Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I continue to be concerned about our Aboriginal people and employees who are not getting jobs and advancement opportunities in our government.
Earlier in this sitting, I spoke about how the new shared services department made it difficult for employees to advance but treated long-service employees like new hires. We have to take pride, Mr. Speaker, as we say we do, to support our Aboriginal employees as they advance in our government.
I also have many Aboriginal employees who have been trying to be hired by our GNWT, without success. They are upset because they are qualified, experienced and ready to work, yet consistently they get screened out because there were no suitable candidates. That is very frustrating.
Potential new employees are also subject to screening tests each and every opportunity they apply for. They somehow fail and when they get screened, they have no opportunity to review the test or to see it or have ownership of it. It’s all behind the manager’s desk and saying you failed because of this or this. They never actually get to see it. They know they have the experience, training and skills for the job they are applying for.
I believe that we have to apply every effort to assure we have Aboriginal managers and executives in our government. We also must ensure that our representative workforce exceeds the 30 percent we have been at for the past 10 years, Mr. Speaker.
Later on I will have questions for the Minister of Human Resources. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
