EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Then, they got into situations where reprofiling or downsized and cut back on person years.
People lost jobs, cut back on programs and services, they cut back on capital projects, cut back on benefits to employees.
It caused quite a lot of pain in all the communities in the Northwest Territories.
We were part of the Northwest Territories then.
I know our economy is very, very dependent on the government, all levels of government, municipal, territorial and federal.
We have a very small private sector, so any situation where we have to re-profile could really harm our communities.
That’s what we have to be cognizant of.
When we were talking about the growth in the public services, we’re closing in on a $1 billion budget.
I don’t think members of the standing committee will agree with me on this.
I think we can continue the growth for ever, unless we really start to the costs in.
When we see increases in 233 positions classified as middle management, as mentioned in my comments yesterday, we’re not sure how that growth contributes in the delivery of programs and services.
So, there are those kinds of factors.
I’m wondering if the minister could comment on whether she talks to her ministerial colleagues about looking very closely at their departmental growth, that efficiencies can be achieved by not hiring positions that really aren’t necessary in the public service.
I agree with the member with his comments and his observations that, yes, we have to monitor our expenditures around positions.
I think originally with the creation of Nunavut, 1999-2000, there was an expectation that management positions would grow in Nunavut, but to what extent, we have to monitor that very closely.
In my budget address, I outlined the whole issue around having to manage our resources more effectively and more efficiently and stressed that in the budget address because it is going to become an issue, if we continue to spend in the pattern that we’ve been going in the last few years.
We’re not going to be able to continue that pattern without cutting programs or salary dollars somewhere to achieve goal X,Y,Z.
So, part of this exercise in the fall will be to also consult with my colleagues on some of the priorities of the Pingasuaqtavut document, which we all had input into and to allocate those resources in the priorities.
We won’t be able to meet many of those objectives if we don’t manage our dollars effectively.
I would like to thank the minister for agreeing with my comments.
That is reassuring, that we have a minister who understands that we’re verging on a potential crisis if we continue on our current growth rate.
Mr. Chairman, I’m looking at the Inuit employment report of September 30th.
Total employees in all departments for 3,198, but there are vacancies of 559.
That disturbs the standing committee because those are positions that we’ve budgeted for last year, and it works out that 1 in every 5 of Government of Nunavut positions is vacant.
As we all know, government can use unspent salary dollars for overspending in other areas.
I mentioned this in our opening comments yesterday.
I’m wondering what the minister is doing to encourage her ministerial colleagues to try to stop this practice, where unspent salary dollars are used other activities in their departments.
There are very few salary dollars that get transferred for other areas.
That does not happen very often and if it does happen, it requires Financial Management Board approval, as well as the Legislative Assembly.
So, the members here would see that change in that transaction to a supplementary bill or what have you.
If any salary dollar is being transferred to other areas, in that way I can reassure the member that they will see that type of activity through the main estimates supplementary process.
The other area is that, there are vacancies in the system one given day, we’ll never have 100% filled positions.
In many positions that are not filled are often filled through casuals as well.
Internally, I had mentioned earlier that Department of Finance and Human Resources are working to position management positions that is directly linked to P2K system to again better track vacancies on a given day.
I thank the minister for that comment.
Can the minister offer some observations on why there is such a high vacancy rate at any given time at the Government of Nunavut.
It works out, one out of five, that is 20% of Government of Nunavut positions are vacant any given time.
That is quite a high percentage number.
There must be a whole range of factors for that.
Perhaps, the minister could explain some of them to us.
I think the last six or seven years in our total, I mean that is our total since we’ve been in existence six, seven years.
We are building up capacity.
We still continue to having staffing challenges, as we all know.
There is a whole range of issues why we don’t have our positions filled at one given day.
It could range from lack of housing, or it could range from specialized area that is difficult to find people in.
Your guess is just as good as my guess on why there are vacancies but, generally, every attempt is made to advertise and fill positions in the communities, particularly in the areas of line works.
Efforts will be ongoing and that is a challenge we face on a daily basis.
Are departments budgeting for positions that they know they are probably not going to staff?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: One comment that I wanted to add to my original comment is that the other challenge that we face in recruitment is that there is a shortage of skilled work force.
One is in the area of finance and the other one is in nursing.
That causes us a bigger challenge in the north to try and hire people that are in demand across Canada.
Departments that have their positions in place that are salary and they don’t have a full time person, normally they fill that position with a casual.
