Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier this afternoon we received -- Standing Committee on Government Operations received a briefing on the Indigenous employment policy. Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns I've heard, one of the main concerns, is from families with children schooled in the NWT returning to university who are concern their opportunities for employment will now be limited. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister discuss how students who previously benefitted from P2 status will still have opportunities for employment with the GNWT. Mr. Speaker, will we still be prioritizing our northern students in our hiring? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so the Indigenous employment policy does apply to the internship and the summer student program so all students who are Indigenous -- Indigenous Canadians that are students would certainly have access to that. And to be a member -- or to have access to the student programs, that does continue to have the ordinarily resident eligibility to it. So for young people or anyone who's applying for an internship or a summer student position, they would have to have a connection to the Northwest Territories as an ordinary resident just as they would also if they were utilizing our student financial aid programs.
And, Mr. Speaker, one other part of the student programs, we do create a bank of students so when people put their names in, they are then matched with available opportunities. So we encourage students to reach out to members of the public service to help identify potential opportunities, to identify potential placements, identify the kinds of work they might be able to do, and, quite frankly, Mr. Speaker folks who have grown up here, who have family here, who have connections here, are obviously much better placed to do that and to make those matches and those connections much more quickly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that answer. Mr. Speaker, during the presentation, the department hired -- highlighted a number of areas which still need more work, for persons with disabilities, women, long-time Northerners who are now left out of the new policy. Can the Minister discuss how the department plans to address diversity and inclusion and prioritizing northern hires under this new policy that they've just approved. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the affirmative action policy also had groups and people who were not recognized who may have been left out from some sort of priority status, and it really was one policy that was being used to solve a multitude of different problems rather than what we've now tried to get to which is a place of having multiple different policies that are, you know, all being used as a suite within the department of human resources -- or Department of Finance and human resources. So the Indigenous employment policy looks at priority hiring for Indigenous Northerners and Indigenous Canadians. The diversity and inclusion framework is the way in which the department is approaching the importance of ensuring diversity, of accommodating diversity, of recognizing diversity, supporting people to be in a workplace that recognizes diversity. And as well, Mr. Speaker, we now have greater deal -- greater planning on succession planning through a strategic approach to human resources. And last but not least, Mr. Speaker, we continue to -- I mentioned earlier the summer student program and continuing to improve our recruitment and retention efforts. So, really, all of these are different ways that we're looking to improve that process. We want to get to a place, Mr. Speaker -- and I would note for folks, for whom this might matter, where right from the minute that someone applies, diversity and inclusion and the duty to accommodate applies right from that moment so that if somebody does have an identifying feature or aspect that they need to see accommodated, that that would be part of that process right from day one and they wouldn't even have to ask, ultimately that that's just part of the culture that we want to have developed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And continuing on this thread, one resident that wrote to committee raised the fact of while the department has frequently highlighted that the government is not representative of the full population of the NWT, the issue at hand is that of the available workforce. So, Mr. Speaker, why is the department not using the demographics of the available workforce as a way to measure representation as it moves forward with this policy? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that's an excellent observation by a member of the public. And it's a direction that we may well see ourselves moving towards in terms of being able to communicate better of what our successes and our challenges are in the space of being representative. We know that the Northwest Territories has a 50 percent Indigenous population, but it's quite right that the actual labour force is not necessarily a 50/50 split. And that may be owing to the age demographics, if people are too young or too old to be in the workforce for example. What we do find is that in the Northwest Territories our labour force is actually sitting at approximately 63 percent non-Indigenous. And then further challenges that we run into, Mr. Speaker, is that, in fact, of the group of people in the Northwest Territories in the labour force who are Indigenous, not as many had access or had the opportunity to obtain post-secondary education.
So, Mr. Speaker, understanding this, and then seeing what that barrier is to support residents so that they cannot only go get a position but that they can be applying and moving up in succession planning and moving into positions of management, it allows us to better identify the challenge at hand and identify the barriers at hand. And then as we report in on the individual targets of the different types of positions with different levels of requirement, we can make sure that we're supporting residents if they need training internally, if they need training to apply, if they need post-secondary access, or if we need to re-examine what our equivalencies are or what our actual job needs are. And all of that together, Mr. Speaker, I think will help us ultimately to be a more representative workforce. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
