Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, we’re not going to let the Human Resources Minister off that easy because, quite frankly, I don’t think that these goals are being achieved. Often I hear people apply for jobs who have years if not, in some cases, decades of experience, but because they don’t have that actual certification, such as a university degree or a college diploma, they get screened out.
Let’s start off with a simple question by asking the Minister, how often does someone get hired on the principles of they have a university degree, versus the people who’ve brought real life decades of experience? The department must track this because they spend a lot of time evaluating these things. What kind of answer can we get from the Minister on this? We’ll start this question off this way. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I couldn’t possibly know how often that occurs in the government. I indicated in the House previously, we have anywhere from 1,600 to 1,700 staffing actions per year going back I don’t know how many years. How am I able to determine how often this occurs in the government? I would perhaps do a long research and then we would probably be able to come up with this number, but it would mean tracking everybody that qualified up against the individuals that got hired in order to determine that number. Thank you.
Maybe the Minister is starting to grasp the complication behind this particular problem. I’ve got people who have applied with 10, 20 or more years of experience, but they’re screened out and the competition is awarded and they don’t know until after the appeal period is gone, but then again their rights don’t really matter. Of course, they feel they don’t matter because their experience is weighed directly against credentials of the university. So let’s go with this group, and by the way, the footnote I’d like to add is quite often I hear of this complaint, and it’s a good complaint and it needs to be solved, by women and certainly Aboriginal women are screened out because their years of experience clearly don’t matter. So maybe the Minister can help us, help the House, help the public understand how does the department weigh experience on a job and evaluate them against somebody who has the official credential, because it appears right now if you have experience it doesn’t matter, if you have the certification by a university diploma then they’ll look at you? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, related experience does matter. Minimum qualifications, as far as education goes, and related experience matter. It’s written in most job descriptions, if not all job descriptions, that we receive from the department. If an individual has directly related experience in the job they’re applying for, it has a significant impact on whether or not the individual gets hired. If a person has directly related experience, education that may not be directly related, but many years of directly related experience as the Member is talking about today, we will not screen that individual out. The person with directly related experience will be interviewed. Thank you.
Thank you. Recently I had someone who applied or wanted to apply for a job, but of course it says, as a must, they have to have a high school diploma, but their 20-plus years of experience didn’t matter because their job was pre-qualified and they were encouraged to apply anyway. Frankly, they had to make a choice at that high school year severely impacts their life. Somebody defined it as it continues to haunt their life because they had to make the choice that was right for them, but they can’t apply.
So perhaps I’ll ask it this way, how does the Minister see someone with 20 years’ experience – and, of course, he did say related experience matters – apply for jobs like this that they’ve been doing for years, but it doesn’t appear to matter because if they don’t have that high school diploma they don’t even get into the game and they’re told weeks later after the competition is over, hey, by the way, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
Thank you. It’s difficult for me to speak on this. For me it’s a hypothetical case. If the Member has an actual case where an individual has 20 years’ directly related experience and was not allowed to apply for the job that they were doing, I would be glad to hear about the specifics from the Member and we’ll then contact the department and find out what the issue is. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If it’s difficult for the Minister to answer this question, quite frankly it’s difficult for the public wanting to apply for jobs if we don’t know how they can get opportunities that they rightly can do and they’re being blocked at the front door by this little sticker that says if you don’t have the university degree, don’t apply, if you don’t have the college diploma, don’t apply and in some cases, unfortunately, some people don’t have the high school, but they’ve got the 20-plus years’ experience.
I’m going to ask this question: How is the Minister going to fix this problem? Because we have a lot of good people and my experience, growing up in Fort Simpson, I can tell you some people just had to take paths that they didn’t necessarily like, but by golly they’re dedicated, hardworking and certainly capable and they’re being shut out because of these small things and we can make this happen. I’d like to ask the Minister how he’s going to solve this problem. Thank you.
Thank you. Again, I’m looking at case-by-case would be the way to resolve this issue. People have not come to me, individuals have not come to me and said that they had been working jobs, have 20-plus years’ related experience and then were not eligible to apply. I’ve had situations recently exactly as the Member spoke, an individual that said that they had 20 years’ experience, but they didn’t have a Grade 12 education that was a requirement. I encourage the person to apply for a job at any event. So, I don’t know that is an issue. I haven’t specifically heard that is an issue until today. If this is an issue, it’s an ongoing issue, it’s a big issue, then the Member can provide me specifics on it and I will go to the departments and try to find a solution to get those people to work. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
