Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my right is Sheila Bassi-Kellett, deputy minister, Department of Human Resources; to my left is Michelle Beard, director of policy, Department of Human Resources.

Thank you. I don’t have a timeline on that. What I can do is go back to the department and they will provide me a timeline of that full analysis that the Member speaks of and then provide that timeline to the House. Thank you.

The Department of Transportation is aware of the full cost of the bridge and whatnot and the evaluation will be based on the tolls that we’ve put in place for the crossing of the bridge at one point. At the end of I think the last fiscal year, we had completed an analysis of the cost, the toll costs and the revenues that we’ve received from that and we have that information available. Thank you.

It’s not a huge operation, so if we wish to do so, it would be easy for us to evaluate after year one, after adding the vehicle registration, document replacement, registered permits and some self-management for some of the other tolls and so on. Once we are able to do that through year one, we can actually do a bit of an evaluation on it. We were thinking that we would add everything before we did a thorough evaluation. It looks at the outset that it’s going to be a very good system and people seem to like the ability to register their vehicles at home. So this is something we would maintain...

The on-line services at this time are something that we will be running for three years. Then we are looking at re-evaluating or evaluating the service at that time. Currently, we have minimum walk-in services in most places where we do have walk-in services. For example, we have one station in a place like Inuvik where individuals have the option to walk in to do their registrations and so on. If we went to a full system to save some money, we would have to shut that one down. So, we’re thinking of continuing to run a dual system and that system is designed to make things more efficient...

Mahsi cho, Madam Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

Madam Speaker, the new Highway No. 4 realignment opened to traffic on January 31st. Residents now bypass the remediation work underway at the former Giant Mine site and travel on a safer highway with better turns and sight lines. It is an important infrastructure investment toward ensuring responsible stewardship and providing jobs and business opportunities to dozens of Northerners.

This work started last summer with the construction of a new entrance. More than 250,000 cubic meters of rock were moved to use as sub-base and base...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do surveys with our public service. Satisfaction surveys are one way that we are gauging whether or not individuals in the public service are happy or unhappy. That is, for us, the preferred method to try to make the changes while the staff are still with us, and usually if we only take a survey of the individuals that leave the public service and we’re going through exit surveys, the data is very slanted. So, like I indicated yesterday, it appeared to be an opportunity for people to vent their frustrations with having worked with the government and why they left...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank the Member for mentioning the best diversity employer. The department appreciates the Member’s comments on that.

On the turnover rates, there has been, from the information we have, a slight decrease between 2011 and 2012 of about a 1.3 percent. On average, we pretty well turn over about 10 percent of our staff on an annual basis, although our average tenure for the public service in the GNWT is nine years, but annually we’re turning over, I would say, about 10 percent, a little under 10 percent and sometimes slightly over 10 percent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I do.

I will talk to the department about what extent the bridge has been evaluated in as far as looking at the bridge for lessons learned and so on from the time the bridge was approved until the time the construction was completed and provide that information to the House. Thank you.