EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
That just takes you down from 77 percent to 66 percent. I am just wondering if you have any idea of why we’re seeing such a big decrease in capacity within the department in the last year, and mind you now that those numbers are almost a year old because the government still hadn’t provided us with any new numbers.
Going to the IEP Report, March 31, 2007, of 940 positions within the Department of Health, we were at 68 percent capacity, or February 2008, that’s about right; 940 positions, 68 percent capacity of which 53 percent were Inuit employees.
On March 31, 2007, there were 915 positions, 66 percent capacity with 52 percent Inuit employees.
So the latest information I have to February this year is we’re at 68 percent.
Again, it fluctuates. Some of the numbers relate to increases in total positions related to increase in services we’re working on through the hospital. As an example, we created 27-some positions the last few years and so on.
Some of them relate to people leaving and some of them, as outlined by my deputy minister, relates to positions that we were keeping on hold until the reorganization was completed.
The minister certainly has information that’s almost a year old that we don’t even have yet because it hasn’t even been tabled in the House. It’s the February 2008 numbers I think she referred to.
The last numbers that we have been provided by the government were March 2007 and those are the numbers that I’m getting at.
So that’s in two years then it’s gone down nine percent. Instead of 11, it has gone up two percent; a big drop of 11 percent from 2006-07.
Is there any indication as to what lead to that big decrease that one particular year where it seems to be a lot of people, 11 percent of the department, left?
The information that I have and that I just spoke to was 940 positions and being at 68 percent. That’s our internal tracking of our vacancies within the department.
That may change by the time the Minister of Human Resources tables that report.
There is a change in the capacity part but we also increased the PYs. So we increased positions by 25 or 22 the last year for the hospital, for instance, using that as an example.
In relation to the capacity, we should also keep in mind that we had some increases in PYs to address issues like the hospital’s expanded services.
I know that staffing for the department here in the community of Iqaluit pretty much consistently had the lowest levels of Inuit employment year after year.
I’m just wondering if the minister knows of any indication as to why the Inuit employment level here in Iqaluit for the department always seems to be so low.
Currently, as a department overall, I’m quite proud to report that we are at 53 percent of Inuit employed within the Department of Health. Compared to other departments, we’re doing quite well in that.
Having said that, in the Iqaluit, it’s a lot lower because a lot of the positions that are in Iqaluit are in the professional areas, such as the doctors, the technicians at the hospital, and the physiotherapists. There are a lot of specialized positions in Health and Social Services in the delivery of health care services, particularly within the hospital itself.
I know that traditionally, whether we like it or not, beneficiaries have been hired by the department usually into entry level positions, such as administration assistants, housekeepers, and support staff. I would assume that most of the positions that were allocated to the department to deal with the accreditation issues probably could have been filled by beneficiaries as well, or be considered, for the most part, for entry level positions.
I’m just wondering what efforts are being made to provide those individuals with training opportunities to be able to move them into some of the more skilled, or trained, or higher positions within the department.
One thing I would just like to add to our recruitment efforts is that we also hire our graduates out of the Nursing Program as an example and graduates of the Nursing Program are guaranteed employment.
I shared, I think on Friday, statistics in Rankin Inlet. I believe we now have four Inuit nurses working at the health facility there and we’re trying to continue to do that, not just in nursing but also in the other programs that we have been offering through Nunavut Arctic College in the midwifery area, in the area of x-ray technicians, mental health, and so on.
The Department of Health has a range of training programs that are being delivered through Nunavut Arctic College where we are trying to increase Inuit participation within the Department of Health, whether it be social workers, the enhancement of the Nursing Program in Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet, the Midwifery Program, x-ray technicians, mental health... I can’t remember the other ones.
So there are a number of programs we are trying to promote in Nunavut for careers for beneficiaries to take advantage of.
In terms of training internally through staff development and so on, individuals also have a choice whether to apply or not. How do we make our health care profession more attractive to individuals? I think our deputy minister spoke to some of those initiatives that we’re trying to undertake by the RFP initiative that he outlined.
So there are a number of initiatives that the Department of Health has undertaken in conjunction with the Department of Human Resources’ Training and Development Division.
I know that, as the minister recalled and like I mentioned in my last question, the whole accreditation report, in which the hospital lost its accreditation, identified I think there was $2 million or something like that that was given as, what they called “emergency funding” or a “special funding” to be able to address issues of accreditation.
In that, I don’t know if the minister could remind us of how many positions were allocated to deal with that and out of all of those positions that were included as a result of the accreditation report, how many of them have been filled and how many of those have been filled by beneficiaries.
