EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Speaker: And the Terms of Reference for the Standing Committee of the 4th Legislative of Nunavut be deemed to have come into effect as of this date?
Tabled Document 144 – 4(3): Inuit Circumpolar Council Press Release Regarding Russian Rocket (Enook)
I wish to table a news release that has been issued by the Inuit Circumpolar Council regarding this weekend’s anticipated incident involving the Russian rocket launch.
>>House recessed at 10:50 and Committee resumed at 11:10
Chairman (Mr. Enook)(interpretation): Good morning. I would now like to call the committee meeting to order.
As we proceed with the meeting, firstly, good morning, our fellow Nunavummiut who are watching the televised proceedings and listening to the radio broadcast.
Welcome to your Legislative Assembly no matter where you are.
We wish to continue with the discussion on Tabled Documents 73 – 4(2), 116 – 4(2), 140 – 4(2), and 70 – 4(3).
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Rumbolt. Are we in agreement that we try to deal with all the tabled documents?
Minister Peterson, do you have officials that you would like to bring to the table?
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have two witnesses.
Minister Peterson would like to have two witnesses with him at the table. Do you agree?
Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the two witnesses in.
To my right is Chris D’Arcy, Deputy Minister of Finance, and to my left is Jeff Chown, Comptroller General of the Department of Finance.
Welcome to the House, Mr. D’Arcy and Mr. Chown.
I would like to proceed and before I go to the list of names for questions, Minister Peterson would like to make a few comments. I now give you the floor.
I have a couple of very brief comments in response to some questions yesterday.  Yesterday, Mr. Joanasie asked about statistics related to our Priority Hiring Policy.
Although we do not specifically track the application of the Priority Hiring Policy, the department does have rich data with respect to applications for positions in the public service.
As we said yesterday, the Priority Hiring Policy is applied for 100 percent of our competitions.
I suggest that members refer to pages 28 to 31 of the 2014-15 Public Service Annual Report for additional information.
With respect to terminations, during 2014-15, there were 37 made up of 21 abandonment of positions or AWOLs (absent without leave) and 16 for other reasons.
For 2015-16, there were 29 terminations, 13 were for abandonment and 16 for other causes.
During discussions yesterday, Ms. Angnakak mentioned that our electronic human resource systems could be a trigger for reopening discussions with respect to human resource roles and responsibilities.
Perhaps Mr. D’Arcy could have been clearer in his response. There was a functional and complex electronic leave and attendance system that was being implemented by the Department of Human Resources.
However, that implementation was abandoned and the manual system put in place.
No further work was initiated by the Department of Human Resources.
In fact, the whole system side of the then department was so dysfunctional that functional responsibility for it, including reporting relations of personnel, was transferred to the Department of Finance immediately upon announcement of the reorganization.
This was several months, perhaps even as much as six months prior to the official transfer.
Currently, the department is investigating other avenues to implement an electronic system.
I would like to proceed and go to the names.
First on my list is Mr. Mikkungwak.
Good morning, Minister Peterson and your officials.
My first question is: as of today, which departments (interpretation ends) or Crown agencies and territorial corporations have been delegated full staffing authority?
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Mikkungwak for that question.
If he’s referring to territorial corporations, I believe it is the Qulliq Energy Corporation in full and Nunavut Arctic College for instructors.
Are there any other departments or Crown agencies and territorial corporations that will be delegated full staffing authority over the coming year?
If he’s referring to over the next year, I don’t believe there are any plans to devolve full staffing authorities to any departments.
With these full staffing authority delegations, how does this impact the decentralized model and decentralized communities within the territory?
It shouldn’t affect the decentralization model.
All delegated authorities, all departments or territorial corporations that are delegated authorities have to follow the same rules that are in place by the government.
I will be moving on to another subject here.
One of my colleagues had asked a question yesterday, but I want to ask in further detail. When you look at the Government of Nunavut’s 85 percent Inuit workforce target, what is the realistic timeline for achieving this objective?
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Mikkungwak for the very good question.
We don’t have a realistic timeline. It’s obvious by the different reports that I pointed out yesterday, the Berger report and the OAG’s report, that we weren’t achieving the numbers in moving people up into the areas that needed middle management, semi-professionals, and professionals.
With the settlement last year between NTI and the Government of Canada and the creation of the new training board, we’re hopeful that a lot of the money from that settlement can be targeted towards putting on training programs specifically targeted at training people to move into these, as I said, middle management, professional, and semi-professional positions.
