EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
The Department of Human Resources is committed to excellence in the management of the public service and to providing efficient and effective services to the other departments, Nunavut Arctic College, and the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
To that end, we will be implementing the performance management program within the department. We will learn from and share with our colleagues in the other departments.
With the Inuit Employment Plan as a blueprint, we will continue to develop strategies and deliver programs to build a strong, stable, and representative workforce.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Tapardjuk.
Do you have any witnesses you would like to go to the table?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Yes, I do.
Chairman (interpretation): Does the committee agree to bring in the witnesses? .
Sergeant-at-arms, could you escort the witnesses, please? .
Minister Tapardjuk, please introduce your witnesses.
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
With me today on my left is Kathy Okpik, Deputy Minister.
And on my right is Tom Thompson, Assistant Deputy Minister, who deals with the regional government.
Does the co-chair of the standing committee have comments, Mr. Peterson?
Mr. Peterson: Yes, I do Mr. Chair.
I welcome the minister and his officials.
First of all, I would like to apologize. Hunter Tootoo, our regular Chair, has to send his regrets; otherwise, he’d be here with us.
I am pleased to provide you with the committee's comments on the 2004-05 main estimates and business plan of the Department of Human Resources.
The committee notes that the proposed 2004-05 budget for the department is $18,098,000.
This represents a 67 percent increase over the department’s initial 1999-2000 budget allocation of $10,836,000.
The committee has noted that the GN’s overall vacancy rate remains around the 20 percent level.
In other words, almost one out of every five jobs in the GN stands vacant.
Members remain unclear as to when, if ever, we can expect to see the capacity rate reach 90 percent or better.
In Iqaluit, for example, the number of vacant positions has remained around 230 for well over a year.
Although the department’s most recent public service annual report indicates that the turnover rate in government has improved, it is clear that retention of employees remains a significant issue.
It is noteworthy, for example, that the department’s budget for relocation of employees is actually projected to increase in 2004-05 to $3.851 million.
This suggests that the rate of departures from the public service is still a concern.
Members also note that the Inuit employment rate remains static at approximately 40 percent to 45 percent.
Members note with particular concern the fact that the Inuit employment rate for headquarters positions in Iqaluit is barely 30 percent.
In other words, only three out of every ten GN jobs in Iqaluit is filled with a beneficiary.
Members noted that the department’s business plan indicates that work will be undertaken to review the Public Service Act and bring forward amendments to the statute.
The committee was surprised at the apparent lack of a clear vision on the part of the department itself as to what specific changes to this major piece of legislation are needed.
The committee does not want to see this undertaking be a consultant-driven process and would be very disappointed to learn that neither the Nunavut Employees Union nor the Federation of Nunavut Teachers were consulted during the review.
The idea of re-introducing binding arbitration into the legislation was raised during the minister’s appearance, and members note that the idea was not dismissed out-of-hand by the minister.
Members continue to note with concern the striking gap between the number of beneficiary males and the number of beneficiary females employed by the GN. According to the most recent public service annual report, although almost 700 female beneficiaries were employed as of March 2003, fewer than 300 male beneficiaries were employed.
Members noted with interest the department’s intention to consider actions to address this issue in relation to the priority hiring policy.
Mr. Chairman, the committee has noted with approval the departmental business plan’s focus on the Inuit Employment Plan.
Members await with interest the tabling of the Seeking Balance IEP strategy document.
Members urge the department to continue its efforts to work in partnership with other entities to secure training investments from the federal government in order to help us achieve our long-term Article 23 goals and build a representative and professional public service.
Members look to such excellent programs as Nunavut Youth Abroad and Nunavut Sivuniksavut as being the source of many of our future employees.
On a related topic, the committee noted with interest that a training audit is to be undertaken with respect to quantifying the amount of investment in training across the public service.
Members look forward to that audit providing sound information on which to build meaningful training initiatives that enable our employees to succeed and grow.
Members wish to see training opportunities designed and delivered in Nunavut in order to minimize the costs associated with sending our employees out of the territory for courses and to maximize the relevancy of the training for our circumstances.
Suggestions have been made in the past that the department explore the concept of establishing some sort of ombudsman-like position within the GN to whom employees can go to for assistance, especially for those employees without access to the formal grievance process.
We have not seen any movement on this suggestion or on the issue of whistleblower protection.
The committee was pleased to see the department’s business plan identify the development of a revised code of conduct and revised conflict of interest policy for GN employees as being a priority.
