EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I thank Mr. Shooyook for the comment and question.
I’ve got friends back home in Cambridge Bay that I know are very qualified for a lot of things.
If I need things fixed, sometimes I call my close friend James for a quick fix on my computer or snowmobile.
People do have a lot of experience in different areas that they have gained over the years. If they don’t have certificates, degrees, or diplomas, but if we can provide them with assistance to develop their resumés so that when they do apply, at least we know what their equivalencies are and what experience they have, it will make it easier for them to at least be considered for jobs in the Government of Nunavut.
Following the names on my list, Mr. T. Sammurtok.
I had two names on my list at the beginning and I apologize.
Going back to the discussion about the organizational structure and the changes that have happened over time, the first question I want to ask is the department of... .
Back then it was called the Human Resources Priority Hiring Policy, which I understand falls under the Department of Finance now.
Is this still the case or does this policy belong under EIA?
Yes, it is the Department of Finance’s policy and it’s embedded in the Public Service Act.
With what Ms. Angnakak talked about, the split with Inuit employment had been taken over by EIA and the training aspects, but now they seem to go hand in hand with Article 23 and priority hiring.
How often do you work with EIA or our Premier on the Priority Hiring Policy in relation to Inuit employment plans?
Mr. Chairman, as the Department of Finance and EIA, I would like to say that we work daily, but I’m going to say that we work almost daily together on priority hiring and the Inuit Employment Plan.
I got this copy of the policy from your website and this one expired June 30, 2014. Are there plans to renew this policy any time in the near future?
Yes, it’s on our website, it has expired, but we continue following it. It is in the process of being renewed.
Can he indicate when we can expect to see a renewed policy?
Before the end of our term or would it be… ?
We’re not contemplating a change to the policy at this time. We will just renew it and it will go back up on the website.
They usually go up for a period of five years and then there are deadlines and then we have to review.
It has been reviewed and we will be putting it up on the website as soon as possible.
Yes, I dug up some information from the website on this policy and how many revisions or renewals it has gone through.
There was one in 2002, 2005, 2007, and I guess the latest one, which was revised in 2011, and now it’s 2016.
I think it’s due for some revamping.
Looking at the GN’s Inuit Employment Plan targets, I was trying to get clarification on there earlier.
Until March 31, 2017, it’s at 51 percent and right now, we’re at 49.9, I believe, if my math is correct. That means you’re trying to get roughly 17 new Inuit employees to take up government jobs over a year.
Is my math correct?
I think I should hire Mr. Joanasie to come work in the Department of Finance with his calculator.
Thank you for the question, Mr. Joanasie. Yes, we believe it’s doable, but it is going to be quite a challenge.
I want to also highlight from your Public Service Annual Report 2014-15 on page 12 under Internships, it says, “Since 2001, 23 interns have graduated from the Sivuliqtiksat (on-the-job) internship program…” I don’t know if that’s low or not.
I believe that we keep bringing it up that there are these internships or opportunities for advancement for our Inuit employees.
What are the barriers that are just waiting the Inuit employees to take up these senior, higher level positions?
One of the objectives of this revamped public service annual report was to generate discussions and questions like Mr. Joanasie has asked because it provides more data than in the past.
I’m going to ask Mr. D’Arcy to answer the question.
One of the things that were identified earlier on is it was difficult to fill intern positions. For a few years, the Department of Executive had 16 intern positions and it was difficult to find people who were able to complete the internship.
It’s one of the major focuses of the new leadership development program of the Department of Executive that we rolled out in the training and development system just last year. This year, it had its first intake.
There’s good interest now in the internship program. I believe it’s close to being full subscribed or oversubscribed.
Certainly one of the challenges was developing a program that people would be interested in pursuing, something that wasn’t too difficult for people to be able to get through and something that they can go home at the end of the day and be pleased that they were pursuing this internship.
That took a little while to develop, but we believe that we’re there now and that we should see some good results over the next couple of years as we go through the first phase and shortly the second phase of these programs.
I want to dive into the Inuit Training Corporation a little bit.
It was announced on October 22, 2015 and the Premier sits on that board along with the Minister of Education.
As of today, how many meetings has this board held and what was decided at these meetings?
Unfortunately the Department of Finance isn’t involved in the corporation and we don’t have that information to provide to Mr. Joanasie.
Mr. Joanasie (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) I don’t know if the minister will be able to answer this next question; it’s kind of related to the same topic.
As part of the settlement agreement the Premier co-signed with the federal Minister of Northern Affairs and the president of NTI, they each would establish a central Inuit employment and training coordination office.
