…on the fact that as the Government of the Northwest Territories, when you look at our stats, at the community and regional levels, we have good numbers. Headquarters itself has suffered, for a number of reasons, and it’s been through many of levels of government, or years of different governments, as the Member pointed out.
In fact, we recognize that the Affirmative Action Policy itself, government-wide, needs to be addressed. It’s been in place for many years, and we need to get to the next level.
I
understand that the Minister responsible for
Human Resources will be — if he has not already — starting to have some dialogue about the next level of what we can do to improve where we’re going.
Specifically for this department, as it’s represented and as the motion is about, we have to talk about Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations. It’s a combination of responsibilities we serve. In fact, when we put this package together, two of our employees were out on education leave and are now back and in the department. So these numbers are off slightly, and we would adjust, of course. We’re seeing how that continues to work. So we’ve got a couple more employees who are back from education leave, which shows our commitment in having them further advance their careers and potentially move up the ladder as well. So we’ve got that in place.
I’m all for having aboriginal people in place to do the job. We have to ensure that they have the appropriate level of education and training, because as an aboriginal person, I’m not in favour of putting
people in place who are going to fail. I would say that we’ve got to improve in that area. I think, in this case, we’ve got a couple of employees who have returned from education leave who will support us, the way we go forward and the work we do.
As well, even in the negotiation pieces, one thing we find in this department — because, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, we’re not seen as the employer of choice in a number of areas — is that as people move up the system in our negotiation process in other areas, they receive other, more lucrative offers, whether it be from the federal government or their own aboriginal organizations. So we have to compete with that as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.