Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Just to go back to what I said in my Member's statement earlier, it is always good to have more inclusion. I tried tying my Member's statement into how we should go forward with the GNWT and stuff. When I looked at the Affirmative Action Policy, there was a line here I thought that I should quote. I thought it was important. It says here, "No individual seeking employment, training, or career advancement opportunities in the public service should be disadvantaged or discouraged by attitudinal or systemic barriers." I thought that was an important statement because it had to be said, and it still has to be said now; we're still talking about it now.
Going forward, we are still seeing this problem of disproportionately Indigenous people in jails, Aboriginal people in jails, low graduation rates, and stuff. I still get calls about hires. We're still getting all those people from down south who are getting our jobs, taking our jobs away. That's what I am hearing, but it would be nice to get some questions here. My first question to the Minister of Finance is: what is the current status of our Affirmative Action Policy, and when was the last time that this policy was reviewed? Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Affirmative Action Policy, in some form or other, has certainly been around for quite a long time, and it does indeed aim for exactly as the Member noted, which is to ensure that we have a representative workforce. It does provide an opportunity to give preferential access to certain target groups. As far as the reviews, Mr. Speaker, there have been some efforts towards a review as early as 1997. Standing committee was involved in the production of a review in 2000 and again in 2005, and there has certainly been work since then looking at the policy over the last 10 years. It has never actually made it to the point of a full and final review. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for that response. Like I said before in this House, as well, for any working population, it should always be representative of the population served, and we are still not seeing that. With what the Minister just said, are there going to be any policy reviews within the life of this Assembly?
The opportunity for review and the opportunity for change certainly comes with risks. I can certainly say that it is my intention to look at that policy and move it forward to determine if a review is really in the best interests and achieves the goals that we have for it. Where I am going with that is that it's figuring out what we want to get out of the Affirmative Action Policy that we are not getting. What is it that we are not getting that we would like to see changed?
I suppose, in a sense, that would be a review, Mr. Speaker, but as far as that will look like, where it will go, and what the end result will be, certainly, I can't say. I acknowledge that I have had many questions about the Affirmative Action Policy already. It doesn't seem to be achieving the things that people want it to achieve, the things that people think it should achieve, whether or not it is achieving its actual content or not. It is time to look at whether or not there are better ways of achieving those goals.
Again, thank you for that response. I think, going forward, it's always good to know where we sit and get a baseline of how all the policies are going from its inception until present. My next question is: can the Minister provide me with some statistics on how much success or perceived success this policy has had since its inception?
As soon as I am hearing that there is a request for statistics, I do have human resources numbers in front of me over the last year. I don't have all of the numbers since the inception of the policy, and I am not sure that I will be able to go all the way back into the 1990s, but I certainly will have statistics available over time. As I understand it, Mr. Speaker, right now, we actually do fairly well at the GNWT in terms of hiring individuals able and available and interested in the positions. That doesn't mean that, every time, the process goes smoothly or that, every time, someone is satisfied with the process, but that's exactly the challenge that I think we have is that, right now, we're not achieving the goals that people perceive us to have or the goals that people would like us to have. I will certainly commit that I will get some numbers going back a reasonable period of time so that we can identify and see those trends. Hopefully, that will help go forward as to where we should take this.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
