EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Some communities are not informed or don’t know anything about summer jobs especially for students that finish school for the summer and are looking for jobs.
When these students don’t hear about summer jobs, sometimes they don’t pursue summer jobs as well.
This will come up after a little while to see how it is coming along on the student summer jobs, even for youth that are not in school in these communities.
I will bring this up as question a little later on.
Mr. Puqiqnak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to make a brief comment.
In his opening comments it states that they would incorporate Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit when they are hiring employees and I’m very glad to hear that because Nunavut Government was established by the Inuit people of Nunavut.
And if it wasn’t for the Inuit of Nunavut the government would not exist at all.
So, therefore, we were very glad to be creating a new entity that would use Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit as its foundation.
I am happy that this is a guiding principle, but it starts with language.
We are supposed to be utilizing and incorporating Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and I’m very glad and happy to hear that they will be incorporating Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit in some departments.
I would like to see all the departments incorporate Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.
I’m not opposing non-natives.
Yes, I would like to work closely with them and I would like to have a good working relationship with them.
It’s evident that Inuit have been stating as Nunavummiut, that there are hardly any beneficiaries that are employed.
So we should not be forgetting this.
I know that we are a new government and I know that it was pretty hard to implement the government and I know that we should not be just talking about it in the future.
In the coming years I expect this to be incorporated because we are Inuit people and according to the language that we use, Inuktitut should have a stronger presence in government documents.
I know that we will be hiring employees, and I expect to see the government offices using Inuktitut in the workplace and also in other areas because it’s in the land claims agreement.
Our land claims agreement is pretty powerful in Article 23 and 24 and I was very glad to hear the department talk about it.
We do still experience some problems in some of the communities of Nunavut.
As the member for Kugluktuk stated in his general comments, and I’m sure that we’re still experiencing some problems in all the communities.
For example, in Gjoa Haven, their Liquor Licensing Board Executive Director, who was the Executive Director, got a different job and we still haven’t seen a replacement for him.
The Liquor Licensing Board Executive Director position was opened and there was an individual who’s an Inuk, although that individual was born outside of Nunavut but he’s also registered as a beneficiary for Nunavut although he was born outside of Nunavut, he speaks Inuktitut and English.
Giving support to Inuit employment, I don’t know what the real problem is in that area, but there’s a bit of a problem.
Some individuals are interviewed when they apply for employment but because they are not too qualified, they re-opened that position again for the executive director of the Liquor Licensing Board for Nunavut.
Yes, we would like to see these things in Nunavut but the requirements and needs are still missing, you go in the Bathurst Mandate, there’s still a Bathurst Mandate to follow and I’m sure that we’ll start following the Bathurst Mandate.
We’ve been a government for three years now but we’re pretty slow in our progress.
We expect some time in the future that there will be more Inuit employed within the government.
Mr. Chairman, I will have some questions later on.
That’s the conclusion of my general comments.
I will make a brief general comment.
There are many Inuit people who have applied for a job but are never hired.
Some of the reasoning is the inability to write syllabics, because if they can’t read in Inuktitut, they are turned down.
If an individual were to be hired they could be taught on the job, so these things should not be holding an individual from obtaining a job within the government.
And all the comments that were being made are true.
It’s possible for a person who is hired, like for example within the department of Finance if they are going to be finance controllers, yes they can learn their job and I’m sure that they would be good at writing up documents but for other jobs outside of those there’s hardly any Inuit people being hired because they’re not certified or qualified or usually that’s the excuse.
Usually inexperienced people can learn on the job, and they are better experienced than some new ones that are imported.
Once they learn they can do their job very well, and they become very capable, I just wanted to point that out, and I just wanted to conclude with that for now.
Mr. Chairman Thank you.
My own general comments to make here to the department is I think that we really seriously have to take a good hard look at our turnover rate and what we can do to lower it, attract, and retain our employees.
Just going by the numbers roughly that the minister has given us in the past, I think, 28% turnover rate of roughly around 2 thousand employees that’s 50 thousand dollars is the average cost, that’s 2.8 million dollars, you know that’s costing us for people that are leaving.
I think the department is responsible for collective bargaining if we’re dealing with the union, I think that and looking after our employees.
I think we have to try and be a little bit proactive and innovative in coming up with ways in which we can retain and keep our employees; it is something we cannot afford not to do.
I think we have to take a serious look at that and I urge the minister and his department that should be a priority of his department over the next year.
Especially with the collective bargaining process due to start soon, it would be an ideal time to try and be innovative and find ways in which we can have more attractive pay and benefits packages for them so we can maintain a stable work force and make the Government of Nunavut a place where people want to come and work.
