Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Braden. I'm sorry, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess the first comment I wanted to respond to is we're not making the assumption that this is a fait accompli these jobs start April 1st; that's when the funding would be approved for these positions. Obviously, we have to advertise and go through the competition process prior to April 1st in order to staff positions on April 1st.

The other point that I would make is that, even in these internal competitions in government, the affirmative action policy of the government still applies. So candidates who are a higher priority under affirmative action would have an advantage in this hiring process. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Taking that one step forward, Mr. Chairman, would the Minister not agree that if you are choosing a successful candidate from a pool that already begins with under-representation, even if everybody there applied, you are still operating with a disadvantaged pool from which to consider affirmative action candidates, whether they are aboriginal employees or women in senior management or long-term PY or P2 candidates. The logic would dictate that that's what's going to happen and that will be one of the downsides of opening these positions internally only. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Obviously, many departments of the government are challenged and do need to get their representation of minorities increased and make sure that those who are under-represented are more adequately represented. RWED is one of the departments where the regional staff is very well-equipped and very representative. This is something that we've been working very hard toward.

So, on that premise, I think we have a lot of qualified candidates in the regions who are, in fact, aboriginal and would be probably best qualified for some of these positions. I would say that the larger issue is twofold: We have to take very seriously our hiring practices and look to address any issues which are systemically discriminating against adequate representation; at the same time, we must also be working with people internally in our workforce to ensure they have the training to be promoted.

I think we've found that our affirmative action numbers are certainly better in the lower levels than they are in senior management. I think we need to certainly work with people who are potential candidates for senior management to get them the training and skill development to move up the ladder, and that is one of the approaches that we've taken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to state for the record that I do not agree with the policy of looking at senior management and hiring internally, but I think that's already been registered and I guess the process is already on the way and it's going to be concluded that way. So I'll have to leave it at that.

Having said that, I used to sit on the Governance and Economic Development committee and I do recall that the statistical information that we got in terms of representation in senior management of affirmative action employees showed they were under-represented. But I'm willing to accept that these stats might have changed over the last two or three years. Could I get the Minister to make a commitment to provide me with the information on what the ratio of affirmative action candidates or employees is, in terms of their representation of the total employee pool? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm certainly prepared to provide the Member with a comprehensive report on our overall employment numbers, broken out by region. It will delineate between headquarters and the regions as well. But I can tell the Member that in the new ENR, we are currently, I believe, sitting at 68 percent affirmative action employees. So we feel that that is a very good number. I think it's 161 of 236 employees in ENR are affirmative action employees, but I'll provide a more comprehensive report for the Member. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, at least two other Members have brought to the floor this aspect of hiring and the practice where the new departments here are seeking to staff new superintendents initially, and this is my understanding, by only casting the net among our indeterminate employees. The situation has been reflected by my colleagues, but I do want to add my voice to this, Mr. Chairman, just to make sure that this department and others know that, like Ms. Lee, I agree that we are inappropriately restricting at least our initial search to only indeterminate employees.

One thing that we maybe aren't appreciating well enough here is that the competitive environment for good, qualified people is extremely vigorous in the Northwest Territories. An employee who may be interested in looking elsewhere is going to have lots of temptation out there every day for other places to go to work; other levels of government. Certainly, industry is offering some pretty tempting employment packages.

We know we need to build our own workforce, especially here in this case when we're rebuilding these departments, and yet we are using an older approach to hiring to get people into these positions. I think we're leaving ourselves exposed to other employers. There are employees within our grasp, those term and casual employees who cannot apply for these positions just may get picked off and attracted elsewhere.

So, Mr. Chairman, we're not being as aggressive, as inclusive and as open as we should be to building our workforce. Certainly, where there may be those casual or term employees who are in a department because they want to be there and who are hoping for indeterminate jobs. We're cutting them out of the loop, if you will.

So I don't know if I've brought anything new to the floor, Mr. Chairman, but I at least wanted to add my voice to this policy which, I think, is not at all appropriate for our times or our situation, and we should open up hiring practices to

every possible candidate that we can. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Bell, would you like to comment?

Thank you. Again, I appreciate the Member's point. He is echoing the concern of several other Members here in the House. I certainly hear them. I guess, to put it in context, I want to make sure that people understand that we're talking about six of the 23 total positions are gone to internal competition first. If there aren't suitable internal candidates, we will cast the net much more broadly and go north and south.

I guess we felt that it was most likely that these senior management positions were people who would be found internally. That's been our experience. Now, it does happen that we find people from other jurisdictions or from the private sector but, for the most part, we feel that when filling senior management positions, we tend to do that. So the successful candidates tend to be from within. Again, I take the Member's point and we'd just like to reinforce that we are talking about six of the 23 competitions being internal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Braden.

That's all from me on this on general comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Next, for general comments, I have Ms. Lee.

Thank you. I don't have a general comment, but I just have a follow-up question to what I had asked the Minister earlier, in terms of the statistics for affirmative action employee ratios in the department. I do accept and understand that ENR, as a wing of RWED, would have a higher-than-average representation by aboriginal employees in that section as a whole. The question that I was getting at was on the senior management of the department, which I think would show different stats. I would like to know aboriginal representation in senior management of ENR currently, as well as the ratio of women in senior management of ENR. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm certainly not in any position to dispute the Member's assertion that maybe our numbers wouldn't be as good in those categories. She may, in fact, be entirely correct, but what I've committed to do is come back with a comprehensive report to the Member; in fact, I will provide it to all Members. That will be broken down by category. I do have, as I've indicated, our numbers overall at 68 percent affirmative action.

I can't provide immediately the breakdown, but I will commit to provide it for her. I think it does warrant a discussion if our numbers aren't as good in senior management for affirmative action candidates, and we'd be prepared to discuss that and talk about an approach that might deal with some of these issues going forward. So we can certainly have that discussion with the committee, if that is what the numbers bear out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one more clarification on top of that. Could I have the stats that I had asked for, for the last three fiscal years, so that we are very clear about what time frame we are trying to get information from? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will provide the information for the Department of RWED for three years going back and also the split between ENR and ITI, so the Member can have a better understanding of how this will play out in the two new departments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.