Has this office been established and what’s the status of this work?
Minister Peterson.  Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again we don’t have any details. I do know that the Premier and the Minister of Education have been working with NTI.
As recently as within the last few days, they’ve had a meeting.
I don’t have that level of detail, but I can provide that information.
Let me go back to the Priority Hiring Policy then.
Maybe you can answer some questions on that.
Under the policy on page 2, it says the provisions, “...beneficiaries who meet the qualifications required for a position will be given priority over all other applicants.”
Does the Department of Finance keep track, let’s say, on an annual basis the number of times you have employed this provision?
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Joanasie.
It’s done for every single competition that’s run in the Government of Nunavut.
I’m going to stop here for now. I have other questions, but I’ll have to collect my thoughts on it.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) I’m not adding the extra time to the second go-around.
Mr. Joanasie: I’m sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I’m trying get at is if there is a figure that is out there.
I couldn’t find it, but maybe it’s in here in some of these documents or in annual reports. Let’s say that there is an X amount of competitions for 2014-15 and an X amount went to beneficiaries using this Priority Hiring Policy.
Is there that figure you have handy?
To the best of our knowledge, that information has never been tracked and we aren’t tracking it.
Why hasn’t it been tracked?
I’m not sure why because we track all kinds of information.
That particular item or statistic has never been tracked. It’s not something that we can’t do; it’s just never been done.
Perhaps maybe in future annual reports, we can get that highlighted just so we can see how many times that provision has been used.
I’m going to stop for now, but I’ll have other questions later.
Moving forward, Mr. Okalik.
Mr. Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would first like to thank Ms. Angnakak for bringing this issue up through this motion.
This is not a new issue and it crops up frequently. We get approached by employees about these work-related issues.
My first question is in regard to setting up the office, which was brought up.
Nationwide we usually have the standalone human resources department.
Why is it that it’s under the Department of Finance?
There is $1.5 billion that’s under the control of the Department of Finance, which includes the requirement to account for the expenditure of these funds, yet we have the need to manage the human resources sector on top of this requirement.
Why do these two requirements have to be combined when you have a full workload? Human resource management is very important.
Why does the department have to take on this responsibility when it is carried out externally everywhere else in Canada?
In fact, Mr. Okalik is wrong.
In other jurisdictions, there are human resource departments within the Department of Finance or treasury board. For example, there would be Alberta.
As I said in response to Ms. Angnakak, Mr. Okalik will understand that governments make decisions. Unlike some other decisions in the past, we went through a very long process.
It was very well considered. We followed the cabinet processes handbook. As I said, we consulted with the Full Caucus and government departments, followed all the steps, and went through the main estimates process.
It was felt that Finance would be best to take labour relations, staffing and recruiting and set the functions up under the Department of Finance and then EIA would take, as I said, training and development and Inuit employment.
Both departments could be more efficient and effective in achieving our objectives here as a government.
This is something we have already attempted and it has been contentious in that some employees are passionate about the initiative.
What the government attempted in past Assemblies is not necessarily applicable to this current government.
We have the authority to either accept or deny the recommendations as a new government, thereby the need for further review requires careful forethought and I am in complete support of this initiative.
We continue to learn as a new jurisdiction, especially from our fellow northern governments, related to the Yukon government in this case, who have a process I would love to emulate.
Why hasn’t this government undertaken that type of initiative?
The barriers we face today are continually evolving and we continue to get visitations.
That is why I wonder if these can be transparent so that we see a more conducive and amenable process that allows us to make changes.
The report of the Auditor General of Canada for human resource capacity was tabled in 2010 and that covered a period from January 2004 to August 2009.
I have it right here in front of me if anyone cares to look. I got it all marked up.
There are all kinds of issues there. She was concerned about the Department of Human Resources and its ability to achieve government objectives.
I recognize that every government is different and as such, every government can make their own decisions about how to operate.
At the risk of repeating myself, I announced in Budget 2011 that this is what we should do and we started that process.
We followed it for two years and announced it in subsequent budgets. It went through the cabinet process. It got approvals at all levels and extensive consultations.
There were no backroom, secret deals that were going on.
We did it in Full Caucus and we did it in the House. There was ample opportunity at the time these decisions were being taken for MLAs to disagree or object. The decisions were made and when they were made, we implemented the recommendations.
I am not placing blame on anyone in any manner nor am I implying covert decision-making by this government, but rather I am trying to ascertain better and more effective means of dealing with these issues while on this matter.
We have to review better practices that are successful in other jurisdictions and that should be our focus in order to accrue better benefits to this government. Further, we ought not to blame past administrations.