I think last year, I made a comment, we were fourth in line, we were losing people, the former minister indicated that we were losing people to the federal government to the Inuit Organizations and even to the private sector.
I think we should be right up there as one of the top two places where people want to work in Nunavut.
After all, this is the organization, the government that is looking after Nunavummiut.
There should be some kind of incentive to work there and help your fellow Nunavummiut.
I’ll leave that for now, for my comments, Mr. Chairman and I’ll have some questions as we progress through the main estimates.
Going on to the main estimates.
Page 4-6.
We are to start from 4-5 but it will be the last page to deal with.
Questions to 4-6.
Total operations and maintenance 1 million 519 thousand.
Mr. Chairman here there’s roughly a 300 thousand dollar increase in compensation and benefits, I’m just wondering if that’s a result of new PYs being added to the division or is this a result of raises or changes in the collective bargaining?
Hon. Peter Kilabuk: Mr. Chairman the increase is due to two new positions, a systems analyst and an HR officer as well as for the salary increments and northern allowance adjustments.
Mr. Chairman I’m wondering if the minister could explain why it would be necessary to add new positions to this division?
Yes, the positions that I have just talked about for systems analyst because we are continually reviewing the statistics on the number of our employees because today it had not been completed, we are still continually working on it.
It’s going to be used; we got one employee to input data into the computer although I had mentioned in the House that we are continually behind in the entry of the data.
I don’t know if I missed it or is it just a requirement for the systems analyst is it not the HR officer.
Is that the other position he had indicated was the added one?
The first one that I mentioned, the system analyst will compile the data and the information and the other one is an employee who’s the HR officer.
The other government departments have had to use an HR officer with their employees and that’s why we have to hire a human resource officer.
I guess I still don’t quite understand why they need to have a Human Resources Officer.
They have a whole Department of Human Resources and a whole division of staffing.
What’s so different and unique that they need another position to do that for the department?
We have employees who have different responsibilities and roles within the department.
The Human Resources Officer is responsible for the co-ordination of the Inuit Employment Plan with the help of the various government departments, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, and also to do evaluations on the employees.
And also to deal with the employment opportunities and also to keep an eye on what training is needed by the employees.
Mr. Chairman, I was wondering if there was a reason why these positions weren’t worked into the initial organizational structure of the department and why there again, as I mentioned in my opening comments, there seems to be government-wide all kinds of numbers of new positions popping up and then, I was wondering, you if we are at the stage where were going to be taking a hard look at the programs and things that we offer through the program review process.
I just can’t help but wonder, are we just kind of trying beef up our numbers in the departments to be able to pad positions for once that whole program review or whatever comes out as a result of the whole program review exercise.
So maybe, what checks and balances are in there?
What things need to be done in order to get approval for new positions within the departments? How do you justify the need and to who for new positions within the departments?
For the higher level management positions, there are full-time employees that are required in those divisions and if there’s going to be new positions created it has to get the approval of the cabinet and if it was approved then it would be dealt with by the cabinet.
For the lower positions and for casual employees, or for specific related employees, we deal with them through our department.
Mr. Chairman, It’s no secret that all the departments are up around 80% capacity and there are many vacant positions in the departments, so why do they have to add new positions when they have all kinds of vacancies that they haven’t been able to fill?
In our department we are at 87 percent within Human Resources.
I’m sure that there will be some changes according to the trends.
We believe that we have had to create those two new positions because there was a necessity.
They will be working with the other government departments under the Human Resources Department.
The member has also asked us why we are creating these new positions when we have vacancies.
The only response I can give is that there was a requirement due to the work load.
Mr. Chairman, if there’s a requirement in the workload that would mean that there are probably existing positions that do that work already.
Again, if he’s still got 13 percent vacancies, there’s still some wiggle room for the department to move people around within that.
I just wonder why they need to have, and I’m not just picking on this department, I’ve seen it in other departments as well and I raise it as a concern that I look at as any good deputy or department head, they know that potential cuts are coming down the road, try to do as much as they can to protect the turf that they have.
I’ve seen it in the past in the GNWT and I just want to make sure that it’s not the same kind of thing that’s happening here in Nunavut.
The reason I raise those concerns and hopefully some serious scrutiny as to whether there needs to be new positions of people that, are they just going to cut vacant positions only.
Or are we going to be moving, you know, why they don’t just move vacancy wise, for the time being over to, reclassify or change the title of those vacant positions to accommodate the new ones.
