Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t plan to have my Member’s statement coincide with the Minister of Human Resources’ statement today, but the Minister’s statement did cover quite a few of the areas that we’ve been discussing and have concerns about.
When we talk about a representative GNWT workforce, I’d like to ask the Minister what this government’s definition of that would be. Are we only talking about numbers?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can only say that great minds think alike. At this point the goal of the Government of the Northwest Territories is to have a representative workforce, which in this case we’re talking about Affirmative Action in which Aboriginal people represent about 50 percent of the Northwest Territories population. We’re also taking the same approach for persons with disabilities.
I have to ask the Minister how do we then bring more definition to that 50 percent. Is it 50 percent at any level of service in the public service? Is it a 50/50 split in management and directors and all these things? Don’t we need to do more as a government to create truly representative government by ensuring we have equal representation at all levels of government in all levels and positions? What are we doing to achieve that?
At this point, recognizing that as a government we’ve been flat-lined for at least 10 years where 31 percent of our 5,000-plus workforce is Aboriginal, we’re trying to get that moving upward. At some point when we come fairly close to 50 percent I think we could expand it into other areas. For example, we know that of our senior management component, 16 percent is Aboriginal. We have an even steeper hill to climb there. We can character the extreme. We have 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. Every community has varying percentages of Aboriginal people. It’s not our objective to have a representative workforce at the community level; we’re going to have it at the territorial level.
I’m glad the Minister clarified that, because that is a very important point. How do we then, as a government, reconcile the fact that most government jobs are centralized in the capital and the regional centres where the majority of the people are not Aboriginal? The majority of the Aboriginal people, on a percentage basis, are outside; perhaps don’t want to move to a regional centre or to Yellowknife. I mean, are our goals realistic, given those factors?
I believe that our goals are realistic. I think that with our education system and the fact that we’re having more Aboriginal people attending post-secondary education institutions, we’re seeing graduation rates increasing. We look at our summer student rates, for example, where we’re finally getting where 50 percent of our summer students are Aboriginal. We’re working on that area. I think it’s going to take some time. Some of the initiatives that were undertaken with our Aboriginal Affirmative Action Advisory Committee I think are putting us in the right direction. With the next government I think we’ll be looking at more accountability with the senior management of the various departments so that we’ll continue to work to increase our representation in the public service.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is such a complex issue. We as a government say that we want sustainable, prosperous communities, yet we don’t talk about decentralization. We don’t talk about taking those public service jobs and moving them out of the capital. We don’t look at departments and activities that can take place in the smaller communities. We don’t look at that. That would change the numbers of our representative workforce quite dramatically if people didn’t have to move to Fort Smith or Yellowknife to get a government job. I’d like to ask the Minister if he sees us looking at that issue of decentralization as one of the means of achieving that more representative workforce, by taking the jobs to the communities as opposed to expecting the people to come to the larger centres.
Going back over a number of governments, there have been a number of attempts at decentralization and there have been successful initiatives to decentralize. I can think of the health care cards to Inuvik; I can think of the forestry division to Hay River, amongst others. I think that the last time a government took a serious look at decentralization it only got to a certain point, because you wind up with winners and losers. You have communities that lose jobs and other communities benefitting.
I think the best chance there is for decentralization is with devolution. We have to make sure that the jobs go where it is most feasible to operate. To decentralize comes with costs. We have to make sure that we have the people where they can do the most effective and efficient job.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