How long that takes, a lot of it will depend on the applicants, the people getting trained, how successful they are in achieving their educational goals and gaining experience to qualify for those jobs.
I’m not sure if this was asked yesterday, but on October 22, 2015, it might be closely related to Mr. Joanasie’s question yesterday, the Government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated announced the establishment of the Nunavut Inuit Training Corporation.
The Premier and the Minister of Education sit on this corporation’s board of directors.
As of today, how many meetings has the board of directors held and what was decided at these meetings?
Although I know they have been having meetings, I don’t have the details or specifics of those meetings.
I’m not a member of the board and I don’t participate, but I do know that as early as this week, there was a meeting that the Premier and the Minister of Education attended.
They are having meetings and they are making plans.
As being responsible for human resources within the Government of Nunavut and we have a target that we’re trying to reach with the Inuit workforce, according to my calculations, we should not be losing any Inuit in any career within any of the Government of Nunavut departments.
With that, do you anticipate to be meeting in the near future with the Premier and the Minister of Education to discuss further into the Nunavut Inuit Training Corporation and how this will improve within the Government of Nunavut?
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Mikkungwak again for the question.
I meet regularly with my colleagues on a number of issues and human resources are, of course, as I said several times yesterday, a high priority for us, as is Article 23, so we are regularly meeting at the political level.
With respect to other levels, we do have officials at the officials’ level who engage on those types of discussions.
A follow-up to that, when we look at Nunavut Inuit training and following Article 23 and when we look at management positions, is there a clear… ?
In any of your documents, could you refer me to a particular document where there could be improvements by a particular government department to enhance Inuit training?
As I mentioned yesterday, the Government of Nunavut has the Human Resource Strategy for 2014-18 that all government departments and territorial corporations committed to implementing.
It’s the responsibility of every deputy head of every organization to put training programs in place to support the employees who want to advance to the mid-level positions.
I can’t point to the specific document that identifies a specific department or territorial corporation that is having difficulties with doing that.
When we look at this Nunavut Inuit training establishment and looking at the Human Resource Strategy that the Government of Nunavut has, when we look at the Nunavut beneficiaries, is there a high demand or a high interest to the senior management or middle management positions for the training program or does it vary by each government department?
Again, under the Human Resource Strategy, we encourage each individual department and territorial corporation to work with their staff through performance management, through performance appraisals, identify their career aspirations, identify employees who are interested in moving up the management ranks.
Not every employee wants to be a manager or director when it comes with its own sets of headaches being in management. A lot of people are just happy where they are, moving laterally.
The deputy heads work internally to identify employees who need training.
Again, the Department of Finance and the Department of EIA are there to assist those departments to provide the training and resources for people who want to avail themselves of management type training.
When I look at this Nunavut Inuit training incentive that’s being worked on here, as of today, approximately what percentage of all casual and relief workers have been in the same position for longer than one year?
I again thank Mr. Mikkungwak for the question.
If you give us a moment, I think we have those statistics here, and then I’ll ask my Comptroller General, Jeff Chown, to respond.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Whenever you are ready to respond, Mr. Chown.
In the Government of Nunavut as of April 30, 2016, there were 724 casual employees employed by the government.
Of those, 53 percent were beneficiaries.
In the same period last year, there were 636, of which 59 percent were beneficiaries. At the moment, I don’t have the number of those that were over one year in front of me, but I can make that information available.
We will expect that information as soon as we can get it. Mr. Mikkungwak.
I can only speak for my community. I know some casuals that did work for the Government of Nunavut are no longer employed, but having obtained their resumés or their employee information on human resources, HR, I believe you guys maintain that information.
Will the current casuals that may be in place by various government departments within each respective community under the Nunavut Inuit Training Corporation that is underway now be taken into consideration, the casuals or indeterminate positions, as viewed in the government workforce?
If I understand his question or suggestion correctly, we can look at the casuals and their training needs and we can suggest to the training group or corporation training that can be identified for them to get the training to get the full education and qualifications to qualify for jobs.
A lot of casuals can only fill or perform, let’s say, 50 percent to 75 percent of a full-time job.
When they do fill a funded position, they’re paid a lesser amount.
If we can get them the education and qualifications to perform at 100 percent of the job, then they would certainly qualify for employment on a full-time basis.
I guess the minister is on par this morning, which sort of leads right into my next question.
When we look at these casuals and relief workers currently in place as opposed to a full-time employee, a full-time employee has a union rep., if they’re filing a grievance or whatnot.
