Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to use this opportunity to pose a couple of questions to the Minister of Human Resources. As he knows very well, I believe strongly in a diverse and representative government and certainly our government’s efforts to reach out to all communities, the Aboriginal community, the disabled community ensuring that we’re an equal opportunity employer for everyone. Mr. Speaker, some of the questions that I’d like to ask are specific to hiring policies and how we encourage a culturally diverse workforce. I’d like to ask the Minister what does his department do to encourage a culture of both awareness and harmony to ensure that we’re hiring people with diverse backgrounds, whether they’re Aboriginal or disabled, but through an environment that they enjoy, they like working for and they feel respected. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we first got elected as the 16th Assembly, this was identified as a priority for our government and we recognize that we wanted to develop a representative public service and we had been flat-lined for about the last 10 years where we had about 31 percent Aboriginal employment, recognizing that in the Northwest Territories the population represents about 50 percent Aboriginal people. So we’ve been working very hard. We’ve developed a Human Resource Strategy -- 20/20: A Brilliant North, Public Service Strategic Plan. We developed an Aboriginal Employees Advisory Committee as well an Advisory Committee on Unemployability. We’ve been working with those committees to identify ways to move forward, increase employment of Aboriginal people and also have a more diverse workforce with our people with disabilities and so on. Thank you.
Thank you. The Aboriginal Advisory Committee and the Employability Committee, have they had a chance to develop or, I should say, seek out responses from employees to ensure that the employer, which is obviously the Government of the Northwest Territories, is certainly meeting the needs of a diverse and sensitive culture that we’re trying to build in our government? Thank you.
Thank you. The Aboriginal Advisory Committee has representation from each of the regions and has been very beneficial to identify the challenges that we’ve been facing in hiring more Aboriginal people. One of the areas that was identified as a concern was hiring Aboriginal people in senior management, so we’ve identified three associate director positions that have been filled with Aboriginal people and we will be continuing in those areas.
As we go forward, recognizing that this is a problem that has been there for the longstanding and it will take awhile to turn things around, but we’re working very hard to increase the representation of Aboriginal people in the public service. Thank you.
It comes as no surprise of the Minister that I worry constantly about ensuring that there are fair opportunities for everyone in this regard, both Aboriginal and the disabilities community, and I’ve raised my concerns ensuring that the disabilities community certainly gets a good foothold.
With our government having, I believe, about a 0.5 percent representation, what type of awareness campaign, be it both seeking out further Aboriginal candidates for senior management positions or in the same type of gain for people with disabilities to ensure or reach out and show that this government wants to hire people who can bring something to the table to be part of our government and be productive members that we appreciate and respect? What types of things does this government work on? Thank you.
Thank you. Our government is undertaking a number of initiatives. First of all, we’ve hired an Aboriginal recruitment and retention specialist, as well as a diversity officer and a duty to accommodate officer within the Department of Human Resources. So those specialized positions will go a long ways to improving our hiring and promoting diversity.
As well, through the committee, we’ve looked around the country to see which jurisdictions had best practices, we’ve brought in people from the Yukon to give us some indication of what they undertook to have one of the best programs in the country. We recognize there is a tremendous need for sensitivity training for all of the departments, because the departments will be the ones that will be doing the hiring because we’ve delegated staffing authority to all of our departments. So we have to develop the culture and the environment so that the departments working with HR will hire people in these different areas. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What I mentioned about a reflective public service, I certainly wouldn’t want to say that I didn’t think Gender Equity Policy and issues need to be representative in that particular vein. So it was remiss to mention it at the time.
Mr. Speaker, my last question is that I’m very well aware that the Department of Human Resources does an exit strategy and I know, from a bit of research, there was approximately 50 of them done in the last year. I’m just curious as to what are some of the fundamentals learned by the exit strategy and what is the government doing to encourage that people aren’t leaving for the wrong reasons where they’re not feeling culturally appreciated. Are there gender issues, are there maybe disability biases or whatnot? I want to make sure that we’re learning something and we’re doing something about it. Thank you.
Thank you. The Member is correct; we do do exit interviews, but it’s on a voluntary basis. So this past year 51 people that were leaving the public service undertook exit interviews and one of the questions that was posed to them, and we gave them three choices as to why they left the public service, and when we asked them if they were leaving because of our promoting diversity and inclusiveness, 68 percent said that they were dealt with fairly and inclusively. So that wasn’t the reason that they were leaving. With regard to gender, I think we still have a long ways to go, but 65 percent of our public service are women. In senior management, 40 percent are female. Things have improved significantly.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Colleagues, I’d like to draw your attention to the gallery and to the presence of a former Member of the House, a former Member for North Slave or Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty is in the House.
The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
