EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
That is, it seems to deal with only the Human Resources Department rather than having the principles outlined for the overall government human resource program.
Although you have the department’s 18.4 million dollars, itemizing what it is for, with the two pages opening remarks, 1 and a half page opening remarks, it doesn’t say very much about the principles and the ultimate goals of the government are.
I am not criticizing the human resources department itself Mr. Chairman, rather I would have liked to see more principle statements, similar to that of the Bathurst Inlet document, for example.
Also articulating a little bit more on Article 23 and the need for having better representation in the middle management level of the government.
The chairman of the Standing Committee stated a couple of times that the higher management positions are quite fairly represented and the low-end administrative staff.
But in the middle management section, the superintendent areas and things like that still seem to be lacking recognition.
Maybe because there are few qualified Inuit or aboriginal or Inuktitut speaking citizens of Nunavut or Nunavummiut.
I don't think the regular members differentiate very much between Inuit and Inuktitut speaking or long time residents of Nunavummiut.
Don't get me wrong on that one.
I think this is a general desire at least on my part to have the Human Resources Department to concentrate on that.
On the lower part of the first page of the minister's comments regarding the recruitment and retention of the Public service.
It is in the business plan.
But I would like to see better recognition, at least better recognition in the service sector or the program sector of the different departments.
Whether they are in education or health or Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.
That there is a direct access to labour relations from the Human Resources and the department workers.
In other words, this is an old dilemma.
When some of us worked for the government in the early 70's and still with the creation of Nunavut several years ago, there has been a very heavy emphasis on the divisions’ management to have very strong roles in deciding who should work for that division or how the employees in the lower ranks are to be treated.
I am very happy that the minister is announcing that the Inuit employees who are coming into the government for the first time or in the last two years will have access to talk to the labour relations people at least to talk about I don't like my boss or my working conditions are poor.
I have not been treated fairly etc.
Because when we had the division management in the past under the GNWT, it was extremely difficult to go to anyone even if there was unfair treatment of those particular employees.
That is one part Mr. Chairman.
The second part I like to generally mention is the lack of recognition of the long-term goals of potential Civil Servants.
Again, I am not talking about Inuit only I am talking about all who have been and will be living in Nunavut for the rest of their lives.
I think the program should gear towards not just working for the Government of Nunavut and retire to go to Vancouver or elsewhere.
I think again the Committee Chairperson mentioned the working conditions in the workplace as an investment in Nunavut.
Secondly, it's also very important to consider the home conditions of the Nunavut employees.
In other words, do you have consideration for government employees who have children who are living in the multiplex accommodations, that they have no direct access to outside for example, most of them are usually surrounded by a whole lot of vehicles and the general population of apartment buildings.
I'm sure I'm not only talking about Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay but maybe somewhere else.
I think there should be recognition of those who were hired from the community who have to move Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet or Cambridge Bay who are not used to living with their children in a multiplex accommodation.
Are they being given consideration so that the children are able to enjoy the natural environment of what they're used to when they were at home.
That's one consideration. I'm running out of time already Mr. Chairman.
But there's one quick note and I'd like to see, is that in order to have recruitment and retention of the public service, you have to recognize that they have to have access to your department's personnel in order to complain about if they have not been fairly treated by their other departments or by other divisions of the different departments.
I think this is fairly important at the beginning, to make sure the government makes it into their third or fourth year.
I'll have a few comments.
When they're recruiting staff, it's good to see your comments, staff within Nunavut government are being hired.
Someone in Kugluktuk mentioned to me so that the future in Nunavut improves, whenever they are looking for staff within Nunavut, recruiting staff, people have to do an interview from Iqaluit and travel onto Rankin Inlet, Cambridge Bay, and Kugluktuk.
First, it's in Kugluktuk when they are recruiting staff. They come to Cambridge Bay and Iqaluit to interview potential staff, recruiters for the Nunavut government.
For instance, so it's clear, there needs to be in the interview process someone who speaks Innuinaqtut, Inuktitut to do the interview.
When you think of this, this is good for the future.
Someone told me, I believe a couple of people told, they weren't too happy with the people that did the interviews.
So that it's rectified, I want to mention this to you.
Those that do the interview, because the dialects are different, sometimes there may be misunderstandings when interviews are being done.
For instance in Kugluktuk, because he couldn't understand the person doing the interview, the interviewer said I can't understand you, speak in English.
That person was not very happy with that situation when he went up for an interview because that was a comment from the interviewer.
Or the person thought maybe I am not able to speak Inuktitut fluently.
