Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ve got questions today for the Minister of Justice and I guess I’ll give the Minister of Human Resources a heads up too. We are here for another four weeks, so I’ll have ample opportunity to ask him some questions on advancement of aboriginal people in senior management positions in this government. For today, I’m going to ask the question to Minister Lafferty. It gets back to my Member’s statement. I would like to ask the Minister if he could explain to me how a 17-year tenured aboriginal employee with corrections, with good performance appraisals, is consistently being denied and overlooked for opportunities to advance his career in corrections. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this particular area is a personnel issue. At the same time, we can be generic about whether it be the 17 years, aboriginal employee within corrections. Mr. Speaker, there has been some progress in play with certain individuals within the system where individuals may work night shifts and they get an opportunity or are offered an opportunity to work day shift, so they can expand their role in day and night shifts. At times, there is some reluctance for various reasons and due to the fact that the warden and associate warden try to deal with this matter and put the individuals through the development stages. There have been some challenges, but we’re not giving up on those individuals. We want them to succeed. We do have an associate warden who is aboriginal. So we are making steps in the right direction, Mr. Speaker, having our aboriginal workforce move up in the system is our prime focus right now and is the priority of the Justice department and GNWT. Mahsi.
Is the Minister aware of direct appointments of non-aboriginal, non-priority persons into positions at North Slave Correctional Centre? Thank you.
There have been direct appointments in the past, but we currently deal with inventory of people that we have on file and individuals that are moving up within the system are given, based on their credentials, based on the experience they provide to the organization and not only that, but to the aboriginal perspective, there are... The numbers we have within our corrections officers at North Slave Corrections is 36 positions are filled by aboriginal workforce and 27 are non-aboriginal workforce. There are 87 other full-time positions with 16 percent filled by aboriginal people. So those are individuals that we continue to focus. We work closely with human resource development, because they do have a plan in place as well. We, on the other hand, within the Justice department, have a role to play during the development stages to focus on those individuals in a management position.
I hope the Minister can understand the frustration of this individual when having been in the corrections field for 17 years. He watches individuals who are new to the position, who’ve been there for less than a year, who are non-priority, non-aboriginal get direct appointed into positions. I’d like to ask the Minister if he would be willing to share -- and he talked about it a little bit -- the Succession Planning Initiative at North Slave Correctional Centre. I know we have 36 percent aboriginal employees on the floor at that facility, but what is the percentage in senior management?
Surely I can share the information that we have within North Slave Correctional Centre on the number of positions, the percentage and whatnot. But I did meet with the MLA and the individual that he’s referring to and I would encourage the individual to continue applying, because now we’re having seven positions that are currently open for transfer. Fifty-seven percent, or four positions, will be for aboriginal people. There is a great opportunity there to be identified. Those individuals who are interested need to work with our system as well. Either take the day shift and night shift combined together and additional roles and responsibilities. Those are the areas we continue to push within our system.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was wondering if the Minister has a breakdown of the 20 individuals that have just gone through the training program for careers in corrections. There are 20 individuals. What is the breakdown on that by priority status and aboriginal persons?
We are very proud of our training program that we have initiated. It’s very successful, focusing on the northern hires. We can have a breakdown to aboriginal perspective. I guess we’re focusing on the northern perspective, the northern people that we hire that go through the transition period to development stages. Yes, I can share that with the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