What structure is in place for any casuals and relief workers if they want to file an appeal or if they want to file a grievance?
They’re not paying union dues, so they cannot have a union rep. What structure is in place for casual and relief workers?
If casual and relief workers are in union positions, they are entitled to the same protections, appeals, and grievances that regular employees are entitled to, if they are paying union dues.
Mr. Chairman, we did find the stats on long-term casuals.
If I can respond to the last question, long-term casual statistics as of May 31, 2016, greater than one year, there were 188 long-term casuals.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Is there any possibility we can have that last statistic in front of us for Monday? (interpretation) Thank you.
Hon. Keith Peterson: Yes, Mr. Chairman, there is a possibility.
I will make it happen.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Please make it happen.
Thank you for asking that question, which gives me a little bit more time on other questions here.
When we look at the 188 casual employees and casual work or relief workers, is there a difference as to how long they could be employed as a casual or relief worker before they become identified as a full-time employee?
I will ask Mr. Chown to answer this question.
Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Chown.
With respect to relief employees, by their nature, relief employees are individuals who have expressed interest of working for the government on an as-and-when-needed basis.
They wouldn’t be regularly scheduled shift employees. They might be called in on the spur of the moment when there is work available because somebody had called in sick or for some other unexpected reason.
Those employees actually have the option at the time to say yes or no to reject the offer of work. Generally, a relief employee would not be in a position where they would be expected to eventually become permanent unless they were applying on a permanent position. Specifically, they are to cover vacancies as they occur on a periodic basis for funded positions.
With respect to casual employees, quite often, those casual employees will be covering off vacant positions in some capacity or another. It could be covering a maternity leave or an extended leave of some other sort. Depending on the situation, they may or may not be covering the full scope of the position.
We may, because we are not able to find the qualified candidate for a position, bring an individual in to just cover certain portions of the job, in which case we would tailor these casual staffing actions for that individual to reflect the portion of the position they were working in.
As far as when the casual might become permanent, it really depends on individual circumstances.
Sometimes they are covering workload and not covering a funded position.
Other times, they might be covering a leave. Other casuals move successively from one casual assignment to another and may be with us for more than a year, but it might not be in the same position. Every situation is different.
Within our department, what we do is, as I mentioned yesterday, where casuals do get beyond four months, the union looks at it and has to bless it. Where casuals are beyond a year, we require substantiations from departments as to why they are over a year and we work with those departments to ensure that if there is opportunity to move to a permanent position, we do encourage them to post the positions so that the employees can screen into those positions.
Mr. Mikkungwak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the official’s response in clarifying how casual and relief workers are discussed in the government workforce.
As the official indicated, they are tailored and may be moved around to another department, as they are casuals.
When you look at that word “tailored,” are they also tailored for pay benefits or compensation benefits when the casual position is going to be terminated?
Mr. Chown will respond.
With respect to casuals moving between positions, generally they move because their assignment has ended and they have found another opportunity, but as long as there is not a break in service of more than 21 days, those individuals are considered to have continuous service and so it does not impact benefit entitlements setting them back to zero.
Basically, after four months, a casual employee has the majority of the same benefits as any other permanent employee. They’re on the same pay scale, they receive northern allowances, they’re entitled to annual leave, sick leave, and all the usual benefits of a full-time employee.
When we’re talking about continuous service and if a casual is terminated, do they get a payout like a full-time employee who gets a substantial payout for continuous service?
With respect to employees and payouts, if you’re referring to severance, we do have a severance component within our entitlements for employees, but it’s only for certain employees and it only comes into effect after 10 years worth of service.
That doesn’t apply to union employees.
It’s for the senior management ranks.
It would be only for the senior management ranks that that severance applies and it would not apply to casuals nor would we expect to see ourselves in a situation where a person was a casual for more than 10 years.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Mr. Mikkungwak with 19 seconds to go.
When we look at these casuals that have been in the casual position for more than one year in that position, does Human Resources start to determine if they are going to be considered for indeterminate or full-time positions, considering the fact that they stayed in the position for more than one year?
I’ll ask Mr. Chown to respond to that question.
The length of time that an individual is casual does not directly impact whether or not they get considered for permanent employment. Again, it’s on a case-by-case basis depending on the situation.
Again, after a year as a casual, we do work directly with departments to determine why they have casuals for that length of time, whether they’re in a position that is funded, and that could be available to them as a potential permanent employment opportunity.
We encourage the departments, where possible, to advertise those positions to bring those individuals into them through the competitive process.