Maybe I won't be able to get this position.
People begin to think this way, I don’t know if it’s like that here in Iqaluit.
But in my home communities I want the interviewers to know the dialects also. For the future whenever there are interviewers going into the communities they should be aware of these kinds of things.
Our staff at times so that they can get promotions, begin to look after other staff.
The Inuit staff should get more training so that they get promotions.
I am glad that you commented on this.
This is going to be our trend.
Our youth are going to be aware of this because this is their future and they are going to be happy about that.
Yes, we can proceed like this.
During the summer while the students aren't in school, can they apply or try and find employment so that they become more aware of work in the future.
I will bringing up questions later on.
Now I have Mr. McLean on my list.
The next member on my list.
I am going philosophize for a little while here.
We are getting on the end of our session.
It has been a six-week session and it gives me a lot to think about.
Sometimes I have to sit back and reflect on what we are accomplishing here. This more a statement and I don't really need an answer.
We are coming up to the second anniversary of Nunavut.
I just want people to think where this territory was.
Or what was here 50 years ago and what we have today.
I think it is in the single largest movement of a people probably in history.
I look at where we are at staffing.
I look around this room today and sometimes we get too caught up on the negative all the time.
I for one would like to see the bright side sometimes and I look at this territory that has been created in such a short time and where we are with the civil service and how many people are involved in it right now.
We have over 12 thousand students in the education system and we are worried about a couple of hundred civil service positions that aren't filled right now.
To me I know there is a plan in place and that the young people out there are getting better educated and there is going to be pressure on the civil service in the next 5-10 years for the government to create more civil service jobs.
We know in the fiscal reality that we are going to be dealing with in the future that this might not happen.
And it is not very often I praise the government but I want to praise the Department of Human Resources for trying to get to those levels.
I have been up here a very long time and I have been involved in private business and I have never had a government job, thank God.
But I respect the people that work for the civil service.
They have to work under tremendous pressure.
So do the people in the private sector for far less.
There is a plan in place and I know whoever is going to be sitting in these seats in the next ten, fifteen years are going to make sure that the civil service and the Minister responsible for Human Resources, whoever that is over the next fifteen to twenty years, is going to make sure that the Inuit Employment Plan is followed.
I think as a government, this government has tried to follow it as much as it can and I have to commend the government for doing that.
I know the government's tried, and like I said, I can dwell on the negatives of it.
But going back, when we took over April 1, 1999 there were millions and millions of dollars that organizations had and it was their mandate to train Inuit people for the civil service.
Whether they did it or not, I don't know.
But like I'm saying, I'm looking for the future and the 12 thousand students that are enrolled in school today that will hopefully, if they want to become civil servants, are going to have the opportunity because there's a plan in place.
Now going back on that, this has nothing to do with Human Resources Department in the government.
But I look around at the private companies in Nunavut today, I think somebody should be forcing them to start looking at an Inuit Employment Plans, because everywhere I go I see more southerners in their businesses than northerners.
They have subsidized housing, they have VTAs and things like that.
So all that I'm going to say today, and like I said I don't expect an answer or something I just want to philosophize, keep up the good work and hopefully in ten or fifteen years you will have a civil service that reflects the population.
Then maybe the private sector companies in this territory will take some time to invest in Nunavut employees so they won't have to fly in their southern transient work force.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker that's all I have to say, or, Mr. Chairman that's all I have to say.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. McLean. Mr. Iqaqrialu.
Mr. Chairman first of all, I'm not quite sure exactly what I'm going to say, but I will be saying something.
When we are dealing with the Human Resources, I can only read and write Inuktitut and when I become a civilian, I would like to become a Deputy Minister.
I'm sure you understand exactly where I'm coming from, because of course we have to represent the Inuit population in Nunavut.
There's 18.5 million dollars here that has been distributed and this money is for Nunavut and I think we should get some more, increase the employment and we do want to give full support to the people of Nunavut and their obtaining employment.
We do want to support the Nunavut Government in this end of it, but for the last two years we see more and more employees who are leaving their positions or are getting laid off or moving onto another form of employment.
I don't know what their problem is but they've been moving.
In the Nunavut Government we should be receptive to the people who would like to work for the Nunavut government, because of course we want able and willing employees who also know Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
We have to put all this together so that the Nunavut government is more established and we also know that these are some of the issues that we have brought up in this House.
The young people and the growing population, there has been a lot of suicide because there is a gap between the government and our people and also high unemployment in the communities because of a high level of unemployment.
There are able-bodied people who are just sitting at home and who have dropped out of school.
