Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask some questions to the Minister of Human Resources on the Aboriginal hire and Aboriginal senior management area of our government. I want to ask the Minister what plans he is working on to close the gap. There is a gap between the number or percentage of Aboriginal people in senior management within the Department of Human Resources already with the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Glen Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of things that we’re doing. One of the things that we are doing is the Associate Director/Superintendent Program, which is actually an Affirmative Action Program to bring individuals in and train them for senior management roles. We have about three positions a year, six ongoing at any time, and we are getting good results with that program.
Can the Minister advise the House and me what the percentage rates are now with the government with regard to the senior management hire but with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people?
I don’t have that number memorized, but I will commit to getting that to the Member later today or early tomorrow.
From last year I recall it varied from different departments. It’s not a very good record for us as a government to look at the population that we represent that falls well behind the numbers that we perceive should be going higher.
I want to ask the Minister if there are some concrete, measurable plans to raise this number. I’ve been here for nine years and we still haven’t done a significant amount of work to increase this number. Is the Minister confident that these numbers will be raised by the end of this Assembly?
The government is working and Cabinet has given direction to each of the departments to try and increase their numbers of Aboriginal representation. There clearly are some challenges. There isn’t a significant amount of turnover at the senior management level, which means there’s not a lot of people moving up. The Department of Human Resources has some expertise in succession planning and they’re happy to work with any department and they have made that offer to do some succession planning to move some individuals up through the system. We also have an Aboriginal Engagement Committee engaged by the Government of the Northwest Territories, which consists of Aboriginal employees from across the government. I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with them and discuss some of the challenges that we face, and I’ve encouraged them in coming forward with solutions and recommendations to think outside the box and help us come up with some solutions that will help increase the Aboriginal representation in our public service.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Department of Human Resources working with colleges and students to start successive planning for careers for students who have graduated from these post-secondary or high schools?
We do have a couple programs that are available to help students graduating from college – whether it’s Aurora College or another institution – transition into the workplace. Our Internship Program is that program and it is an affirmative action-based program. We also work with the college to help us identify training within house, programs for GNWT employees to take. So we do work with the college, and as far as the students, we do have the Internship Program.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
