Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Member's statement, the questions, how many Indigenous employees have been hired through the career gateway program in the last fiscal year, specifically in the Deh Cho riding? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Deh Cho. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd be very happy to get that breakdown of information. The career development program -- or gateway program has been quite successful. It's now went from being undersubscribed to oversubscribed which is a problem we like to have. But I don't have the numbers in front of me. I will certainly get them to the Member quite quickly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Department of Finance track how many Indigenous employees enter the public service through the career gateway program tracking their progressions into senior positions in the public service? In other words, are we seeing development and succession for these employees? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do track, again, folks who are coming in through the Indigenous Career Gateway Program. The degree to which we might be tracking their succession thereafter that, I'll have to double check, Mr. Speaker. I can say that only as recently as June of 2023, until then we did not have a formal succession plan within the human resources, not even a formal strategic plan for human resources. So I appreciate the question. That's exactly getting to one of the things we are trying to now do, and we do now have, as I say, a succession planning document focused on ensuring that we are, in fact, bringing Indigenous employees through succession planning so that they are moving through exactly that. So I suspect we are, based on that, doing that tracking, and I'll get those numbers, assuming they're available, to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member from Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. What other approaches is the GNWT taking to reduce barriers to Indigenous recruitment and retention into the public service? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we had launched a few years ago the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework of it and that had two key goals associated with it. The one is to increase Indigenous representation, full stop, in the public service. A number of goals and a number of actions therein, everything from creating and ensuring that there's employment opportunities, that there are no barriers, speaking with the Indigenous Employees Advisory Committee about what barriers they may observe, putting in Indigenous employment plans for every department. Different departments have different types of needs, different types of employees. ECC employees out on the ground might have very different circumstances from ITI, and wanted to get at what barriers this are for each department in not having more representation.
The second goal, Mr. Speaker, is to increase Indigenous leadership. So, Mr. Speaker, what I'd like to suggest is I'll commit to getting an update on where we are with all of those action items and have that to the Member or to the House. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
