Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of human resources. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister acknowledge the hiring culture in the NWT? It is not accountable and transparent. Complete denial of this culture is not acceptable. Would the Minister agree?
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, no, I don't agree that the entire hiring system of the GNWT is not transparent. It is certainly a complex system at times. There are quite a number of pieces of legislation policy that need to be adhered to and followed. The Collective Agreement has to be adhered to and followed. And in doing so, that, again, that does require a fairly rigorous process and a fairly sometimes one might think of it being a complex process. If it's not always very well understood, just as the Affirmative Action Policy is not always very well understood. And all of those things together do lead to a number of questions that come forward. But that's not a lack of transparency. That is a complex system that perhaps we need to do a better job of explaining. It's also an opportunity, as I've certainly said before, to look again at the Affirmative Action Policy that we had in place and ensure that people understand it and determine whether or not it's meeting the needs that we all have and if it's not, to look back and see if there's a better way of doing things. That's a lengthy investigation and a lengthy piece of work. But, again, it doesn't speak to the fact that the process right now is not transparent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, does the Minister believe in the truth and reconciliation in changing this culture of 'who you know and not what you know'? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, those are two separate questions. Mr. Speaker, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is one of the core and founding things that every government in this country right now needs to be paying attention to and acting upon. And I firmly and personally believe very much in what is spoken of the calls to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Speaking separately about the work of the Department of human resources and the hiring practices of human resources, again, there's quite a lot that's going on to improve what we have in human resources here in the Northwest Territories. There's labour force in there's a labour force survey being done right now to understand what population it is that we want to be better serving. At last information from census, the 2016 census, the labour force was comprised of 41.6 percent individuals who are Indigenous, and, of course, our hiring is usually down in the 30 percent. So we do have some work to do. We acknowledge that. And that's one of the reasons we're rolling out the Indigenous Recruitment Retention Framework, to put targets on every department so they can really do a better job of achieving that level of being truly representative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, does the Minister understand that the culture of hiring in the Northwest Territories is troubled, has double standards, and unfair to the people of the NWT?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, speaking about a culture of hiring, Mr. Speaker, I don't accept that that characterization is fair, that the idea of saying that it is troubled and has double standards or is unfair. I don't accept that characterization, Mr. Speaker. There's a lot of people within the entire GNWT, 5,000 strong, who care deeply about the territory, who care deeply about the people that they serve, and care deeply about having a representative workforce. That is not to say that every process is perfect. That is not to say that every public servant is perfect any more than every other individual anywhere in any large organization is perfect. But there is tremendous work underway to try to always do better, to be aware and to be conscious of what we do. There's now mandatory cultural sensitivity training for all staff. There is a new recruitment retention framework coming out to provide those targets that I think we've agreed would better position hiring the the hiring committees to know to look forward to what they can bring on.
I would note that in the last fiscal year of 201920, I believe, the number of Indigenous recruitments who were were actually hired than the number of those who applied. So there's a real effort underway to change the way in which we do things in terms of hiring Indigenous candidates.
And as far as, I mean, broadly speaking and everyone who's applying to the GNWT, again, there is an appeal process. There's opportunities to speak to a hiring committee. There's opportunities to get advice from human resources of resumé writing, interviews. To truly understand the process, it is complex, and it's complex because we have legal obligations and policy obligations.
So all of those things exist. We are doing our best to make sure that they're available, and we'll continue to do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Final supplementary. Member for Thebacha.
Mr. Speaker, hopefully in my past two statements gives insight to the hiring processes. Would the Minister consider a complete renewal strategy within the Government of the Northwest Territories for the human resource department? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the division of Human Resources within the Department of Finance is really, they service the clients of all they're the departments of their clients. So this is again not something that we can look at one or two or a handful of individuals who are being who are within the department or within the Department of Finance. It is about the entire Government of the Northwest Territories, every department, every community, and every hiring manager out there that they are taking the mandatory training, both in terms of cultural sensitivity, that they are taking the mandatory training about how to do government hiring, and that they are relying on the tools available to them through the department of human I'm sorry through the Department of Finance and the human resource professionals that we have. The Department of Finance is going through the government renewal first to ensure that the spending of money that we have there aligns with the priorities and values of the Government of the Northwest Territories and completing right now a framework that will again ensure that when we do that hiring, that every department is really providing a framework so that human resources can look at each department. And you know, again, Mr. Speaker, the point and the purpose of all that is to continually renew the work that we do, to continually renew the public service, and to ensure that it is responsive and representative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