So, I would say no to your question.
Mr. Peterson: No more questions on that area.
On a follow-up, a little bit on some of the colleague’s questioning and it deals with budgeting.
I know that the Department of Finance puts everything together for the departments and it’s Financial Management Board that establishes the targets at the departments have to work within in developing their budgets.
Mr. Peterson mentioned, as I have in the past, about this mushrooming in the bureaucracy and the minister had indicated earlier that they expected it to grow right from the beginning.
Keeping that in mind, how we were funded was based on a base budget that we were given from the federal government.
Were they aware that it was the intention would grow, that the bureaucracy in the government would grow as well.
If so, why has it been such a struggle to get any additional dollars out of them, if there was an indication that ears needed to be unplugged for them to listen to some of the issues that we have with the limited financial resources that we’re getting from them.
When I made the comment that the public’s service was expected to grow from the very beginning, I started with OIC when there was 10 potential Government of Nunavut employees.
To set up a government with 11 departments with 10 staff from April 1, 1998 when we started in OIC, that’s what I meant when I said we expected to grow.
Naturally, the Footprints 1 and Footprints 2 documents were produced to kind of indicate what the structure would look like in government and the number of PY’s that would be required to run a new territory.
So, from that, we have been in existence, as you all know, six or seven years and we continue to try and fill those jobs.
In the opening remarks, we talked about the growth in management.
Many of the positions that were established were headquarter positions.
Headquarter positions did not exist in Nunavut, April 1st.
A lot of the regional positions existed, which we inherited through this system.
So, yes management positions increased, because many of those jobs were carried out in the Northwest Territories in Yellowknife.
April 1 came on, and many of the departmental regional operations we inherited and established a headquarters.
So, that explains why we have increase in the pubic service.
At the same time, in the area of management, you talk about middle management and management on.
That’s explains that.
The other question in regards to, has the federal government listed to the needs up here.
On April 1, 1999, our total budget was around $600 million.
It’s now close to $1 billion in six years.
So, that’s a 90 percent growth.
I think we have been very effective in conveying to the federal government, the challenges and the needs of the north and that has been recognized through the funding we have received from the federal government around health, strategy, around changes to formula.
Of course, it’s ongoing and they have been very responsive to many of the cases that we have put forward.
The Minister indicated and I think it’s understandable that a lot of functions that are now being carried out here in Nunavut weren’t here before and that there were Footprints 1 and 2 models.
I had always thought that those models incorporated the entire government structure, not only what was here already.
I guess my question then is, is the minister stating that those two sets of Footprints were going off in the wrong direction, if we’re seeing this huge increase in PY’s since 1999, which was based on those two documents, that there were some fundamental flaws in the preparation of those two documents.
Again, I’m just wondering if that’s what the minister is indicating.
I did use the Footprints 1&2 as examples, as a starting process of creating a new territory.
There were flaws in those models.
We had to adjust the plans, as the Members of the Legislative Assembly members elected in the first assembly and the cabinet members were elected.
They were then responsible to take it from there and create the public service.
There were flaws in that and just to use one example, there was no payroll function identified in finance in that report.
So, of course there would be revisions and changes.
Plans change all the time, and we have to continue to deal with.
There has also been a the new concept around the close to home issues, so we’re trying to get the positions in the north to home type services and delivery of health care.
The other are 2001, 2002, QEC was now part of Nunavut.
So, there was all these other changes that are continually made to better manage our departments and programs and what have you.
I glad the minister agrees that there were some serious issues with those initial documents.
I think as anyone would agree you can’t have things that look good on paper, but when you try and implement them, you have to change, willing to change.
I think the government, over the last six years, has done that to some point.
When we talk about the issue around the mushrooming civil service, especially in certain areas, I know that for the six years we’ve been saying we need more teachers, we need more front line workers, whether it be social workers, teachers, nurses, I know there is an initiative going on now for nursing, which is good.
We’re getting 12 new teachers next year, as the Minster of Education had indicated in his budget.
I know in some communities, they’ve been trying to hire social workers and sometimes social workers work more than one community, same thing with income support workers.
The front line people, one would think that there are more of over the last six years that I’ve been around, you know there is where a lot of the concerns are raised by Members of this Assembly that they need more of that, and we see this huge increase in middle management sections that don’t do that front line work.
And you know I guess, one has to ask is how are those set?