The 3.3 million dollars in support of government wide training programs should be made more accessible to the people of Nunavut.
Not necessarily highly educated people but it should be used so that it can be accessed by people who would like to get into carpentry apprenticeship programs for example.
It should not only be geared toward people who just speak English.
I think it should be open to bilinguals and also unilingual Inuktitut and English speaking people.
A lot of the time it's the unilingual Inuktitut speakers who are left out in the cold while everybody else accesses the programs.
I think that even if we read and write Inuktitut and speak Inuktitut only, we should be able to get into the Nunavut gap.
I think that there would be a lot more co-operation and better social standards in the Nunavut communities.
Also, in regards to employment, the people of Nunavut can be trained to do anything they want to do if they have the desire.
Even a unilingual Inuktitut speaking person can get high jobs.
I'm sure that we should be able to do that.
But even if that's the case, a lot of the time, we want educated people to fill these positions and we're urging our youth to complete their education so they can access higher jobs and the jobs that they want to get into with the 29 positions, only 4% are filled.
That's lower than what it was last year because some of the Inuit who have been in higher positions are now leaving their employment.
I don't know what the reasons are but we keep stating that we'd like to fill them with Inuit.
We recognize four languages, Inuktitut, French, English and Innuinaqtut.
These four languages are recognized in Nunavut but the people of Nunavut in the outlying communities do not have any jobs that they can access.
The Nunavut Government is there but Inuit are not filling the positions.
We have no Inuktitut, there are no French languages taught in my community.
Only English and Inuktitut are taught in our school in my communities of Clyde River and Broughton Island.
We should brainstorm so that we can create employment in the Nunavut communities so that we can fill out the mandate that was outlined in Bathurst.
I would like to ask Mr. Iqaqrialu if you could go up and be the Chairperson.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): I agree.
Mr. Arvaluk (interpretation): Mr. Chairman, when we are in Committee of the Whole do you have to move out of your Chair in order to ask a question to the witnesses.
Is that in our House rules.
Chairperson (interpretation): Mr. Iqaqrialu please come to the Chair.
It is one of the rules of the House.
I have brief comments.
I would like to thank the officials of Human Resources for being here.
I am very pleased that there is Inuit employment that is coming out.
I am very proud of it.
It is one of the mandates of the Government of Nunavut from the time that the Office of the Interim Commissioner was setting up the Government of Nunavut.
This has been one of the priorities of the government to create more jobs for Inuit.
We have to make it a reality.
The Government of Nunavut is a government for all people.
We are representing all people of Nunavut whether they are Inuit or non-Inuit or if they are a different colour.
But this was one of the priorities that was set by the Office of the Interim Commissioner and we have made it our mandate to create more employment for Inuit.
It is something that we don't like to hear when we are focussing on a specific group.
But there is very high unemployment out there and I look forward to seeing more jobs created.
I hope that it becomes a reality.
Hopefully sometime in the future this gets implemented and we hope to see higher numbers.
I do know that there is a high school population out there who will be filling those positions sometime.
But I tend to think fast and look short term.
There are people who don't have certificates or diplomas or people who are not certified for drivers’ licences or heavy equipment operators.
There are a lot of people out there who have all the necessary skills and their knowledge. The only problem is they are not certified or they don't have the required qualifications.
So, I think we should make a change in that Act so that we’ll quit talking about this already because we are always talking about it.
The decentralized communities of Pangnirtung, Pond Inlet, Cape Dorset, and in the Kitikmeot and the Kivalliq areas.
Those are the main places that we have to do a review so that the people who are willing and able to work will access those jobs and get further training.
As somebody has stated earlier one of the members stated and I believed him.
I would like the hamlets for example to be more involved.
Also, I feel for the people who don't want to move out of the capital and into the decentralized communities but if they don't want to move to those decentralized communities, I think the people of that particular community should have the right of first refusal on those jobs that are going to be created in their communities.
The Nunavut government, if they really want to help the people of Nunavut and if we're going to follow Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, as we say every day, it could become a reality and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit should not just be lip service.
Those are some of the comments that I wanted to make and I welcome the officials for being receptive to my comments.
You can return to the Chair.
Chairperson (Mr. Irqittuq) (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Iqaqrialu.
We can then go ahead, Department of Human Resources.
Program summary. Total operations and maintenance, 1 million 79 thousand dollars.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): Mr. Chairman, I don't want to approve these right away because we need to have a quorum before we can go page by page.
Chairperson (interpretation): We're right on.
I think there are some members coming back to the House.
