Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Human Resources. Today I spoke about counselling services in Lutselk’e and made reference to the front-line staff.
With Lutselk’e having over 95 per cent — and Fort Resolution having over 90 per cent — of its population aboriginal, can the Minister tell me if the front-line professionals with Health and Social Services who work in these aboriginal communities are mandated to have cross-cultural training?
The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, with the difficulty in attracting some of the frontline workers, it’s certainly something that we would like to see — that they have cross-cultural training. But unfortunately, the reality is that sometimes this cross-cultural training is not made available until after the fact. The ideal would be for frontline workers to receive cross-cultural training.
Mr. Speaker, would the Minister commit to reviewing the situation to ensure that frontline staff such as Health and Social Services workers are properly trained and culturally sensitive to their respective working environments?
Mr. Speaker, I’ve worked in a number of environments where cross-cultural training was provided across the board, and it was a requirement for not only front-line employees but all employees to take cross-cultural awareness training.
This is certainly an area that I think is important, certainly for people who are new to the North and new to the communities. We develop training programs, and we will make sure that this service continues to be provided.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm whether the boards and agencies for which Human Resources is responsible for providing service get the same response and attention as the regular departments do?
Mr. Speaker, boards and agencies generally operate on a different basis. I think that we would certainly request that the Health Minister direct boards and agencies to deal with cultural awareness, but the boards are independent and would have to make that kind of decision themselves.
It’s an area where it’s not as straightforward as just asking them to fulfill requirements with regard to cultural awareness. But that’s something that I’ll discuss with the Minister of Health.
Final short supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, I shifted gears just slightly there. My question was more about the service being provided to boards and agencies from the Department of Human Resources, just strictly on hiring versus the services provided to the departments. I just wanted to know if there was a difference in the Department of HR’s role when hiring for boards and agencies versus hiring for departments.
Mr. Speaker, HR’s role is not different. It’s just that we may take a different approach with some of the larger departments and some of the larger boards in how we approach the staffing for boards and agencies.
Thank you, Minister. The Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Robert McLeod.
