Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT has various leave for volunteer activities. Some of the leave is laid out in the Collective Agreement and in the Human Resource Manual. We have civic leave, where an individual employee of the GNWT can take up to 15 days to work with public boards, community councils and committees. There is other leave, as well, for something we refer to as sporting leave for people who are athletes, officially designated coaches, managers, head officials and so on, and GNWT allows up to eight days for that type of activity. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Bill 30, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act, be read for the first time. Thank you.

Thank you. A representative public service is a priority of this government. We have asked, through my office I have talked to the deputy minister of Human Resources and advised the deputy minister of Human Resources that I wish to see all of the human resource plans from all of the departments, that she was to talk to all of the deputy ministers across the GNWT to look at the human resource plans and determine how the departments are going to raise the level of Priority 1 candidates in each of the departments. So we are doing that. We’re examining that to determine how the numbers look now so...

A good point of contact for us has been the government service officer. The government service officers who have worked in the communities that they’re responsible for put a list of individuals in the community that they feel that have achieved Grade 12, and from that list the government service officers have talked to the regional directors. It’s a standing item with the regional directors at the regional management committee meetings and they’re communicating that back to the Human Resources department. In Human Resources, we have a regional recruitment specialist, and that individual then...

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, civil leave used for participation in community councils, public boards and other committees, other volunteer organizations around the community. The Rangers are used extensively for search and rescue, as well as firefighters. CASARA have their leave when an individual is out on the land, lost. In that case the Rangers would fall into that leave. When the Rangers are exercising, as I’m sure the Speaker is aware, then the leave will be granted under the civil leave. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as far as the training of the firefighters goes, for that aspect of it the GNWT will provide five days of leave. If a firefighter at work is called to a fire and needs to take leave for that day when they’re fighting a house fire, I think that is something that we don’t have specifically covered in our HR Manual, but it’s something I think that the GNWT, as the manager of that employee, allows an individual to go and fight a house fire if they’re part of the volunteer group.

However, some of the other things that may be important to this questioning is that right now the GNWT is...

Mr. Speaker, June 15th to 21th is National Public Service Week. This year’s theme is “Proudly Serving Canadians.” National Public Service Week provides an opportunity for us to celebrate the contribution and accomplishments of public service employees across Canada and especially here in the Northwest Territories.

A strong territory needs a strong society. All residents of the NWT should have the chance to enjoy the benefits of living in a prosperous, well-governed territory and to participate fully in a healthy, just society. The GNWT is committed to helping our residents achieve their...

Thank you. Yes, we are. It’s essentially the same plan that we’ve been running for seven years. It is a plan that’s worth $4 million a year for the last seven years that has been spent and we thought that it would just roll into this new Corridors for Canada III. However, there seems to be a one-year gap in between. We were hoping that didn’t exist, but yes, we will be continuing to widen the road moving forward with money that comes from the federal government. Thank you.

The Inuvik-Tuk highway is a design build highway. We are heavily involved in working with the joint venture up there, the EGT Northwind and in the construction of that highway. We think it’s a good approach. It’s a good approach for the Inuvik-Tuk highway. We would look at all of our procurement avenues when we build any major infrastructure like this.

At this time it would be unwise, I think, to say that we would go and negotiate a contract on that section of highway. We recognize that that highway will be running through two different regions. About 100 kilometres will be through the Deh Cho...

Mr. Speaker, to date, the GNWT has spent $128 million on that section of road; we’re referring to a road up the Mackenzie Valley. Slowly we’ve continued to work on that. We’ve put quite a few of the bridges in. We’re continuing to put bridges in which not only will work well for the future all-season road but also works well for extending the length in which the winter road will remain open. Plus, like I indicated, a proposal to the federal government on the national infrastructure program.

With that, we will be providing some information to the federal government, but for the most part, we’re...