Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Human Resources. As I mentioned in my statement, the department had a career fair in Ottawa, so I would like to ask the Minister, what were some of the targets and early outcomes of the career fair in Ottawa? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We had attended the career fair in Ottawa to raise awareness about the employment opportunities in the Northwest Territories, to attract people to the GNWT and advise people of the opportunities and advantages of living in the Northwest Territories as one of the strategies to try to increase our population base and fill some positions that are otherwise difficult to fill. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to ask the Minister, when is the government holding career fairs here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We are having open houses at the Human Resource service centres we have across the territory. We had our very first open house in late November in the HR Service Centre in Fort Simpson, and we’re going to follow up with open houses in Inuvik, Norman Wells and Hay River this month. We are also going to have open houses in Yellowknife on March 12th and 13th, Fort Smith at the end of March, and on May 6, 2014, we will be having our last open house at the HR Service Centre in Behchoko. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m glad to hear they’re planning to have open houses in the regional centres, but what about the smaller communities in the outlying regions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in order to try to reach out to some of the small communities, the department has announced the Regional Recruitment Program. With that program, the department has also hired a regional recruitment specialist that is based in Fort Smith and will be working with all the HR service centres, and also the HR service centres will expand out into the smaller communities. Again, sending the same message out in the communities that the GNWT is available, we have vacant positions that we wish to fill and if people in the communities have the skills and abilities to fill those positions, we are going to give them the opportunity to do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to ask the Minister, how does the department reach out to our Aboriginal population? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The department has the Aboriginal Management and Development Program where we are advancing people into associate positions. We are starting at the director/superintendent level where we are advancing six individual Aboriginals into those positions. It gives them a good key position to be able to reach out and try to attract other Aboriginal employees. In the mix, we are also trying to add – we don’t have the money in the budget yet – the next level down and have associate managers. So that’s something that the department will be putting forward to the government. We have an Aboriginal Advisory Committee chaired by one of our Aboriginal deputy ministers that watches over some of these activities, especially these key activities in our attempt to attract more Aboriginal people into the public service. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