Moving on, Mr. Rumbolt.
Mr. Mikkungwak asked several of the questions that I wanted to ask, but I’ll try not to overlap my questions with the ones that he has asked.
First off, yesterday, Mr. Chown stated that in the past year, they have advanced 150 casual employees into the indeterminate ranks of government, which is a good thing to hear, and I think we still have a long way to go.
My first question, with employees that are casual and you expect them to go beyond a year, you said that they need a special permission from your department.
Can you give us some of the reasons why you would want to go beyond a year as a casual?
After the casual term is up, why wouldn’t you just move on and try to get the person to an indeterminate position?
Chairman (Mr. Mikkungwak) (interpretation): Thank you.
I thank Mr. Rumbolt for his first question.
I’ll ask Mr. Chown to respond.
Again, it does depend on individual situations.
For example, it’s not uncommon that the individual in the casual function may not actually be covering a funded position within the government.
If there’s not a funded and approved position to advertise, then we can’t move forward until we have a funded position.
Again, we would work with departments where they had casuals and sometimes they may need casuals to cover short-term workload and that short term may extend beyond a year.
Other times when it does start to get longer, we start to question with departments whether they do need funded positions and if it’s justified, we would encourage them to go through the process of having the positions approved through FMB and cabinet so that they could staff them. Again, if there isn’t a position, then that’s often a stumbling block for moving forward with some casuals.
Casuals aren’t approved necessarily by community either.
Casuals come and go in the communities and positions depending on the needs of the department.
Again, we do look at it fairly closely with departments once they get over a year to determine if the situation is appropriate.
Again, the casuals are not always in the same position. Quite often, when we look at it, the person may have been a casual for two years, but they may have been in two or three different positions during that term without a break in service and may not even be within the same department.
Again in regard to casuals and I guess if you compare casuals to indeterminate employees, is there any advantage to the government to keep people as casuals cost-wise or is it exactly the same as if they were indeterminate?
As I indicated to yourself earlier when you were asking questions, Mr. Chairman, if you’re working at a funded position, the pay is determined on 100 percent of doing all the duties of the job.
Quite often, the casuals are only able to fulfill 60 to 70 percent of the job and they’re paid accordingly.
In that respect, there are savings there because you’re not paying an extra 25 percent, but then again, you’re not getting the full amount of productivity of a casual in that they can’t do all the duties of the job.
You might save on the monetary side, but you would probably lose on the productivity side.
Casuals get most of the benefits under the collective agreement.
I don’t have all the details in front of me, but they get paid in steps or increments just like all other employees covered under the collective agreement. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just have a couple of more questions.
Again with regard to casuals, I would like to talk a bit about the hiring process.
What hiring process does the GN use when it comes to hiring casuals?
Do they go through HR and advertise as if they were indeterminate? Is it the same process or are managers and supervisors left to do that legwork in hiring casuals?
If the department has a funded position that’s vacant or they have what we call an unfunded position where they need to get some work done, they don’t advertise for casuals.
The department would go to the Human Resources Division and there’s the casual application file or binder and they would typically look through that binder for someone with the qualifications they need to do that job. Again, Article 23 priority hire applies to hiring casuals.
When you talk about keeping a list of casual employees and a supervisor or manager gets access to these to pick somebody for the position, are there any controls in place to make sure that whoever is picking the person is true or clear in a way that family members aren’t getting picked for jobs or whether there’s good accountability on the people that are choosing for these positions?
Under the Public Service Act, there is a clause, it’s clause 9.1(1)(2) where it clearly defines that people are not supposed to participate in recruiting or hiring of immediate family or relatives. There’s a list of them there. They would have to disclose that they’re related and they should recuse themselves from participating in hiring casuals or any other employees.
The deputy ministers of all departments sign the casual staffing agreement, so it has to be very clear that nepotism is not something we condone.
Just one or possibly two more questions, in the past, back in 2010 when the Auditor General’s report came out, it was found that it was taking 318 days in order to fill positions.
I wonder: as of today, how is it taking to fill vacant positions within the government?
I remember the Auditor General’s report from those days. Currently, from the time the job ad goes out, it takes between 90 and 95 days. Before the job ad goes out, we have to make sure that all the paperwork is in place and the job description is updated through Job Evaluation.
When it goes out, there’s a period of time for advertising and interviews. There are appeals processes. There’s all that.
That all factors in, but it’s about 90 to 95 days.
This will be my last question for today.