Nonetheless, we have to explore ways to provide more assistance to our government.
That is why I have no faith in this system when they are separated between training and human resources.
Whenever a gap occurs that is intimately related to the separation of offices, it is almost impossible to move any initiative forward.
That is why separation of closely linked responsibilities associated to Inuit employees is something I can never support.
I ask if this can be studied in more detail in our future, as it can provide substantial benefits to our future employees.
I disagree with Mr. Okalik’s comments.
We have gone through this. Sometimes when we separate two, it’s hard to work together.
Training of Inuit in one department and the other in another become an impediment.
I think it’s better if we put it together. I would like to see them put back together under one roof.
As the Chair, if I may rephrase his question, Mr. Okalik was asking Mr. Peterson about the possibility of looking at this structure.
Mr. Okalik is concerned about the two being separated into two departments.
Can you re-examine this decision?
(interpretation ends) I think that was the simple question and Minister Peterson, will you reply to that?
I explained before that the Auditor General of Canada, no less of an authority than Madam Sheila Fraser, who I met personally and talked about this report, said that she had grave concerns with the structure of the human resources department.
She says right in that report that changes have to be made in order to achieve any objectives.
The Government of Nunavut looked at her words very seriously, and then we engaged Mr. Lovely and his report and restructured the government.
I am only interested in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the government, achieving the objectives of Article 23, and having a happy and productive workplace. We brought over the staffing division and employee relations into Finance there as a group and then Inuit employment staff are over in EIA.
I don’t know why he’s hearing lots of complaints; I haven’t been hearing lots of complaints.
I also said at the time that it’s going to take a couple of years, two or three years longer, to make sure all the changes... . We have been updating the Government of Nunavut’s Human Resources Manual directives that were outdated, implementing new ones.
Thanks to Mr. Okalik for supporting some of them when he was on our cabinet.
We’re trying to create an operation that will fulfill the objectives of Article 23, having eventually 85 percent Inuit employment.
It’s as simple as that, Mr. Chairman.
He indicated that I supported this as a cabinet member.
I was urging them to hire more Inuit.
I had my concerns and I didn’t agree all the time, as was our practice, and I always informed the minister about that.
My earlier commentary was never taken into consideration and that is why I rarely agreed with the assessment and I referred back to it, as it was mentioned.
Again, as per my earlier comments, there are jurisdictions that have exemplary human resource departments outside of our jurisdiction, such as when I mentioned the Yukon government model. Can we request comprehensive reviews of human resource management and training for aboriginal people to become more successful?
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Okalik for his comment.
I don’t know why everybody is fixated on the Yukon government’s Public Service Commission.
I got all the provinces and territories here and there are pros and cons to all of them. We have our pros and cons. Yukon has their pros and cons.
Ontario has their pros and cons. I could go on and on. It’s your unique circumstances and Nunavut has unique circumstances too.
We have put in place a structure that we believe will lead to more efficient and effective human resources functions and ultimately achieve the goals and objectives of Article 23.
At the same time, we have been putting structures in place and we’ve got better reporting, more informative and accurate data now.
We developed workplace harassment training. We’ve got the ethics officer. You just saw his report yesterday.
We’re doing a lot of good things in the Government of Nunavut and ultimately, I believe it’s going to work out for us.
I don’t want to expend my precious energy on a fruitless endeavour, but if any concerns crop up on their table related to financial management or human resources, which priority will win?
It lists the Department of Finance in this regard and I do not wish any further burdens on the heavy workload already prevalent in their offices.
That is why I am aware of the additional responsibilities the minister wishes for, but I prefer to see more visible suggestions related to the planning required here.
I believe that’s just a comment, Mr. Okalik.
At this time, (interpretation ends) did you want to respond, Minister Peterson, to that comment?
I appreciate Mr. Okalik’s concern for the Department of Finance and I guess ultimately to me as the minister responsible, but you don’t hear me complaining. We’re working hard.
We have a lot of hard-working people in the Department of Finance.
We have been producing all of our financial reports, main estimates, capital estimates, and capital carryovers, paying our bills, balancing our budget, and working hard on all aspects.
At some point, through our main estimates and business plan, we may ask for more staffing consultants because that will assist us to improve delivery of the staffing of positions.
I’ll continue with my list of names. Mr. Akoak.
For some reason, I’m losing my voice today, so bear with me.
When will the government be introducing an updated Nunavut Nursing Recruitment and Retention Strategy?
That caught me off guard there. I think that was from my health department days when I was the health minister. I remember that.