Members look forward to these being tabled in the House and would suggest that the department avail itself of the advice of the integrity commissioner on this initiative, as some of his annual reports have addressed this issue.
Members also look forward to the finalization and tabling of the long-awaited language incentive policy.
Members encourage this policy to support the government’s goal of expanding the use of Inuktitut and Innuinaqtun in the public service.
The department’s annual report on the public service provides a range of useful information.
However, there are some areas not covered in the report which would provide even more insight into the health of the public service.
For example, although the department’s business plan explicitly identifies a high employee absenteeism rate as being a problem, there is no information in the public service annual report to make a determination on which departments are facing the greatest challenges in this area.
It is also impossible to find any information on how many employees have been terminated from the GN to date.
Members noted with interest the reference in the department’s business plan to the cabinet giving direction to the department to review the GN’s priority hiring policy.
During the minister’s appearance, the idea of using this policy to address the problems to which I referred earlier, with respect to the gender gap, was discussed.
The committee also wishes to see the department give consideration to modifying the policy with respect to long-term Northerners and the disabled.
The committee supports such valuable initiatives as the summer student employment program.
However, concerns have been raised with respect to the treatment of some categories of students under this program.
Members have noted with approval that the department is making efforts to reduce overuse and abuse of the government’s casual hiring policies.
Members would caution the mMinister with respect to the risk of public confidence in the government’s employment practices being undermined by perceptions of favouritism, especially in regard to the hiring of employees’ spouses or partners.
It has been a long two minutes, so we will take a 15-minute break.
>>Committee recessed at 15:13 and resumed at 15:55
Before we proceed, I would like to remind the members of the following.
According to Rule 77(1), you have ten minutes to make your general comments.
According to Rule 77(2), subject to the discretion of the chair, a member can speak more than once to a matter under discussion, but not until every member who wishes to speak has spoken.
I suggest to members that whenever possible you ask your detailed questions during the page- by- page review of the department estimates.
We already talked about some of the things that I would like to talk about today.
In April we met with the deputy minister and his ADM. I would just like to elaborate again that we could see that there are a lot more Inuit employees in the Nunavut government, especially in Iqaluit, where the numbers are growing.
Whoever wants to work in the Nunavut government can do so, but in some communities it is not the same.
The managers don’t realize that.
They don’t seem to want hire Inuit people but want to keep jobs for the non-Inuit.
It is not very receptive in Rankin Inlet.
For example, there are a lot of Inuit people who want to work in Rankin Inlet, but according to their hiring practices, a lot of people don’t want to work for the government because the environment is not very receptive and has to change.
I am pleased to hear that the minister would like to rectify that problem.
We want to be able to hire more Inuit people, and whenever there is a directive, then the department has no choice but to follow it.
If nobody is doing anything about it, and if there is no directive, then the Department of Human Resources hires whomever they want to hire and not Inuit people.
The Inuit could say we wanted to have the Inuktitut Inuit government, and they shouldn’t be hiring too many non-Inuit people.
It could go both ways.
Also, in the private sectors that provide housing and other services, the Inuit are assisted a lot more now.
For that reason, Mr. Chairman, I would like to let the minister know that there have to be more openings for Inuit employment and that there should be a directive to hire more Inuit people.
That would be appreciated in the communities.
I was very surprised when I was told by two individuals that, when they applied for jobs, they did not get hired because non-Inuit persons got them.
They said that the one with a degree, an Inuk, did not even get an interview.
I do not want to name any names, but I just want to urge the government that it should have directives to hire more Inuit.
When the Inuit are not comfortable, they will not even try to apply for a job. Some give up, knowing they will not be hired, even though they are capable of doing the job. Perhaps the senior officials could be replaced as often as possible and their positions filled with Inuk individuals.
The human resources department is not very receptive, and I wanted to say that for the record.
We will now proceed to a page-by-page review of the departmental estimates starting with page D-5.
Human resources. Branch summary.
Directorate. Total, operations and maintenance… . Mr. Curley.
I have another question for the minister. We are pleased to see that this department is following Article 23 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.
With that, I would like the minister to give us a briefing on exactly what his plans are for the coming years.
It is very obvious in our department that we do have problems in recruiting. One of the main challenges we have is the shortage of staff housing, especially when we are recruiting more and more Inuit for government positions. Mr. Chairman, we are going to work diligently on the Inuit Employment Plan.
It now has its own director, and we believe that we can open up more jobs to the Inuit and to the recruiting and hiring of Inuit.
