Debates of June 6, 2006 (day 6)

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to talk about this government’s approach to achieve a public service that is more representative of the population it supposedly serves. When this government introduced a new approach to developing a home-grown public service back in 2002 by proposing to phase out the affirmative action policy and taking the new employment equity approach because, "It will be based on a philosophy that employees will hire a more representative workforce because it made good business and operational sense to do so, Mr. Speaker."

Mr. Speaker, we are now four years down the road from when this statement was made in this House. According to the latest statistics, the 50 percent aboriginal population of the Northwest Territories is less represented in our public service today than we were when this new employment equity approach was introduced. The number of aboriginals in management positions, the Graduate Employment Program, the summer student employment initiatives have all seen declines in the number of aboriginals. Aboriginal students are telling me that they are unable to get hired as summer students, because it is not what you know anymore but who you know that gets you a summer job in this government.

I hear about long-term aboriginal employees getting squeezed out of government positions because they raise issues that are discriminatory in nature. I hear about long-term government employees who are aboriginal and may qualify for government positions in management, only to find that positions have either been cancelled or reprofiled, or they have not been given notice or explanations as to why the human resource practices have changed.

Mr. Speaker, these are just some of the aboriginal actions and concerns I hear about all the time. If this government thinks that it is going to make some positive changes in developing a better representative public service here in the Northwest Territories, I can easily find 1,200 public service employees who will strongly disagree, because that number represents 30 percent of our public service which are aboriginal, underrepresented and underemployed by this government. This has not improved in the last 10 years, Mr. Speaker. Where is the good business sense in all of this? Where is the good operational sense? The numbers definitely do not reflect any of this.

Mr. Speaker, I think this is totally unacceptable, and I will be asking the Minister of Human Resources and FMBS questions about the thousand government positions that should be filled by aboriginal northerners later in today’s session. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause