Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On June 2, 2009, the Minister of Human Resources committed to increasing the representation of persons living with disabilities in the GNWT public service. To accomplish this, the department and the Minister initiated several actions. These include the creation of an Advisory Committee on Employability, the implementation of a diversity officer to help counsel persons with disabilities through the GNWT hiring process, inclusion of specific references in job ads to applicants asking them to identify that they live with a disability and may require accommodation, and sensitivity training has also been offered to GNWT staff.
Mr. Speaker, these are all good things. However, new initiatives do take time to become commonplace in the workforce. There are certainly some departments that are supportive, and clearly there are some departments that are resistant to supporting this new direction.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources is the gatekeeper of all HR policies and procedures. It is the department’s responsibility to make sure that all departments, boards and agencies adhere to the GNWT’s hiring processes and procedures. I’d say that the Minister’s department is doing a good job in this area. Unfortunately, not all departments, boards and agencies are adhering to the government’s position.
For example, I have recently been involved in assisting a constituent who applied on a job at Stanton Territorial Hospital. He is a young Aboriginal man living with the effects of FASD. His effects are very minor but he does require minimal accommodation to be successful in a job. Specifically, clear direction on his role and responsibilities is important. This is required both up front and when significant changes occur in the role.
He applied for a manual position at Stanton. He was screened in. He was interviewed. He passed the interview. His references were called. They gave positive references. They both indicated that clear direction would be valuable and that he would be an excellent employee, and both references were excited and were confident that this young man would get the job. Unfortunately, he was rejected by Stanton. He was told that they would not be able to accommodate his disability. They didn’t have the time to provide clear direction in their busy environment.
Mr. Speaker, this smells like discrimination to me. Mr. Speaker, clearly, good work being done by HR is being ignored by some departments, boards and agencies; in this case, Stanton Territorial Health Authority.
Later today I will be asking the Minister of HR how his department, as the gatekeepers of our hiring policies and procedures, intend to make sure that all GNWT’s employees involved in the hiring process understand and adhere to policies in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
