Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, wish to acknowledge the fine group we have in the gallery for the Coalition Against Family Violence and, more specifically, the group from the Status of Women. Mr. Speaker, one of our Pages, Heather Flannigan, I would like to recognize as well. Finally, I would like to recognize my favourite table officer and I have no doubt yours as well, Anthony W.J. Whitford. One of our favourite guys here. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Your loyal committee would like to review Bill 1, An Act to Amend the Student Financial Assistance Act; Bill 3, An Act to Amend the Human Rights Act; Committee Report 1-17(3), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2010-2011 Annual Report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories; and, finally, time permitting, Committee Report 2-17(3), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2010-2011 Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission Annual Report. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to return to my questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment because I think he provided some really good overviews to the questions I asked. I’m hoping this round he would provide the answers to them. What I want to do is come back to my very last question in which I asked him if the government monitors the decisions made by our employment standards office that are actually taken and appealed to the Supreme Court. The reason I ask that is there may be some reasons why people are consistently appealing them or have problems with them. There...

Part of the training question that I’d like to ask at the same time, is does his department offer any ongoing training. As many people know, there are types of mediation training such as decision-writing training and these are the types of the capacities. Does his department support these statutory officers with that type of support mechanism, again, to ensure they’re making clear and good decisions? Thank you.

Wow. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I was referring to the fact that territorial laws often create statutory officers. They become decision-makers. These are individuals who are responsible for the administration of very important pieces of legislation, and they have far-reaching decision-making authorities such as employment standards, I pointed out, and in particular, we have other things such as the Legal Services Act creates the legal services board, and it goes on and on and on.

My question, though, is around ECE and, of course, the employment standards officer, so...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

I want to thank the Minister for that very good answer on the particular last question. As I pointed out earlier about wanting some more information as to what type of training we’ve provided, and as I’ve highlighted, do we provide basic administrative law training, guidance on decision-making? Would the Minister be able to provide some type of reference package, sort of a broader overview, not everything, of course, but a broad overview as to what type of reference material, strengthening and ongoing training do we provide to these folks who have to make these statutory decisions that are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Quite often I only hear from people who are unhappy with a particular decision or, certainly, the guidance provided by this specific office, and I’ve heard about many offices, I just had to pick one because we don’t have all day. When decisions are appealed, taken to court, it’s quite expensive and it’s a very painful process. What type of monitoring does the Department of ECE do on both the decisions made, reaffirmed by the court, and the subjects why people have taken them to the process of appeal? Does the Department of ECE ever examine and consider some of the...

I appreciate the Minister providing a bit of an outline where they do their business, but it’s a matter of them being able to do their business is really what I’m after. Back to the training question, do we provide any training or mentoring for them as they make these very important decisions? Do we get behind them with special reference material to help them guide and make clear and honourable decisions in their process? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The nature of our modern government is that a large number of very important decisions are delegated to statutory officers. The example I use today is the employment standards officer. This is, of course, sometimes the only efficient way to do government, in today’s day and age. What concerns me is that too often the government’s oversight seems to end with an appointment or, certainly in the case of employment matters, when they hire these folks. It cannot be overstated, but the decisions made by the employment service officers have very far reaching impacts. Sometimes...