I’m just looking for my briefing note on the accreditation. I believe there were 26 positions created at the hospital in Iqaluit for the expansion of services and to meet the accreditation requirements. How many of those have been filled?
I will have to get back to the member on that; I can’t find the briefing note just on how many positions have been filled and whether they’re Inuit or not.
Chairman (Mr. Arreak)(interpretation): Thank you, Minister.
I have no problem waiting to get that information from the minister; I’m sure it’s not too far off.
I know a whole lot has been said about this recruitment and retention strategy for health care professionals, and particularly with nurses.
From what I have heard in the questions that are asked or have been asked here and the responses given is that a lot of the focus of this is going to be that we will see the benefits of the strategy in more of a longer term approach rather than seeing some immediate changes.
So maybe if I could just get an idea from the minister or her officials is: how quickly do they see any of the benefits of the strategy kicking into place to be able to attract and retain in particular the nurses into our territory in the short-term?
The approach we took with the nursing recruitment strategy was not to just deal with the immediate challenges that we had in filling the vacant positions within Nunavut; that was the first area.
The second part was to think long-term and to develop programs that would ensure that we are thinking long-term in trying to address the shortage in Nunavut, at the same time, recognizing the fact that this is a national issue.
International shortage of nurses is a challenge for us as a small jurisdiction; we’re competing in Canada for the same pool.
So the approach we tried to take was training our own within our own territory along the concept of long-term.
The other approach we took in this was to design a Nursing Recruitment and Retention Strategy with nurses in Nunavut, in partnership with nurses in Nunavut, and hence, the formation of the working group to put forth recommendation on what can we do as a government that would make it easier for our nurses to do frontline work and what are some of the initiatives that we can address in challenges.
So there are a number of different areas we try to focus in that and some of them I spoke of: reviewing job descriptions across Canada, training efforts, training our own, hiring our own graduates, and so on.
What can we see immediately?
The proposal that we put forward to the union to take to the nurses, I think, if accepted, would be immediate results to our frontline nurses and our nurses in Nunavut.
I can’t speak to the details to respect the fact that there’s a process in place, but that proposal, we tried to outline a number of areas that were identified by nurses that would make it attractive to stay and to recruit.
That would be immediate, without... I feel limited that I can’t share that information at this point in time.
The longer term, of course, will be working through our graduates, working through promoting staying in school, and working through the education system in trying to train our own is a long-term approach.
The second and final point is: we wanted a working group to keep the process working in addressing those challenges as we go along and making improvements along the way, which is why we formed a working group to oversee the implementation of this current plan but also to continue to update it as we go along as well.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister. We’re on H-4. (interpretation ends) Health and Social Services.
Total Operations and Maintenance, to be Voted. $24,175,000. (interpretation) Do you agree?
Chairman: Thank you. Page H-5.
Branch Summary. Health and Social Services.
Total Operations and Maintenance, to be Voted. $29,112,000. (interpretation) Do you agree?
In this Social Services area, there’s Child Protection Services where they’re looking at seeing a decrease of a little over $500,000 from last year.
I’m just wondering if I can get an indication as to why there’s been a decrease in that area.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: I’ll get my ADM to speak to the decrease in that, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Sorry.
Ms. Downe
Ms. Downe: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This again is a result of the realignment of all the various branches within Health and Social Services.
So this is a result of that.
I know the business plan itself indicates that those social services’ workers provide essential services in our communities and the business plan also indicates that the need for child protection services is increasing.
I’m just wondering, if something has been taken out of here and taken somewhere else, what kind of assurances do we have to feel comfortable that the same, or more level, or quality of service will be continued even with the $500,000 decrease in that funding.
I’m going to ask the assistant deputy minister to respond to that.
We will not reduce any level of service. If the level of service is required, we provide that service. There won’t be any reduction in service.
Maybe you’ve got an explanation as to what got taken out of there with that $500,000.
What was that $500,000 that was taken out, or transferred somewhere else, or whatever happened to it and what was it for?
We had the details as follows: we had added one position as a Social Worker position, and then there were pay step increases as well where there was a $4,000 difference in the reallocation of funds in Grants and Contributions, Travel and Transportation. There was a reallocation of $152,000 into programs.
In the Materials and Supplies, there was a difference of $45,000. In the Purchased Services, there was a reallocation of $359,000.
What we are doing is we had tried to separate the Social Services Program and the Mental Health Program.
