mid-life retrofit to it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those position transfers where reflected in the ‘14-15 budget year. That was the year that those occurred. The removal of those positions from this process is proper accounting procedures.

I guess, then, we’ll take it from one year from the last PeopleSoft report going back a year.

Public Works and Services will be involved in organizing a construction workshop here in Yellowknife that’s an annual thing. That will be occurring sometime in April. What we will be doing as one of the topics will be discussing the energy efficiency act. Actually, sorry, I believe that’s in the middle of this month is when the date of that workshop will be occurring.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That money has been removed, but it didn’t impact directorate. This was a whole section on pay and benefits that was in Human Resources that moved to Finance, and all the people that were in the management and the whole group from there moved over but it didn’t impact on the directorate specifically.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We would be able to provide that in writing if the committee wished for us to provide that information in writing. We are also looking at creating a field in this report so that… Right now, this concentrates mostly on the vacancy rate. We’re working on creating a field in this report that would indicate overall which the candidates were, either a priority 1, 2 or 3. Just for more clarification, I would like to ask the deputy minister to add to that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As far as an actual retention strategy, I could maybe have the deputy speak to that. Our best tool for retaining people in the public service really is having the work environment that the GNWT has and also the benefits package that we’re able to offer to individuals working in the public service.

We would pay equal attention, department by department, on wishing to retain our staff, and our turnover rate has not increased over the years. In fact, it may have come down just a bit. As far as the retention strategy or retention plan that we have, I will have the deputy...