Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Human Resources. I'd like to ask the Minister of Human Resources if you can give the House a status on the Regional Recruitment Program. Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Human Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Regional Recruitment Program is actually being utilized throughout the Northwest Territories. I will commit to getting the House and the Member the exact numbers of uptake across the Northwest Territories. I can't say it is more successful in some regions than others. I believe we've only had one application in the Sahtu, meanwhile in South Slave we've had a number of applications. It is still being pushed; it is still something we believe will help make a significant difference in recruiting Northerners for northern work in those non-statutory positions. Unfortunately, I don't have the numbers in front of me today. I will commit to getting those to the Member as well as to the House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister, although I recognize that direct appointment is a Cabinet program, I'd like to ask the Minister if he can indicate to the House in direct appointments being done by Cabinet, if there are as many direct appointments now as there were the previous six months.
Mr. Speaker, there's very strict criteria that are utilized that would determine whether a department will submit a direct appointment. We can share those criteria with the committee and let them know why we would be supporting or utilizing the direct appointment process, as some of them are for things like interns or where there's been an unsuccessful competition many different times, or when we know that a competition will likely prove unsuccessful. I will share those criteria. As far as the numbers, Mr. Speaker, I do know that there have been a couple direct appointments during the life of this government, but I couldn't tell you the exact number. I will confer with Cabinet and find out whether or not that is information I can share. I believe we can, but I would like to confer with Cabinet before I release that information to the Members.
Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Minister could advise the House if he feels that the recruitment, or we put restrictions in recruitments such as a geographical restriction to recruitment, if that is broadly known across Cabinet. If geographical restrictions is something Cabinet could look at and down into the departments when they're doing recruitment.
Mr. Speaker, I won't talk about my personal opinion here, but I can state that we actually do have that program available to us already for non-statutory jobs. We can actually go out and advertise on a geographically limited area for specific positions. By way of example, if we had a non-statutory position in Fort Res, we could actually run a competition within 35 kilometres of the community and limit it to just that zone, so that is a tool that is actually currently available to us. Some departments have used it. It is available to all departments, where appropriate.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to ask the same Minister if there is a strategy to address the affirmative action numbers in the government. We know that the affirmative action numbers are low; they're far below what the goal is. I'd like to know from this Minister if there's a government-wide strategy to address the issue of members of the public service not having…priority one candidates not having many numbers or high numbers as we wish to achieve in the government's goal. I'd like to know if there's a strategy in place to increase those numbers. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the government is committed to having a public service that represents the population we serve, which means we'd like to have a public service which is about 50 per cent Aboriginal. We do have the Affirmative Action Policy, which is a passive policy used during the hiring process. A number of departments have taken on some specific initiatives, like the Department of Justice with a corrections entry-level training program to train local people, targeting affirmative action candidates for jobs. As far as a broader tool that's available, other than things like the Regional Recruitment Program and direct appointments, there's a limited number of programs that are just geared specifically for Aboriginal people. We do have an Aboriginal training program for senior managers that we do utilize and we do have an Aboriginal advisory group within the departments, staff from the departments, Aboriginal staff, who are providing some guidance on how we can work to better improve our statistics. Right now, we're running at about 32 to 33 per cent Aboriginal representation compared to 50 which is our ultimate desire.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
