Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Similar to Mr. Krutko, I have a long-standing problem with the GNWT hiring process which has been exacerbated by the demolition of the Department of Personnel. We now have a lack of a central personnel agency. While this may have put more control into the hands of the managers in the departments, what this has done is given the perception to the general public that there is really no control over the hiring, I should not say no control, but that there are inconsistencies in the hiring processes and that perhaps people do not really have to be accountable because, with no central agency or no independent body within the hiring process, the only people in that process are the departmental people. What I have heard from a great many people is that they feel that without an independent person or body within the hiring process, that they have no faith in the process. That there is nobody there, if they appeal, to confirm whether what they are complaining about is accurate or inaccurate. This is a real concern of mine. Another concern is the inconsistencies in the departments in applying the Affirmative Action Policy. Apparently, some departments priorize applicants by their affirmative action status, then determine if the candidate meets the criteria. If there are enough affirmative action candidates, the other applicants are not considered. Other departments priorize applicants by how well they do on a selection criteria and secondly by whether or not they are affirmative action candidates. This screening process is more susceptible to having affirmative action candidates who meet criteria overlooked in favour of others with less priority but who do very well on the selection criteria.

Mr. Speaker, this has been researched by our research staff and they have been told that this is the way the departments do it. So, this is another concern, inconsistent application of the Affirmative Action Policy. There are also problems with different classifications within affirmative action. The way it is done right now, you could have a resident woman in the Northwest Territories for one year and they would have a higher priority status than a non-aboriginal man who was born in the Northwest Territories and lived here all his life. So, although I realize that women have traditionally been paid less for doing similar jobs and not really getting into senior management are that well, I do not believe that this is the way that we should go, that someone who has only been in the north for one year should have a higher priority status than another person who was born and raised in the Northwest Territories. These are some of the problems that I have with this hiring process.

Another area that Mr. Krutko had mentioned, which I had written the Premier about, is the way we are treating employees who are laid off from indeterminate positions for various reasons, whether it was for division, downsizing or whatever. When these people were laid off they were told that they would have first priority over the new jobs, in fact, they would have higher priority than affirmative action candidates whether or not they had affirmative action status. A little while ago we instituted another policy, a no layoff policy. To do this no layoff thing we have been holding internal competitions and the people who are supposed to be having priority status to get first crack at the jobs cannot even apply on those internal competitions. They cannot apply, yet when we laid them off we told they can have first crack at any job that comes up. Mr. Chairman, this is total inconsistency in our policies. Meanwhile, while we have this internal competition policy happening, the clock is ticking on the priority status employees. They only have this priority status for a certain length of time. The clock is ticking on them so they cannot apply on jobs and their priority status is slowly going away. What I would like to know is, will the Premier move, and move quickly, to resolve this so that people who are priority status can apply on these internal competitions?