Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have spoken a few times in this Assembly on aboriginal employment within the GNWT. It came to mind again the other day when I heard from a constituent, a young man who’s going to college this fall. He was looking for a summer job and was told that the department wasn’t hiring. He finds out a little while later that somebody from the south was hired.
Mr. Speaker, this is just another example of young aboriginal people being put on the back burner again.
Shame!
Mr. Speaker, I’m frustrated, just totally frustrated, with some of the treatment of aboriginal employees within the GNWT.
Another example, in my mind, is this whole “potentially affected employee” exercise that we just went through. The task of identifying employees, in my opinion, was made at some of the regional levels. Who are they going to identify? I believe they identified a lot of the aboriginal employees, and I think statistics show it and prove it.
Mr. Speaker, I’ve seen qualifications tailored to hire certain individuals from down south. This is a small percentage of people; not everyone is like that, Mr. Speaker. We have a lot of people who have moved north, made the North their home and are still here today. But there is a percentage out there that still continues to do this.
Mr. Speaker, I’m not radical by any means, but I am extremely concerned with the battles that we still have to fight.
In an Assembly where 11 of the 19 Members are aboriginal and the other eight Members are lifelong Northerners who have adopted the North, made it their home and are contributing to the well-being and growth of the Northwest Territories, this is something that we should not condone and allow to happen on our watch. As aboriginals we have to protect the people who put us here.
Mr. Speaker, Fred Carmichael spent many years trying to do what was best for the aboriginal people across the Northwest Territories. As younger leaders we have to carry on the cause of ensuring aboriginals and lifelong Northerners are the major beneficiaries of anything, any resources, any employment that goes on in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, that’s our cause, and I think we should carry that on. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
