Tom Beaulieu

Mr. Speaker, the department was seeing the cost of advertising escalating every year. Since we’ve gone to this system in October, we are able to stabilize the cost and we are within that cost and we’re not increasing the budget to add on some of the jobs. This is something that was discussed between our department and the papers.

Right now a lot of what we’re doing with advertising, we’re doing a lot of generic advertising. All the departments are cost-sharing, so we’re getting economies of scale on that. So that’s one of the ways that we’re bringing the costs down in that area in order to pay...

As I indicated to the Member, I am sure that if the northern union wanted to put this on the table the next time around, it would be something that government would certainly discuss. At this time there’s a pre-determined agreement on the methodology that we’ve applied. We’ve applied the methodology to 22 of the 34 communities that are under this agreement and have increased. So we must recognize that this was a give and take and that there are some increases and some decreases. I also recognize that the cost is high, but this is something again that was pre-determined, agreed to the...

I should have been clearer in my response. I apologize for that. What I was indicating was that it is a negotiated item, so it was agreed to. The methodology was agreed to and it’s been left up to the Government of the Northwest Territories to do the annual adjustments. The northern living allowance was not an item that was on the negotiating table. The last time we negotiated an agreement with the Union of Northern Workers, they felt that they were more interested in the salary portion of it, the increase in the salaries, and they were satisfied with how the northern living allowance was...

Mr. Speaker, if that is internationally to lower the cost across the board, then our government is prepared to look at that particular tax for fuel into small communities that we’re delivering ourselves. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I wish to recognize two Pages from Tu Nedhe, Fort Resolution: Clair Rymer-Lafferty and also Samantha King. They are travelling with their chaperone, Margaret Edjericon. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Minister of Transportation’s Report for the Legislative Assembly for 2013 on Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1990.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, to achieve the vision and goals of the 17th Legislative Assembly and the Government of the Northwest Territories, we have, and require, employees who see challenges as opportunities, employees who value lifelong learning and employees who are engaged in becoming strong, capable leaders. To support employee learning, I am pleased to advise the Department of Human Resources has three new learning and development initiatives planned for 2014-15.

The first initiative is a Learning and Development Policy. This policy highlights that learning and development opportunities should be...

Mahsi cho, Madam Chair. [Translation] We, the elected leaders here sitting in here, the people that I represent, the real people that I represent, the way they’re looking at us. The need to do electoral boundary seats that they’re going to put in there can’t be done that way. The people here, the real people, there used to be a lot of people before and we used to reside all over the place, here in Yellowknife, also some people lived in Hay River, some of our people lived in Fort Smith, and we were separated all over the place. Some of us lived around the great lake. There wasn’t much work, so...

If the Member is referring to a website from Health and Social Services then that’s, as I indicated, a separate strategy. That doesn’t mean that the other 13 departments across the GNWT have suspended recruiting. We are continuing to recruit staff using the same strategies that we have in place to continue to recruit. What the Member refuses to hear is that in the last 12 months… In a 12-month period we have about 1,600 to 1,700 staffing actions, so if we’re suspending things, then how do we manage to achieve 1,700 staffing actions?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Human Resources continues to work with all of the departments in pursuit of filling all of the vacancies that can be filled. We are in the stage of running through various competitions. I had indicated in the House several times that at one point when this question was asked, of the 571 vacant positions that we were actively trying to fill, we had filled 165 of them. Of course, since that time there have been more vacancies since there’s a turnover of about 10 percent, so there are new people coming in and people leaving this government all the time.