We would like to be more friendly to the people of Nunavut and to the Inuit, and issue a report including the statistics on Inuit and non-Inuit, the number of staff positions, and the summer student program, which is one of our priorities in our department.
We are going to monitor these programs in the Inuit Employment Division, and we will also be looking out to see what training programs will have to be made available to upgrade the present employees that we have.
When we hire new employees, they are oriented on the values and traditions of the Inuit, and that is effective government-wide.
If that’s the case, Mr. Chairman, we will be looking at promoting or enhancing Inuit employment.
We want to be receptive to the Inuit and also have the information out there by way of communication links like radios and tapes and so on.
But today we are in the negotiation process on the retention of employees and the Inuktitut language.
So, we are putting all that together and making a plan to increase Inuit employment within the Nunavut government. Retention is also a priority of this government.
We will be going into the Inuit employment strategy.
I would just like to thank you and your department for looking, taking a holistic approach.
We see Nunavut from a global perspective, and like I said, everybody should be treated fairly, of course. We are a public government, but I think that we have to open up the door to give a realistic picture and work together to get more Inuit into the government to reflect the population.
We hear of a lot of negative things; they feel uncomfortable in the work environment. We have to try something, hold more seminars and have orientation programs for the new employees. I hear that the orientation programs are very well liked by the new employees because they learn the history of the Inuit and so on.
With the cabinet, the department, and the ministers, we definitely have to have a partnership to promote culture and language because we have to work together as Inuit and non-Inuit.
I would like this mentioned because once some people have this idea they have to get this job at any cost, they’ll get the wife or the husband to get a position and forget everybody else. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, but we don’t have that kind of a concept, and I think that should be understood by the people out there.
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): The Departments of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth and Human Resources are working together to put together an orientation program on the important parts of the Inuktitut culture and values.
We have a sheet going around that gives you an overview of how Nunavut was created, the Inuit perspectives and values, and for upcoming years, the cabinet identified the need to have it mandatory to have those orientation programs available to the new employees.
This was fully implemented at this stage, and Mr. Chairman, I can say, too, that this is our priority.
I think it is in July or June we will have a training or orientation program for all departments in Apex.
We are going to keep working on the promotion of this.
Mr. Curley, any further questions?
Questions on D-5. If there are no questions… . (Interpretation ends.)
Human resources branch summary. Directorate. Total, operations and maintenance, $1,971,000.
“Naamagivisiuk?”
Chairman: D-6. Human resources.
Branch summary. Staffing. Total, operations and maintenance… .
Mr. Curley (interpretation): First of all, I would like to know what kind of benefit package the bilingual employees have, or is it the same across the board?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Thank you. I will have Tom Thompson respond to your question.
I would expect the member is referring to the bilingual bonus, which is $1,500 annually paid to Government of Nunavut employees capable of speaking the language. Currently, their job requires that they speak that language if they have direct involvement with the public.
We have a committee to review bilingual bonuses to ensure that we can expand that program, and that committee will be meeting in the fall to look further into expanding the bilingual bonus to employees who speak the language at all times.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Thompson.
In regard to the bilingual bonus, does it apply to all languages and not just Inuktitut and English?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): The bilingual bonus applies only to the Inuktitut language.
My next question is about the official bilingual bonus, which I believe is totally different.
Do they get a bonus, or what happens with the other languages?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): French and English are not included.
It is just the Inuktitut language that earns the $1,500 bonus.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): I think I got that.
Are you saying that even if they speak French and English, they don’t get a bilingual bonus?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): It doesn’t apply to French and English.
It only applies to English and Inuktitut.
My next question is in regard to when we were in a committee meeting in April and had a discussion on government employees. Some of them get staff housing right away, and their rents stay stable, even when they have more than one person in the house.
If both members of a couple workfor the government, their rent scale does not change.
I will refer this question to my deputy or to my assistant deputy minister.
Chairman (interpretation): Ms. Okpik.
Ms. Okpik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to housing or government staff housing, it doesn’t apply, it is not the same. It is a different scale from other housing types.
No matter how many people are working in the same house, the rent stays the same.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Ms. Okpik.
So it is totally different from the situation of tenants using public housing.
That is one of the reasons why people do not apply for jobs, because there is a sudden hike in their rent when there is more than one person working in the house.
Are people eligible to get staff housing if they are not locally hired?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): I will refer that question to my deputy.
I’ve got a cold.
At this time, we have a shortage of government staff housing, and at times when we are putting out the advertisements, we make sure that we let them know whether there is housing available or not.
If there is housing available, the locals hired are also eligible for staff housing.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Thank you. I think we are all coughing.