It’s a work load thing. There’s been three years now where they have people not filling positions and there’s other people doing their job.
It’s probably more of a reclassification instead of a requirement for new positions.
Maybe the structures that we inherited within the Footprint II model didn’t reflect the needs that we have and we’re finding out as time goes on that maybe we don’t need all these people in this area but the charts say that, then why don’t we just reclassify.
What I see happening is new positions being created to fill these other jobs.
There are work load issues, as the minister talked about and yet we still have all these vacant positions going on in the other section of the department.
There’s 13 percent of the positions are vacant.
Now, I’m not saying that they’re all in this area or what area they’re in but, if they’ve been vacant for three years now, are they going to get filled or do we need them filled?
Or do we need to reclassify those positions.
I think that’s the kind of thing that needs to be looked at instead of just jumping to adding new positions to the department org chart.
We feel that the position is a very good addition to the HR and we realize that we have staff working with other departments on job evaluations, interview processes and all the other stuff they do with the other departments.
But this one in question, Mr. Chairman, we feel is a very good addition to the department because this position provides a lot of support to Human Resources in meeting the areas I had identified earlier, Mr. Chairman.
And this position should not and will not affect the other positions yet to be filled that have been identified.
So, we would take this as a positive step in better meeting the needs of both the departments and also our department.
I shouldn’t expect a different answer than that.
On another item on that page Mr. Chairman is under contract services in the previous years it was 20 thousand dollars and it jumped up to 144 thousand dollars.
I was just wondering if I could get an explanation to that increase and exactly what it’s used for.
This increase is for the cost of consulting services for the Human Resources information and payroll system, called HRITS.
So is the minister saying that this is contracting and consulting on development of an IT system to be able to track the human resources information?
Is that what he is indicating?
Yes it is for the department’s system.
I’m just kind of wondering I know that previously the Minister of Finance often indicated that their IT section looks after all the new software development and policy or program development for all the departments, I’m just wondering if this differs from that division in finance?
Under this line item, it’s going to be for data collection and as the member stated this one is for the data collection within our Human Resources Department.
Under the directorate, the department is also responsible for monitoring and reporting on the government’s initiatives related to Article 23 of the land claims agreement.
It’s very clear in Article 23 that there should be priority hiring and I think in most cases it’s been implemented in Nunavut if it’s a qualified individual.
And I know that the numbers have gone the other way in the last two years in regards to the IEP.
But I know there is a concerted effort in this budget and I’m starting to hear through all the departments that they want to do priority hiring for Inuit which I applaud the whole government for.
But, there is a little issue that I’m wondering about here in regards to, in the old GNWT, and don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to compare us to the old GNWT, because this is something that I really don’t want to express too many ideas about.
But they had a type of hiring program in place where if you were a beneficiary, and if you were considered a long term northerner you had sort of priority B hiring, and then if you were from the south, you were sort of like priority C hiring and today what do we have today.
I know on most ads that if you’re a beneficiary to let it be known on the applications.
So, what I’m getting here is if Ed Picco is applying for a job in Arctic College and has lived in the north for 25 years and he’s competing against a guy from Ottawa or Montreal, you know, he’s applying for a job.
So, is a guy like Ed Picco with 25 years northern experience going to have an advantage over a southern placement?
Currently, we have the priority hiring policy which gives priority consideration only to Inuit Beneficiaries based on Article 23 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.
However, in highlighting the experience of an individual who’s not a Land Claims Beneficiary, those would be highlighted by the applicant and through the application process of the individual’s experience and knowledge relating to that position.
Mr. McLean: So, an individual that’s lived up here for anywhere from 10 to 25 years that’s not aboriginal has a slight advantage with his experience and connections to the north over somebody from the south.
I guess in looking at the experience of the applicants, either as a Nunavut Land Claims Beneficiary or non-land claims beneficiary and the experience and knowledge of individuals always has its point.
In going back to what I just read out, currently the only policy in place is the priority hiring policy but I should also note that experience and knowledge of each individual who’s not a beneficiary scores them points in the application process.
I think there are weaknesses and it’s just my opinion in the hiring policies in this government.
Whether if it’s Inuit or non-aboriginals that lived up here a long time.
Who’s responsible for changing the hiring guidelines if it’s a unilingual Inuit applying for a job?
And we’ve heard this many times, you know, with their experience and a unilingual long time northerner over an educated articulate southerner.
Who’s in charge of making up these policies for hiring priorities?
I’ll have my Assistant Deputy Minister, Mr. Thompson, respond to your question but I would like to ask the member to clarify his question.
