Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jun 30/00) - Regular MLAs last week flexed their voting muscle to compel cabinet to establish a public service commission.

MLAs argued a commission, which would operate independent of the government in the same way as the conflict of interest commission, is needed to ensure both fairness and the appearance of fairness in government hiring.

After lengthy debate June 21, all regular MLAs voted in favour of a motion calling on cabinet to introduce by Feb. 15, 2001 legislation to establish the commission.

"There are all sorts of different ways that this can be done," said Charles Dent, the Yellowknife MLA who introduced the motion.

The chairman of the Standing Committee on Oversight and Accountability -- composed of all regular MLAs -- said the commission could be made up of a few people to rule on complaints from those who feel they have been treated unfairly and leave the hiring to the departments, or it could be a large organization, such as the large federal civil service commission, which also does most of the hiring for federal government departments.

MLAs argued the commission would also make the government's affirmative action policy more effective. They added the NWT and Nunavut are the only two jurisdictions without a public service commission.

Finance Minister Joe Handley argued against the motion, saying it was too hasty.

"Definitely, we are interested in having a public service that is representative of the Northwest Territories ... we agree with that, we agree that things aren't ideal," said Handley. "But to jump in now and create a public service commission may be premature."

Handley added that such an organization would also cost money, saying the Yukon public service commission costs $10 million per year.

Premier Stephen Kakfwi said the motion would, among other things, accomplish exactly what members outside of Yellowknife have complained about, bringing more government jobs to the capital at the expense of the communities.

The issue heated up again June 22 when Kakfwi accused MLAs of undermining a commitment made before the motion was introduced, to work with members to improve the affirmative action program and government hiring processes.

"We made that commitment yesterday," said Kakfwi. "What has thrown us a bit is that there's this motion that says the members on the other side have already figured it all out, and figure the solution is a public service commission."

The government also challenged MLAs to present the research he said showed there are 21 per cent more human resources positions in government now than there were in 1992.

During the same period, said Dent, the number of NWT government employees has dropped by 43 per cent.

Dent said 1992 figures were gathered by legislative assembly researchers and the current numbers were provided by the government itself.