Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to try to raise a little more awareness in this House about this government's human resource activity and the direction it's heading.
Mr. Speaker, the 4,000 plus public servants that the GNWT employs are good people who are committed to serving the public and we must be grateful for all the good work they perform every day. Yet, because less than one out of every three of our government employees is aboriginal, we are not coming close to achieving the goal of this government's affirmative action policy which clearly states that this policy reflects the GNWT's commitment to a competent public service that is representative of the population it serves.
In one report in a local newspaper, Mr. Speaker, it was stated that for adult aboriginal persons in the NWT, the total employment rate is only 53 percent; whereas, for all others, the rate of employment is 83 percent. This is a concern for me, Mr. Speaker.
The population of the NWT is 50 percent aboriginal, yet, according to the most current report of our affirmative action policy, only 31 percent of our territorial government employees are aboriginal and only 13 percent of all GNWT employees in Yellowknife are aboriginal. So basically one in three of our employees is aboriginal where one in two of our people in the NWT are aboriginal.
To retain the current levels, if we are content with the situation, for every three new hires, one would have to be aboriginal just to keep in pace, Mr. Speaker. However, according to an affirmative action report, only one out of every four persons hired or transferred are affirmative action candidates. Mr. Speaker, we already have less than the representative number of aboriginals on our GNWT workforce and having as a percentage many more non-aboriginals being hired each year, within 16 years the GNWT would have a totally non-aboriginal workforce.
Now we can and should take this perspective with a grain of salt because, as Mr. Twain said, "There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics."
---Laughter
Regardless of how we view this, surely we can all agree that this situation cannot continue.
Mr. Speaker, prior to 1995, this government had a Department of Personnel. That department was responsible for the affirmative action policy. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.