You know like, the department says, the Financial Management Board says give the and the budgeting like you had indicated earlier on, in question period, that they are given targets to work with, is there no checking to see if you know where there if there given whether it be a 2% growth or you know are they staying the same, or 5% growth, you know that those dollars are going into the areas of need that have been identified here in the House.
Like the front line workers. Like the funding for other programs and services that are offered by the government, instead of middle management PY’s.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Mr. Chairman, if there was a question, I missed it.
Is there any kind of mechanism in place to watch when increased budget targets are given to departments, that those dollars aren’t just going to middle management and mushroom PY’s, that are going in there and ensuring that they go into front line services or other programs and services that never to seem to have enough money.
Each minister is responsible to manage their operation.
Each minister puts forth their business plans and the number of positions they need to deliver their programs, whether they be front line workers or managers or what not.
With a design of program, naturally there is a need to have people to deliver the program, so, each department, each minister oversees those targets.
Before you came in here, we had talked about the question of managing growth in the public service.
I mentioned that the Department of Finance and the Department of Human Resources are working very closely together to develop a tracking system for positions within the system directly linked to the new payroll system.
Those two will be linked and we’ll be able to manage and monitor the growth of the public service quickly within the system, without having to manually go through every organization chart and count the boxes on the organization chart.
So, there is that type of work in place for us to monitor.
Each minister is, again, responsible to manage their salary dollars associated with positions and to ensure that he has the resources and the people to deliver his front line workers or not.
As a former deputy minister, just because I was the deputy minister didn’t mean that I didn’t get involved in front line work.
So, to say that managers don’t provide that, I don’t agree with that because I think we have a public service, where we have a number of positions that are vacant that work very, very hard that are doing two or three more jobs at a time, and we have to try and address that by filling the vacant positions and to get more positions in place so that they have that help.
I think, generally speaking, we have public servants that are very committed to providing service or delivering programs.
I just wanted to let the minister know I was listening to her comments earlier, that was what she said and that’s why I’m following up on this questioning.
If they’re just getting the system up and running now, then there really hasn’t been any monitoring or evaluating, other than taking the minister’s word for it when they come forward with their budgets.
I know earlier, during the sitting, the minister had indicated, that, when I was asking about the PY’s and that, that they don’t even consider that at Financial Management Board.
They just take it for granted that it’s all set and done and it’s the minister’s responsibility to do that, and the deputy minister and their staff to identify positions in their departments. I understand that.
My question was, is there any mechanism to look at evaluating and the minister said that they’re getting this new system set up.
So, I would take it then, that they haven’t really been looking at this in the past, and you see some of the growth figures that we see here are a good example of why this is something that should have been monitored in the past a little more effectively by the government.
When you say you want to deliver stuff closer to home and you see the positions growing further away from home and not being able to put positions into communities, whether it be anywhere from Grise Fjord to Arviat, Resolute Bay, Kugluktuk, anywhere like that in the non-decentralized communities.
We’ve heard over and over again, when are we going to get a social worker.
When are we going to get this.
Or, when are we going to get that.
These groups that are in desperate need of funding don’t have, sorry, there’s no money available for that, but we’ve got lots of money to add a significant number of PY’s within the department.
So, it’s not so much the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, but there should be some kind of a general commitment coming from Cabinet to identify this and try and look at a better allocation or a more prioritized proper allocation of resources to the departments, to the appropriate programs and services.
I would just like to comment back and say finance is part of the budget review process.
It always takes particular note on a proposed increase to PY positions.
I don’t necessarily agree with the member’s observations because there is an expenditure management division within the Department of Finance that oversees any growth.
So, like I said, it is the responsibility of every department, every minister to manage their resources effectively.
Finance, of course, monitors that through expenditure management on a regular basis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tootoo, your time up is.
We have to give certain people a chance.
My question is, I think we’re on the same page under Nunavut Arctic College.
They have different programs now.
The students that complete grade 12 and also we hear about small businesses in Nunavut.
It’s very, very hard to get accountants to come and work for you and there was training on the job programs that were in place during the Government of the Northwest Territories days, but we don’t seem to have them under the Government of Nunavut anymore.
I just wondered if the Department of Finance is using students, and providing them with on-the-job training.
Do you have some people training on the job and working with your accountants in your department.
The Department of Finance, at the present time, has 12 interns who are on-the-job training and at the same time, they’re taking university credit courses.
