Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. In my Member’s statement I talked about a community that has to deal with grief and loss.
I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment how many of our GNWT employees in our regions know about the protocol when there’s an elder, a respective loved one or someone in our communities has passed away.
Do our employees know what is to be expected when something terrible like this has happened in our communities?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There is a protocol in place, a process that we obviously respect at the community level. We involve the elders whenever there’s a grieving process. We work very closely, whether it be the school board, the agencies that deliver educational programs to our schools or to our community. There is an orientation for all staff to go through and how we can access the elders, the contacts in the community who are the experts in the community. So, that is information that is easily accessible for these personnel, the professionals that we employ to work with the community members, to work with the leadership and also the elders. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Then I would ask the Minister if he would do a survey, conduct a test to see how well our employees respect our culture such as this type of situation, because I beg to differ from the Minister’s experience or opinion as to how our employees are respecting our culture when something like this has happened in our communities.
I want to ask the Minister if he’s willing to look at that in his department with all government employees, because I do not see that picture as the Minister has painted in the Northwest Territories.
I can only speak to Education, Culture and Employment programs that we deliver. What the Member is referring to is GNWT professionals in the communities, and that could touch on various departments, more specifically with the Human Resources department.
Within my department, as I stated, there is ongoing dialogue with the school boards to deliver these orientations. So the teachers, the professionals, the support staff are fully engaged, fully aware of programs that are available to them such as the elders contact. This will be brought back to the school boards and also the support staff and the resource people at the community level that we have to seek if they are fully aware of the programs that exist. Those are areas where we heavily depend on community experts. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the Minister’s willingness to look at school boards and school jurisdictions, but he’s the Minister of Culture and I’m talking about culture in a general sense. Of all the Ministers here and the departments they hold, all government employees need to know. I’m looking at the focal point of the Minister of Culture to look at all this within our region, within our communities and within our culture. All employees should know about the protocol. When something like this, a respected elder has passed or something has happened in our community, all employees should know. This is not about programs and services. This is about building our relationships with the people we work with so they understand our culture and what needs to be looked upon, respected and honoured.
Again, I beg to differ from this government. When something like this happens in our community, there are some people who respect this and there are some people who are very ignorant of this.
I want to ask the Minister, how is this government, through the department of culture, going to respect our cultural ways in our communities?
Part of the cultural development and also supporting those areas obviously falls within the community and working with the community, especially the elders and how they can provide wisdom and knowledge. When it comes to a grieving process, obviously we are going through that process as well. We’ve gone through so many of them already in the communities. We have our staff working with the community leaders and community elders, counsellors.
Obviously, there is a respect for culture. At the end of the day, if there is a lack of awareness of the cultural perspective, a lack of respect, then we need to resolve that issue.
I’m glad the Member is raising the profile and I will be bringing that back to my department and working with the organizations that we work with. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly would endorse the Minister’s commitment to bring this back to the region.
Would the Minister consider a strong cultural elders advisory group in the region to help our employees, help our people understand the reasons why we have these certain protocols and reasons why we do different ceremonies such as the grieving ceremony? It’s a very powerful one. If we don’t understand it, we become ignorant about it.
Would the Minister consider, through the department of culture, formulating an elders council in our region, like the Sahtu, to guide us in our daily work and situations we are facing from time to time?
This is an area I need to discuss with my counterpart, Human Resources. We are dealing with personnel at the community level. It’s not just the cultural values, cultural programs as the Member indicated, but we also deal with the personnel. Those are discussions we should be having with the two departments.
I will commit to the Member that I will be speaking to the HR department to see what could be done to improve our relationship we have with the current leadership and also the elders in the communities to make them more accessible and aware as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
