Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Human Resources. I would like to thank the Minister for his statement about the NWT Public Service Strategic Plan and I would like to follow up with a couple of questions.
I note that the Minister talked about goal two under this plan: Engage: Magnetic Attraction. I’d like to know what’s in this particular plan relative to an evaluation of the GNWT’s Affirmative Action Policy, specifically in light of the priority lists as outlined not in the Affirmative Action Policy but in our Human Resource Manual. We have two lists, one for non-management jobs and one for management jobs, and they’re not the same. I’d like to know from the Minister what kind of an evaluation of the AA Policy is being contemplated specifically in terms of priority lists. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have our Aboriginal Affirmative Action Committee that is helping us in reviewing the affirmative action plan and certainly we are also reviewing it with regard to the other categories that are provided for under that plan. Thank you.
I’m not quite sure; the Minister said an affirmative action plan. I don’t know if he meant plan or policy, but if there is a review going on, how encompassing is this review, what are the terms of reference of this review and when might we expect it? Thank you.
We are having the committee work with each of the regions and we are expecting that they will come forward with some recommendations in approximately six months or so.
Six months? I guess that’s great. I’m still not sure whether or not that encompasses looking at the priority lists in the resource manual, but I’ll leave it at that.
In the Minister’s statement, he referenced persons with disabilities at one point. I know that a working group was established in June of 2008 to deal with persons with disabilities to try to make things a little easier for them and to further their employment. I’d like to ask the Minister what work that working group did some 16, 18 months ago and how is that relevant to the review that he was referencing that will be done in six months’ time. Thank you.
We’ve been doing a number of things. First of all, we’ve looked at different jurisdictions that have been doing some groundbreaking work in this area. We invited the Yukon to come and describe what process they took to work in increasing the representation of people with disabilities in the workforce. We had a workshop. We have had our committees working together. We have put in place sensitivity training for senior managers. So we are looking at the process of establishing an area that would focus entirely on increasing the representation of disabled people in the workforce. As we speak, we are hiring more people. But as the Member knows, it’s a question of people self-identifying themselves and you can only self-identify yourself once. So right now we’re starting to see an increase and we’re continuing to do work in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I could do a Member’s statement to the Minister’s reference to self-identification, so I guess I don’t have time for that right now.
I’d like to know from the Minister, though, I don’t think I heard in any of his answers that there will be any valuation of the priority list, that there will be a look at those two priority lists to, one, bring them together so that they actually match and people are listed in the same priority for each of them and to possibly change the priorities of various people within the Affirmative Action Policy. Is that possible? Thank you.
We are looking at the priority lists, because affirmative action covers a number of different areas which deem to be priorities in the hiring of this government. Certainly it includes not only affirmative action employees, but also women in the workforce, all hard-to-hire areas and people with disabilities, and they’re broken up into different categories and we are looking at it to see if there are ways to make it more effective in our hiring practices. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