I believe 11 of them will be completing in the next month or so.
But, we have put in the efforts to try and hire individuals for the finance type positions because of some of the challenges we were also facing in hiring trained staff.
So, we hired 12 staff to train them on-the-job and get their accreditation.
All are beneficiaries in Nunavut.
Mr. Alagalak (interpretation): Thank you. I have heard about it a little bit, but I haven’t heard it publicly before.
So, I thought I would ask the question.
In your department, it is good that you have those types of trainees in your department.
Just in case there is an opening in your department for a certain accountant, do you give them priority hiring?
With the interns, there will be priority hiring of those individuals upon successful completion of their training program.
How long is this going to be in place?
Do you have an expiry date or do you have a, are you going to keep on training them?
The program has been basically two years.
At the present time, we haven’t decided whether we are going to go forward within 2 years with this point and time.
But we’re planning to evaluate that.
This is very good to hear and I wanted to publicly state it here in the House.
I will have more questions later on when we get to the appropriate page.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Alagalak.
I just wanted to follow up on some opening comments that I made yesterday about our crown corporations.
I noticed in here that in fiscal management, Finance manages the annual budget development process.
One of sticking points was, for the standing committees and our members on our side is that, we don’t get to see business plans for organizations like the Nunavut Arctic College or business credit corporation or Nunavut Development Corporation.
In many cases, we don’t see them in time for the main estimates process so we can scrutinize them before we vote on their budgets.
To the credit of Nunavut Development Corporation mentioned yesterday, they did table their business plan for this year which is good because it gives us a chance to view and ask questions to the appropriate ministers.
What is the Department of Finance doing to encourage the crown corporations to be more proactive to prepare those business plans so we can get them in time for the main estimates process, review and scrutiny before we vote.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The standing committee members’ concerns have been noted and we are following up with the departments or the crown agencies to develop business plans on an annual basis.
The mandate letters that we are preparing, which I hope to have will be on an annual basis.
There is a requirement of the corporations and the crowns to produce business plans the same time the government departments do business plans, so you’ll see much improvement in the go-around.
But, that will become a standard procedure for these agencies to produce business plans as part of the departmental business plan.
Thank you, minister for that information.
We look forward to seeing their business plans on a timely manner in the next go-around as the minister indicates.
Page G-6.
Finance Branch.
Summary. Mr. Tootoo.
I was talking earlier about the targets and budgets and stuff like that and I’m just wondering if the minister had give us an idea of how the departments, do they come to the Financial Management Board, the Department of Finance saying this is what we need or are they given something to work with and if so, how are those numbers arrived at.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before the budget process is started, there are call letters that go to departments and those are approved by Financial Management Board.
I wonder if the minister could elaborate as to what a call letter is.
The call letters basically outline requests to departments to outline what new initiatives that they may be looking at implementing.
As much of those new initiatives would have to be linked to the Pinasuaqtavut document, as an example, as priorities.
It basically provides the guidelines of how each department will be required to put forth their departmental budget.
If it were in a situation where there are increases, we would identify the percentage of the increase and what not.
If there is a reduction exercised or there are cuts made, the call letter would outline the departmental targets and the percentage.
So, it basically outlines the process, the targets, them to identify priorities, what their forced growth initiatives are, what their new initiatives are and the time lines they require to produce their financial statements.
The minister indicated it outlines targets and I would assume that would mean, okay, this is how much money you’re going to have to work with to try and develop your budget.
The targets would be for the base budgets.
How do they determine what their targets are going to be.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: It all depends on our current situation and what we can afford.
If we were in a major deficit situation, as an example, obviously, we would have challenges to deal with there.
But, it all depends on our financial situation.
Like I say, how does that number figure that they have to work with, how is that come up with.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: That would be through recommendations from the Department of Finance as well as through Financial Management Board.
We decide and the call letters go out explaining the targets to work with and again it all depends on our current financial situation.
Given that there is some liquidity in our financial situation from time to time, it does change and I recognize that.
A lot of times, we don’t know until sometimes after the fact that there are going to be impacts, whether it be on the positive side or the negative side.
Given that there always is that uncertainty around that, the part that there is certainty, how do they determine, how does finance and Financial Management Board determine this is what the number is going to be plus or minus these variables that may change.
Every year, departments are given their targets on their base and that information is based on departmental historical growth.