Caroline Wawzonek

I'll start even before the interview process takes place. What people may not realize is that there is actually quite a lot of information available on the GNWT's HR website about how to participate in an interview, how to prepare, how to submit a resume. There is also the opportunity for people to contact someone at human resources to assist them with the preparation of their materials before they apply and also to help them prepare for an interview. I think that's probably an underutilized and perhaps not even well-known opportunity that is available.

As far as once someone is in the actual...

Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that Bill 21, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2020-2021, be read for the third time. Madam Speaker, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Since taking on the portfolio of the Department of Finance, one of the most frequent things that comes to my office from MLAs and from members of the public comes in around staffing and concerns around staffing processes and a desire to ensure fairness in staffing process, and ensuring that the Affirmative Action Policy is properly being followed. Madam Speaker, in the vast majority of the cases that come forward when they are investigated, in fact, the policies have been applied and have been followed, and yet, the stories and the concerns keep coming. There is some sort of disconnect where...

Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Nahendeh, that Bill 21, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2020-2021, be read for the second time. This bill makes supplementary appropriations for operations expenditures of the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The report that will be tabled later today does not include that same documentation or data that was back in 2010. As for the evolution in the last 10 years of the report, I will have to find out what that evolution is. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I wish to table the following six documents: "What We Learned: Tourism Strategy Stakeholder Engagement Strategy (1) September to December 2019;" "What We Learned: Tourism Strategy Stakeholder Engagement Strategy (2) May to June 2020;" "Northwest Territories (NWT) Film Commission 2020 NWT Film & Media Sector Stakeholder Engagement Report: What We Heard;" Inter-Activity Transfers Exceeding $250,000 (April 1 to June 30, 2020);" "Public Service Annual Report 2019/2020;" and further to my return to Written Question 18-19(2), I also wish to table the "Summary of Capital Budget Carry...

What I want to commit to doing is ensuring that every department, in the chain of hiring that goes through that department in cooperation and in conjunction with staff from human resources, is indeed taking responsibility to ensure a representative public service and indeed is taking responsibility to follow the Affirmative Action Policy but also to be conscious of their own biases and act in such a way that we are not relying on them. The point of human resources is to try to create a system and a process that is fair, that is open, and that acknowledges that human beings will naturally at...

The work is already under way, and it is my expectation that both the framework and implementation plans for departments will be completed within the 2021-2022 fiscal year. Thank you.

I certainly would agree that every department, through its deputy minister, will need to take responsibility to help ensure that the GNWT continues to do better in terms of what we're doing to follow the Affirmative Action Policy. The goal here is to have a representative workforce. The Affirmative Action Policy is one of the tools that we use to achieve that. However, Madam Speaker, the way that we will do that through deputy ministers is by ensuring that there are some clear targets and a clear plan for each of them within their department that they can implement and that that can then be...

Yes. The Indigenous framework that we are developing for the recruitment and retention framework is meant to have targets, department by department. That's really the answer to the question, Madam Speaker. It will have hiring targets. I have not been given any sense that men over women is going to be part of the targeting, but Indigenous affirmative action candidates will be part of those targets.