Mr. Nutarak (interpretation): Do we include Mr. Ng.
Chairperson (interpretation): Yes he is included and also myself.
Okay, then we're on Human Resources, branch summary. Directorate.
Total operations and maintenance, 1 million 79 thousand dollars.
The contract services 20 thousand dollars, what are the contract services with no details, it's kind of hard to know what it's being used for.
I would like to ask what this 20 thousand dollars is used for.
This would be consulting contracts, equipment use and things along that nature.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Different types of contract services.
Hon. Kelvin Ng (interpretation): Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman here it indicates that it's this branch of the department that looks after initiatives related to Article 23 of the land claims agreement and as I indicated in my opening comments, the total number of beneficiaries that have been hired has gone up over the last report, in March I believe, or June.
But the percentages overall have gone down and maybe if I could just get an update from the department, you know, what types of things or initiatives is it undertaking to try and reverse that trend where we can see the percentage, that percentage going the other way.
Maybe I'll just stop at that one before I get to some more questions.
Mr. Chairman a lot of the initiatives were at the end of the training and development section, some of the programming to support the Inuit Employment Plan.
I think it is some of them now, because I remember one, there are probably more appropriate areas for them.
Sorry, I'll wait until we get to the program, the training part there to hear that.
But I'm just wondering also, you know, what concerns or issues has the department identified that are problems or issues that are keeping us from achieving the numbers that we want to see in that area.
Well, we think, as members know we are trying to undertake a recruitment and retention strategy that we are planning on putting out for advertisement very shortly.
But some of the early indications, as I said in the past overall in trying to meet staffing recruitments is some of the competition from other major employers in Nunavut.
The skill levels may not necessarily be there amongst all the beneficiaries as a whole across Nunavut and some of the education levels and those are some of the things we are encountering that we are trying to eliminate more in the longer term. But in the short term, as well we are trying to you know, do some, provide some additional support to alleviate that problem.
Mr. Chairman the minister indicated they were trying to provide some additional support to alleviate some of those concerns.
Are they talking of providing additional support in training and education, the skill levels or in dealing with some of the competition, I wonder if he could be a little more specific there.
Chairperson (interpretation): Mr. Havioyak, sorry, Mr. Ng.
I could see how he could easily get confused between the member and myself.
Mr. Chairman, more along the lines of the training and development initiatives that I have indicated earlier that's in the training and development branch.
But also by and large, as members know, we also have our priority hiring policy that we actively use to try and promote for beneficiaries and the positions with the government.
I'm trying to think of how to word this question carefully in a way that the minister will be able to answer it.
In dealing with the issue, I guess that the minister raised as being one of the problems of being able to keep Inuit employees and beneficiaries working with the government and you mentioned one of them was the competition with other areas.
Are there any, is the department looking at any initiatives particularly targeting that area.
Mr. Chairman, not outside I guess of some of the collective agreement process that's under way with the Northern Employees’ Union and trying to reach a solution to that issue and allowing some stability from the perspective of employee benefits, over some certainty around that.
It says you are developing some policies and procedures, just to get a clearer picture for me, can you give me a couple of examples of the types of policies that you're working on or developing.
One of the ones that has been more recent, we are trying to change or trying to reflect probably continuing circumstances of outside employment by employees or other interests of existing employees.
Similar to what members would right now think of as being a conflict of interest.
So that's the policy that is being considered as I indicated earlier, under the priority hiring policy that the government has.
Those are just a couple of them that we have right now.
Mr. Havioyak: No, I was just curious if they were going to use it, you mentioned outside employment.
I wasn't sure if you meant when you're drafting or developing a policy, what you meant by outside employment, is it outside this government or outside Nunavut.
Mr. Chairman, I mean specific to our employees that may have other interests like outside of the work for the government to ensure that there is no conflict in the individual carrying out other means of income that they may have Mr. Chairman.
I apologize Mr. Chairman, Thank you.
In regards to my question, I will be asking along the same lines in regards to the contract services.
In regards to the 20 thousand dollars.
You stated that this is used just so you'll know how many contracts you've had.
This 20 thousand dollars is used for these various contractors that we have to pay a fee for.
Is that why it is that way.
Hon. Kelvin Ng: Mr. Chairman, I indicated that it may be for some existing equipment leases for example, a photocopier that the department may have.
Or for contracted services that may be required, for example, I mentioned the recruitment and retention development of a policy that we’ll have to go out to hire somebody to try to work with the government and the department to formulate a draft policy that we can move on.
So those are, like that's just an example Mr. Chairman.