So some of the funding reallocation is related to that; trying to more clearly identify where the funding should be allocated.
Thanks for that response.
I think you said it was a reallocation in programs.
I didn’t catch it; I was too busy trying to write something else down and missed the amount there.
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: I’ll get Ms. Downe to respond to that.
Previously, as part of the Mental Health Treatment Program, for example, if somebody was in a mental health centre down south, all of that funding was included under the big umbrella of Social Services.
So since we have created a Social Services Branch, we have taken some of that funding and it is reflected in the Treatment Program which is later on page H-7, Mr. Chairman.
That $359,000, is that what that was part of?
Sorry, I was trying to keep track of everything and couldn’t catch everything, so I would just like to get clarification there. You had mentioned $359,000 being transferred to somewhere for something and I just didn’t catch it.
I would just like clarification on that.
I’ll get Raj to respond to that.
The $359,000 is Purchased Services, which is related to residential care removed from Social Services and moved to Mental Health.
I’m just wondering if there was any increase to the numbers of social service workers providing those frontline services in the communities.
Is there any increase in their numbers over last year’s?
Just going through the notes, there was a reclassification of the social worker positions and an increase of $67,000 in classification.
I’m just looking at PYs. How many community social service workers are throughout the territory compared to last year?
Mr. Campbell (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) The number of social workers will not increase. If anything, at some point in time, we will be making recommendations to increase the number of social workers in the communities.
Currently, we have 37 social workers; 22 of those positions are filled, 15 are vacant, and 10 of those positions are occupied by beneficiaries.
Under Directorate, we’re seeing increases of senior management positions and an area where the need is increasing; they are probably a little over half filled.
I would assume that the demand there is pretty high.
How can the department justify increasing, I think it was my colleague from Rankin Inlet that was saying before that it was a top-heavy department, the senior management positions when the people who are actually doing the work on the ground are being overloaded? It’s not only the social workers, but I talked about earlier, the mental health workers and the nurses. There never seems to be an increase in PYs in those areas because they’re at the bottom of the food chain and not at the top.
So I’m just wondering how the department and the minister can justify not increasing at the higher end of the department and not down at the lower end, where it’s the people that are providing those services on the ground to the people aren’t getting any increases.
I’ll start off and then I’ll pass it on to the deputy minister.
We have just dealt with the Directorate and a lot of the increases in the Directorate, I think we tried to explain, had a lot to do with restructuring the Department of Health and many of those positions that transferred to the Directorate came from other divisions of the Department of Health.
Having said that, in terms of increases, we have increased some frontline, for example, 26 at the hospital here in Iqaluit, we have increased 12 more in this budget proposed for the delivery of frontline nurses, and so on.
We’re also looking at the whole issue around mental health workers at the community level, building capacity there, building capacity with our community health committees at the community level as well.
So we are trying to address the community frontline piece.
Having said that, there’s also the need to do an assessment on the social work file, and I have said this for some time now, within the department, that there is a requirement to determine PY allocations based on caseloads at the community level.
That review is not completed for social workers and it varies.
The allocation of PYs; there is a social worker in every community, but how we allocate PYs based on workload increases, and so on, is one that needs to be done within the Department of Health.
I’ll just pass it on to the deputy to speak to some of the thinking behind that.
Mr. Campbell (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) I assure the committee that there’s not going to be a decrease in social workers, and likely, we will be proposing an increase, at some point in time, in the number of social workers in our communities.
We will be developing, again, that’s for the next main estimates, to get into the process next fall and identifying it from that perspective.
We are trying to identify some of our priority areas for the department. Nurses have been a priority for the past several years.
We have done something: proposed a lot of nurses. We’re going to be doing the same thing on social service workers. We’re going to be doing the same thing for dental therapists which is another area where we’re lacking our numbers.
So we’re just taking the sectors as we proceed on a priority-by-priority process from the department’s perspective.
I fully appreciate that we don’t have all of the resources to allocate money to these initiatives from a shotgun perspective when we have to increment some of these processes.
I do appreciate and apologize for not moving our files fast enough for the members, but we are, at this point, doing things in a planned way, and it’s just a matter of doing our internal assessments and doing external assessments to make these business cases for the department to proceed with our main estimates next fall for social workers.
Again, the next priority area will be dental therapists; another area that needs to be addressed.
Thanks, Mr. Campbell, for that.
I think next fall will be the capital budget; it won’t have anything to do with O&M. Social workers, from what I’m hearing, are saying that they’re out of luck for another year.
