Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Finance. In the last Assembly, the Minister committed to create a new policy to prioritize hiring Indigenous people. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister provide the status of this new policy to support Indigenous hiring?
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Boot Lake. Minister for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's been quite a number of different pieces that have rolled out in support of hiring of more hiring and stronger hiring of Indigenous people in the Northwest Territories. There's the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework is really the vanguard item that we have on that. The Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework has quite a number of action items in it for each department, and each department has its own individualized framework or plan, action plan, within that. They're all available online. I won't start to name them off now, but there's been an initial reporting on some of those action items. For example, having job descriptions reviewed, all job descriptions reviewed, to ensure that we're having job availability and accessibility that aligns to people's skill sets and that doesn't become exclusive or exclusionary in a way that doesn't actually achieve the targets of that job. So all of those are available online. All of the actions there are available online, and they're meant to address and break down some of the barriers that people have seen. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister mentioned the Indigenous Retention Recruitment Framework. Can the Minister say how this framework is being monitored and the success of the departments to implement the employment plans are being monitored as well? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Multiple questions means I can just talk all about the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework. So in this case, Mr. Speaker, I can be quite succinct because in some ways it's simple. Every department has submitted their own employment plan. Those were published in November of 2022. They then have a responsibility to meet both shortterm, mediumterm, and longterm objectives. In October of just this last year, the employment plans were all posted online, and it shows columns of what is expected for short, medium, and long term. So there's status updates that are going to be going out online to those employment plans. As I said, the last one was just a couple of months ago. The next key marker I would put on people's radar is with respect to hiring targets, so actually setting some targets and breaking those targets down by types of employment, so not just a blanket putting people into positions but actually ensuring that we're moving people through and up to higher positions of senior management. So that's the next marker I'd put on the radar. But that's a shortterm goal, and that will be one of the next ones that needs to get published in the not too distant future. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And certainly good to hear that there are targets being set. I know the last Assembly was clear that departments were to set targets, and GNWT were to set targets. Can the Minister tell me what those targets are, Mr. Speaker?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can, and what I would suggest I do, though, is perhaps we can I don't know if we'll be able to table it by tomorrow but at the earliest opportunity, Mr. Speaker, we could put that information before the House or at the very least perhaps circulate where people can find it. It's on the Department of Finance's website under the diversity and inclusion services, the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework. There's a very long document. And then there's a very long list, every single department, every single agency has their own plan. Every one of them is published. And within them, it shows all of their individualized actions as well as those targets. So it's a long list of information and I would, again, be happy to put that information before the House. I believe it was actually included in business plans and would be included in business plans going forward. So it may be that the next opportunity I have is during main estimates when business plans would be before the House again. Thank you.
Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister. Direct appointments, Mr. Speaker, are a tool that the GNWT can and does often use to place employees in the positions without running public competitions. Can the Minister provide the number of direct appointments in the GNWT over the last fiscal year and which of those were Indigenous? Thank you.
I certainly can provide it. I don't have it in front of me, Mr. Speaker. But I would note that in general, direct appointments, at least over the last four years that I can speak to, were in I believe 90 percent or so were of individuals who had either P1 or P2 status, which would be Indigenous individuals as well as longterm Northerners, but I'll ensure that we've broken that down to reflect specifically Indigenous Northwest Territories residents. It is a very high percentage of the direct appointments that are that go through. Thank you.
Finance. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
