Yellowknife (Mar 11/05) - A Hay River MLA says Yellowknife is growing fat with public service jobs while her community is only getting the crumbs.

Hay River South MLA Jane Groenewegen told the legislative assembly Monday that government records show the number of GNWT jobs in Yellowknife grew by nearly 50 per cent between 1999 and 2004. During the same time period, the number of government jobs in Hay River -- the second largest town in the territory -- actually dropped.

"They want to keep everything centralized," said Groenewegen.

The numbers show that Yellowknife grew by 360 territorial government jobs during that period. Several other communities also experienced substantial growth, including Inuvik, with 100 additional jobs, Fort Simpson with an extra 41 positions and Fort Smith with 32 more jobs.

In fact, almost every community in the territory saw an increase in GNWT workers. Only three - Hay River, Wrigley and Dettah - saw GNWT jobs decrease between 1999 and 2004.

Hay River saw its 282-strong GNWT workforce drop by one, although nearby Enterprise - with only one worker before 1999 - saw an increase of 13 positions.

Groenewegen said, though Hay River only lost one job during that period, the numbers do not include cuts to Department of Justice positions announced late last year, which she totalled at 43.5, including casual and term positions.

"They say, 'well some of those were casuals,' but that brings up another whole issue," said Groenewegen. She said some casual employees who saw their jobs cut at the Dene K'onia youth correctional facility and South Slave remand centre in Hay River have been working at those jobs for up to eight years.

"I don't think the government should be able to leave people in a casual status for that long a period of time," said Groenewegen.

"It's kind of like (the service industry), they employ people who work less than 20 hours a week so they don't have to pay any benefits." Groenewegen asked Finance Minister Floyd Roland, considering the relatively good news coming out of this year's budget, whether he would consider scrapping plans to cut $20 million worth of government jobs over the next two years.

Roland said he would think about it. "When we first laid out the plan, our fiscal picture was much more difficult than it is now," said Roland.

"It is getting better but we still have to be prudent in how we manage our programs."