The minister indicated, Mr. Chairman, that they have a social worker in every community. They don’t have one in every community; they have one maybe allocated for every community, but as they pointed out, right now, there are 15 vacancies out there.
So I’m just wondering if the minister or the department could give us some kind of an indication: in the areas where the vacancy rate is over the last little while to see what kind of a trend; has it always been and for the last how long has it been 15 vacant positions?
Has it been more than that in the past; has it been less?
I would assume, when you talk about looking at the workload of those individuals, the 22 that are there that are trying to do the work of 37, who stays for very long.
You’re going to see some of those 22 who are going to be leaving too because they don’t imagine that it’s not a fun area to work in at all times. I would imagine the 22 trying to do the work of 37, either things get missed or people get burnt out.
I don’t imagine that the minister or her officials have that information here, but would they be able to provide us with some kind of historical numbers say over the last couple of years of where the vacancies are, what the rates have been and where over the last little while.
I think that could be interesting information to have a look at and see.
I agree with the member and we’ll try and get that information.
I would like to ask the minister and we discussed this before: how many social workers are currently doubling as probation officers for the Department of Justice?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the bigger centres, they are separate; I believe here is the only one where they’re separate. In all of the other communities, they do probations as well.
We have raised this couple of times in the past, but when you have the social workers performing the duties of probation officers it puts them in some conflict with their primary duties.
I’m wondering if the minister could indicate if she’s had any discussions with the Department of Justice with respect to separating those functions so that social workers don’t have to perform the duties of probation officers that could lead them into conflict with some of their clients.
As far as I know, there have been some preliminary discussions with my colleague’s department and Justice is committed to gradually assuming some of this role but we’re not there yet.
Could the minister indicate to us when she expects to make some significant progress in separating those two functions?
Hon. Leona Aglukkaq: Mr. Chairman, I can only say that, at this point in time, the discussions are very preliminary and we are not there yet.
The issue of carrying on the work of a probation officer and so on has been one that has been raised, I admit to the member for that, and we need to look at that and have committed to it. In terms of when that will be, I don’t know what the outcome of those discussions will result in at this point in time, but it is an area that we need to examine collectively with Health and Justice.
Can the minister indicate: have any social workers’ lives been endangered or threatened as a result of performing their duties of Probation Officers for the Department of Justice?
I can’t say for certain that that’s what’s happened but I can only assume that it may have occurred in the past.
Currently, I don’t know if it’s a direct result of the probation function or not, or other functions that they carry out.
When you recruit social workers, are they aware that it’s part of their duties that they may have to perform the function of a probation officer in which it will put them in conflict with their primary duties as a social worker?
It’s in the job description.
I wanted to ask the minister about the custom adoption.
In my riding of Cambridge Bay, I’ve had several constituents, over the years, who have encountered delays in processing their custom adoption paperwork.
I’m wondering if the minister could tell me if her department has made any strides in improving the processing of paperwork with respect to custom adoption and the issues in the Cambridge Bay riding.
In every community, there’s a Custom Adoption Commissioner that’s appointed to assist individuals who have adopted through custom adoption, and that process is there to speed up the process by filling out the paperwork with the support of a Custom Adoptions Commissioner.
I’m aware of that process. I know the ladies in Cambridge Bay who do that work. After they do the paperwork, then it goes off to Rankin Inlet, and whatever happens after that could take a year or longer to process the paper.
And then, of course, some of my constituents get quite worried that the birth mother or parents of the baby that they have adopted may want the baby back. So they would like to have the paper processed as quickly as possible.
Can the minister tell me, after it gets past the commissioner, what is the process to expedite the paperwork in a timely fashion; shorter than six months, not 12 months to two years?
I guess as a point of clarification, the whole paperwork process in custom adoption is not required to validate the custom adoption. The paperwork process is the birth certificates and so on. The custom adoption is to practice custom adoption, and that’s valid as is, recognizing our traditional practices.
If the issue is around custom adoption finishing off their paperwork and the hold-up is with vital stats, then I would have to follow that up with the Vital Statistics Division in Rankin Inlet to see why the paperwork’s taking a year to complete.
I would only have to find out first how much backlog they have and get back to the member.
I appreciate the minister’s offer because I believe the hold-up may be not so much in Rankin Inlet but possibly in Inuvik where birth certificates and other paperwork for babies born in the Northwest Territories, Yellowknife, from the Kitikmeot are processed.
I think the delay may be there and I would appreciate it if you could investigate at least, and then find a way to expedite that process.
My next question is on these Foster Care Associations.