Thank you for your comments. Are there any further questions, comments under human resources? Seeing none, Members, please turn to page 158.

Finance, human resources, operations expenditure summary, 2023-2024 Main Estimates, $22,689,000. Does committee agree?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure nobody likes tokenism but maybe lip service is another phrase that we can throw out when it comes to this conversation. I mean, I get that there appears to be an intent and a want and -- to hire and increase representation, but I just don't see it translating to people on the ground. And I recognize that there has been some key hires in senior management even that I think are really good and are, you know, leading the way and a good example. But when you look at just, you know, movement within departments, I can think of within the housing department, a long-term Indigenous employee that was, you know, recently passed over for a settler, for lack of a better word; somebody who had moved up from the south. I hear this constantly. We all -- I think everybody on this side probably knows at least one or two people that we could think of right off the top that, you know, should have been advancing within their departments and they're not. So I guess just more of a comment.

I recognize it's a very difficult thing, especially right now where we are wanting to -- we're so desperate for employees in general that, you know, we can't always be looking at imposing all of these sets of criteria however it does need to be addressed. And I guess obviously through training and ensuring we have a good supply. I'll just leave it at that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the Department of Finance doesn't believe in tokenism. There is, of course, a number of efforts, as I know the House is familiar with respect to Indigenous recruitment and retention generally. So, again, Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework, which was introduced now a couple of years ago but which is starting to roll out and I believe will be bearing fruit. So one of the things is that individual departments now have specific targets. I think that's a big deal, and it's worth focusing on a little because if you don't even have a target you could just say you're working on something without actually having something to work towards or to be measured against. So with those targets now in place -- and they're individualized because different departments have different types of work available to them and therefore can focus on different types of recruitment strategies or different kind of training to ensure that people are moving up through the ranks depending upon the nature of the jobs.

Now, so that should apply regardless of someone's gender. I would agree that we do right now in some -- in some positions it's actually men who need to be supported perhaps more to achieve parity than women. Madam Chair, I'm going to give a bit of a plug to the review we're doing right now, the affirmative action policy, which really doesn't have necessarily that kind of look at what's happening in the labour market. It is simply a policy that applies based on one's identity feature rather than an equity policy that looks at the gap between what's happening in the labour market and who we actually have working for us. So that's just one more reason that we're looking to look at how we're actually hiring and who we're promoting. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to echo a little bit of the concerns from my colleagues around the decentralization of the human resources function.

As I've moved through some of my own health stuff at the hospital and talking with technicians and things there, there is a perceived notion, and I don't know how accurate it is, that the holdup on some of the recruitment is the department of HR and not the department of health and that, you know, as it was put to me, the job description, etcetera, had already been put in long ago to the Department of Finance, and nothing had moved. And so I just wanted to echo that that is a concern that I hear. I do recognize that, you know, everybody is struggling for employees at this time, but it sounds like we are a bit bogged down at times in our process. So I don't know that I really have a question in that but just more that, I do hear the same things as my colleagues, and particularly in the more specialized hiring areas, that perhaps some of that control needs to go back to the departments.

But my question is a bit around Indigenous representation, particularly Indigenous men. I think it's still stagnant at the 8 percent representation. And as a government we do very well with hiring of women, generally. So I think that there is a real lack here, or something is obviously very flawed if Indigenous men are only 8 percent. So I also hear stories of tokenism and such, or where people are hired but only then to be sort of that face but not really advancing or having the opportunities for training. So I guess I just want to hear the Minister speak a little bit more about how things are changing to increase the representation of Indigenous people within the GNWT and particularly Indigenous men? Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any further questions under human resources? Member for Great Slave.

No, okay, that's -- I just wanted to raise that and it sound like there's a collaborative thing going so that's all good by me. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there is a health working group jointly populated by the UNW and human resources, or Department of Finance. And there are regular meetings -- a variety of regular meetings between the Department of Finance and UNW and I am told that it's at an officials' level but that that is a standing item specific to the idea of recruitment services, health recruitment. It's a standing item at those meetings. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Yeah, okay, well I tried. So I'm just wondering whether the folks on the HR side ever talk to UNW, not about wages, anything like that, but about recruitment and retention. What work, if any, could be done or should be done with UNW to try to make sure that we can keep those positions staffed? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the Yellowknife-based staff, I understand, are based in Yellowknife -- or in the YK Centre. Madam Chair, it's part of recruitment services. So, I mean, they can be embedded with other professionals who do recruitment as a day to day, or, I mean, embedded with health care professionals. To be honest, Madam Chair, I would expect that professionals in this sphere, and given the nature of their work, are expected to engage directly and regularly with their counterparts, whether it's the professionals on the recruitment side or whether it's those who are within health and social services, so yes. Thanks, Madam Chair.