Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to give the Minister of Education a bit of a break and address my questions to the Minister of Human Resources today. During Committee of the Whole consideration of the Department of Human Resources, Members were able to make comments and I was able to make some comments. I appreciated that, but one of the questions I asked during my comments kind of slipped through the cracks and I don’t think I got an answer from the Minister. I’d like to ask the Minister that question now. I’m not sure where the information came from, but I believe the Minister of Human Resources is conducting a number of policy reviews now and in the next fiscal year. I would like to ask the Minister if one of these reviews will include a review of the Affirmative Action Policy. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time, we’re not planning a thorough review of the Affirmative Action Policy. We were always looking for input, guidance and advice on how we can improve our policies and procedures in the best interest of our employees and, by default, the residents of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
If the Minister is asking for advice, he will always get some from this side of the House and I would hope that every Minister over there would want to hear our advice. Following up on the Affirmative Action Policy, Mr. Speaker, and it’s not referenced in the policy but it is found within the Human Resources manual, which falls under the authority, pretty much, only of the Minister. There are a number of – two, actually – priority lists which list the priorities of the special groups we have within our government. So I’d like to know from the Minister, as part of the policy review, whether he intends or whether he will consider an evaluation of the priority lists in the Human Resources manual. Thank you.
At this time, that’s not something we’re planning, but if committee were to ask us to take a look at that, we’re always open to have discussions with committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that commitment. We will perhaps be back from committee once we’ve had a chance to discuss it.
The Minister, in his remarks over the last little while, has indicated a focus on persons with disability numbers and on numbers of Aboriginals in our GNWT workforce. We’ve heard the Minister provide us with numbers on recent successes. The numbers seem to be going up and that’s a good thing. But I’ve heard little, I’ve heard little said, I’ve heard little in the comments by the Minister about the number of women that we have in our workforce, particularly women managers. So I’d like to ask the Minister if he can advise – he might not have the info – the percentage of women managers out of all of our managers in our workforce. Thank you.
I don’t have that information at the tip of my fingers, but I will commit to getting that information for the Member and committee. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to seeing the information that he can provide. I don’t really have a question, but I’d simply like to point out that we do have an awful lot of women deputy ministers and I think that’s a good thing, so I’ll be really interested to seeing women versus men as managers. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. No question. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