With my first question, I’d like to know if there will be a change, or if you have any plans to make a change, on upping the rent scale if more than one person is working.
Are you planning to make any changes to the rent and the number of people who are working in that same household?
Housing is the responsibility of the Housing Corporation, and I think that they would be able to answer your question better than we can.
It is not going to be in the employment policy.
For example, if you are in government staff housing, there wouldn’t be any changes to the hiring policy.
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): The Nunavut Housing Corporation is dealing with this, so I cannot really answer, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Perhaps I should rephrase my question.
When one spouse who works has staff accommodations and then the spouse gets a job with the government, the rent will not change?
Mr. Premier, to this question, I believe.
According to my knowledge, we are now reviewing this.
We had made changes to public housing, and we wanted the staff accommodations to be aligned with that.
We are in the process of reviewing the rent scale for staff accommodations.
Some staff members, even though they can afford to own homes, stay in the staff housing.
We have a shortage of housing.
Perhaps some of the staff could be encouraged to own their own homes.
To the question on page D-6.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): I would like to ask another question.
When do you expect to see that policy implemented?
I cannot respond to that question about when it could be completed.
It is in the process of review.
Perhaps I will ask the appropriate minister to make a report to the House.
Chairman: Thank you, Premier Okalik.
Questions on page D-6.
I would like to apologize in regard to the question.
I did not appropriately respond.
Therefore, I would like to apologize to members in the House.
I would like to advise the member that there is a bilingual bonus if you speak French for the services that require French, like school curriculum and other programs that require French services.
For those, there is a French bilingual bonus.
I just wanted to state that for the members.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Tapardjuk.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Thank you for the explanation and the clarification.
Then the bilingual bonus, the amount $1,500 is the same as the other languages?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Yes, they are exactly the same, Mr. Chairman.
D-6, Human Resources.
Branch summary. Staffing. Total, operations and maintenance, $5,898,000. (Interpretation.)Do you agree?
Chairman: Page D-7, Human Resources. Branch summary. Assistant deputy minister, community operations.
Total, operations and maintenance, $2,504,000. Do you agree?
D-8. Human Resources. Branch summary.
Job evaluation and organizational design. Any questions?
Total, operations and maintenance, $678,000. Agreed?
Chairman: Thank you. D-9. Human Resources.
Branch summary. Inuit Employment Plan. Questions?
I know that this is almost complete, but perhaps the minister can state where you have annual targets. Do you have that information, or are you in the process of working on that?
Perhaps I just have not seen it.
Yes, the member is right.
The information on the Inuit Employment Plan Seeking Balance has been made available to the cabinet members, but it needs to be amended. Once it has been amended, we will provide the information to the members, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Curley: Thank you.
In reviewing those reports, Mr. Minister Tapardjuk, there are many staff working here in Iqaluit. Looking at the employment opportunities and the filled positions, the number of beneficiaries of Nunavut Land Claims Agreement is really low. They were very low in the beginning when the Nunavut government was just created.
Do you have any plans in place, or do you expect to make plans, to give more support to Iqaluit residents?
(Interpretation ends.) Minister Tapardjuk.
The employment opportunities in the communities were decentralized, and that’s why employment opportunities have gone down in Iqaluit. It has benefited the communities, however.
But at this time, there’s a management training program. At headquarters that’s what we are working on, as well as Seeking Balance, and we have provided information to the cabinet members.
Once it has been approved, we will be able to provide information, as I stated in the beginning in my opening comments.
We would like to provide more support to Inuit, provide them more assistance in résumé writing, interview skills.
In view of that we are thinking, to enhance it, even though the number of Inuit beneficiaries is increasing here in Iqaluit, we are still working on it, but we are expecting to improve as we go on.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Tapardjuk.
I’m very pleased, therefore I’m going to have expectations and believe that I will keep on top of that because we’ve been staying in Iqaluit for quite some time during session, and we see individuals requiring assistance, who would like us to ask for support.
In regard to your statement, I want you to know that we are going to keep on top of that and going to keep managing it, so if you ever need assistance in any form or any way, we are available to give it to you.
We can provide more employment opportunities to the beneficiaries because we need to increase the percentage of Inuit employed in the government.
Of 1133 positions, 900 positions have been filled, and only 266 positions by beneficiaries. That needs to improve, I just want to comment on that.
Please turn to page B-9, Inuit Employment Plan.
I know my question might be out of line, but when you don’t work for the government it is hard to know which package goes where in regards to your plans.