Chairperson (interpretation): Mr. Thompson.
Oh, Mr. McLean.
Do you want me to ask my question over again?
You didn’t get it.
What I was getting to here is that the practice of hiring now, the hiring policy the Government of Nunavut has now, it’s a policy.
I guess it’s a hiring policy and I know it’s sacred because a bunch of intelligent people made it up.
But when intelligent people make these things up that there’s people that fall through the cracks and it’s the unilingual Inuit people and maybe long term northerners that have contributed a lot to the development of Nunavut also that maybe not looked at as an application because they too may not have the qualifications some crackerjacks that comes from McGill University or University of Waterloo or something like that.
Sometimes, when people are hiring in the Department of Human Resources, they’ve got this stringent hiring practice.
We’ve all been through it, Mr. Minister.
Yourself included.
Who has the decision to make up or look at revising the hiring policies in the Government of Nunavut?
The Department of Human Resources does.
We are the law makers.
We’re elected by our representatives to pass laws in this Legislative Assembly.
When our constituents come to us and ask us, I’ve applied for this job, I’ve applied for that job; we know that they can do it.
But there’s a stringent set of rules that were developed by somebody.
I’m still not sure who.
It was before us I think.
Somebody told me a long time ago that policies were made to change.
Would your department undertake a revision of the hiring policies in Nunavut to reflect the true needs of Nunavut?
There were policies available during the GNWT and the priority hiring policy has been extended to 2006.
I just want to remind the members that when a job is open, the government identifies what qualifications the individual has to have.
They have to be Inuk or a Nunavut beneficiary and their skills have to be identified to see if the person is the right person for the job.
We look at their qualifications once we’ve seen their resumes and applications.
Chairperson (interpretation): Would you like to continue Mr. McLean?
I will try to write up a motion this afternoon, draft a motion this afternoon regarding the hiring policy of the Government of Nunavut as soon as I’m done asking my question.
But going back, we heard the statistics in Nunavut already.
We have a 25 percent turnover and I suspect it’s on our southern based staff.
And it’s costing 50 thousand dollars a year to turn these positions over, Mr. Minister.
To me if it’s costing that kind of money, why don’t we start keying in on our own people in our own communities that have a wish to stay in our communities and a wish to live and raise their families and contribute to Nunavut.
If we have that kind of turnover in the civil service and we’ve been saying it here for the last three weeks, that maybe it’s time to look at our hiring policies, our training policies and stuff like that.
So it’s just more or less a statement than anything else, that you know we’ve heard it, the turnover, we’ve heard it.
Why not try to look at hiring policies to make it more user friendly for the beneficiaries of Nunavut, that’s just a statement and my final question.
Chairperson (interpretation): Just to remind the members we’re on 4-6.
He was asking if we could review the priority hiring policy or even our selection process.
We could ask the departmental staff to review the policy or the process.
I want the members to be on the same page of comprehension that when an individual leaves their position, it is not only the non Inuit who leave.
It includes some Nunavummiut who leave Nunavut, not just the non beneficiaries, some Nunavummiut have their own reasons for leaving their positions and a lot of those people who leave are Nunavut beneficiaries who do not necessarily leave the Nunavut workforce.
Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Thank you while the discussion is centred around the department of Human Resources main estimates I just wanted to ensure that my comments are on the record.
Mr. Minister was right when he stated that they try to hire only the candidates who are qualified for that position but there’s also a problem with these so called qualified individuals.
The problem is that a lot of times individuals who are hired do not speak the same language and basically is a unilingual individual who is very qualified for their position but then who often has to use co-workers in that department as interpreters.
This is one of the problems where these Inuit were not hired as interpreters in their positions and who then have to spend valuable time as interpreters.
These are some of the problems that are present in the hiring process of our government where these qualified individuals are hired and although they have the required expertise and experience for the position, when they do not speak Inuktitut, they end up using their co-workers as interpreters and I’m just wondering if the ministers realise this is a problem.
Perhaps if we can look at this problem for one position, we will never address this concern within Nunavut.
But it’s a concern not just in Nunavut but everywhere where there are people who speak different languages and not everybody is bilingual.
This also applies to visitors who do not speak the language of the majority in the place that they are visiting.
So this is a concern that we are aware of and we want to train our staff accordingly.
The civil servants should receive training in either Inuktitut or another language.
There are different training programs available to encourage staff to learn a different language.
We should look to programs such as on the job training to recruit more Nunavummiut.
This is something we are trying to remedy and in my opening comments, I identified some of these problems and barriers.