It was a five-year strategy put in place by this second government to carry over into the third government to address indeterminate nurses and try to get more indeterminate nurses. I don’t have the information on that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Akoak: I’ll go on with another question.
What specific actions is the government currently taking to reduce its use of casual employees and relief workers?
I’m going to ask my Comptroller General, Jeff Chown, to respond to that question.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. Mr. Chown.
Mr. Chown: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Within the Government of Nunavut, we’re always going to have a need for casual employees. That’s never going to go away.
That said, we continue to use our best efforts to bring those casual employees into our ranks.
In fact, in this past year, a little over 150 casual employees moved from casual ranks into the indeterminate ranks of the government, which shows just what we expected.
Casual work is a stepping stone for employees into the permanent ranks of the government. I think that’s good news.
All employees who are casual for more than four months require union approval, where they’re union employees, in order to be approved for an extension of their casual internship.
Where our employees are going casual beyond a year, the Department of Finance actually requires substantiation from departments as part of the submission of the casual staffing action explaining why casuals are going to be casual beyond a year and what efforts they’re making to bring those employees into the ranks on a permanent basis.
We have controls there to monitor and encourage employees to come in and we will continue to maintain those controls.
I was at a meeting in Cambridge Bay with the mayors meeting. There was concern that they were having a hard time hiring indeterminate nurses.
I am wondering if the travelling nurses are relief workers also.
I thank Mr. Akoak for that question.
I believe that we have delegated the hiring of nurses to the Department of Health.
I believe they have a combination of indeterminate nurses, which are permanent, and as every health centre needs to have a complement of nurses, they use agency nurses and they will use casual nurses.
The Department of Health has been delegated the authority and it’s through them that they make decisions on how to hire their nurses.
If you can correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Minister, the Kitikmeot is having a hard time hiring long-term nurses.
All they are doing is hiring agency or contract nurses.
I don’t have the details of all the nurses in all the health centres in Nunavut, never mind the Kitikmeot, never mind Cambridge Bay. I do go to the health centre from time to time and I do see the same nurses over and over. I have no way of knowing whether they’re agency nurses or casual nurses.
As I said earlier, every health centre has to have their complement of nurses. I remember when I was the health minister a couple of times, there had to be one or two nurses on certain points, so they had to bring in agency nurses. I don’t have any information on specific health centres or what the numbers are of agency and casual nurses versus intermediate nurses in the Kitikmeot.
Ms. Angnakak: Thank you and I have been given more minutes.
I wanted to go into a little bit about some departments that had very low beneficiary numbers. I have spoken to some in some division within departments that might have one.
When that happens and you have a policy of having Inuit employment that this should apply, like you said, to every job application, yet you find divisions where some of them are data entry; we’re not talking about “You’ve got to be a rocket scientist” or something.
What does the department of HR do in those circumstances? Is there a flag that’s raised? Are you concerned?
How do you work with that department or that division?
Do you work with that division to try and address the low numbers and, if you do, what kinds of steps do you take with that department and how often does that happen?
As I said since we started, Article 23 is our priority. We have implemented the 2014-18 Human Resource Strategy, which never existed before, and all departments and territorial corporations are committed to it.
It’s their responsibility to implement the programs and recommendations in there to increasing Inuit employment within their departments or divisions.
Each deputy head is ultimately responsible to the Premier for getting the numbers up.
I’m not involved in the day-to-day operations, so I’m going to ask my comptroller general to give us more details of how his officials work with departments and divisions to address the situations Ms. Angnakak mentioned.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) I believe you’re asking Mr. Chown to reply.
The Inuit Employment Plan work is coordinated between departments and the Department of Executive. When the Department of Finance comes into this is helping to enforce and promote through the hiring process and the creation of jobs to ensure that barriers aren’t there.
On the front end of the process when departments are developing job descriptions, our Job Evaluation Division works with those departments, reviewing the job descriptions, looking at what the employees’ tasks are going to be, and then identifying what the knowledge, skills, and abilities for those positions should be.
The departments generally do the initial development of their job descriptions. We work with them to ensure they’re not inflating the experience requirements, but they’re looking at what the real skills are needed to do the jobs.
Moving on from the job evaluation function, we then move on to the staffing process. At that staffing process, our staffing people work with departments on developing the screening criteria that are going to be used and linking those to the job descriptions, and then further beyond the core expectations you would have for knowledge, skills, and abilities for positions, looking at what types of equivalencies individuals may have.
That’s where we encourage them to look at other factors that will help improve the ability of beneficiaries to screen into competitions that may not have the specific educational requirements they might be looking for, but looking at work experience and other experiences to help screen individuals into competitions.