To page 3-12, active positions, directorate, information item. Questions? Agreed?

Moving on to page 3-14, 3-15, human resource strategy and policy, operations expenditure summary, activity summary, $5.470 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you. Mr. Menicoche had his hand up first but I guess he’s not looking up, so there you go.

I did want to ask a question. I’m not sure if it belongs in this section of the department or not. It’s my understanding that the department has established a working group for persons with disabilities. I wonder if I can get a bit of an update on where that working group is at, what they are doing and when we might see some specific actions in regard to their terms of reference. Thank you.

Minister of Human Resources, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have a departmental working group and we have met with the working group that is also established in Health and Social Services. We have met with the Yellowknife Association of Community Living and we’ve started to develop a plan to increase...First of all, we wanted to have a number of presentations to improve on the sensitivity of senior management within the government, so we’ll have sensitivity training for GNWT managers and employees. We are starting that with a pilot project within the Department of Human Resources. We will develop an awareness program for Government of the Northwest Territories managers and employees. We are allocating $50,000 in funding to start this work. Most importantly, we are working in partnership with the NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities and other stakeholder groups. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the explanation. I guess I would like to know when we might expect to see the actions of this working group translate into an increase in the number of persons with disabilities in our workforce. Thank you.

As far as we can determine, there are about 20 employees or .44 percent of the GNWT workforce who have self-identified as disabled. When you look at the Stats Canada figures, approximately 8.2 percent of the NWT labour force is considered disabled. In my view, I think we should be able to start seeing some results towards the end of the next fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the answer. The numbers that you expressed, they are what they are. Our record on employing persons with disabilities is pretty abysmal. I guess I’m just

surprised that it would take a year before we would see anything concrete in terms of an increase in persons with disabilities being employed in our workforce. I would like to ask the Minister if there isn’t anything in the short term, which to me would be a matter of months as opposed to a matter of years, that the department can do to try and increase the number of persons with disabilities who we are hiring. Thank you.

We will be starting these actions as soon as the budget is approved. Part of that would be to develop a recruitment strategy which would be designed to attract persons with disabilities into the GNWT workforce. In my estimation we would need some time to develop partnerships so that we would have the appropriate supports in place for when we have employees with disabilities that come on stream. Certainly, if we can do it faster to see results, we definitely will do that. I guess I was leaning towards being conservative.

One more point that I forgot to mention is we held a focus group with our disabled employees to see which areas we could improve upon to hire more people with disabilities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just one last comment. I appreciate the Minister’s being conservative and I would certainly hope that his estimation is really conservative. I look forward to seeing measures in next year’s business plan which will indicate that we have had an increase in these types of employees in our workforce. Thank you. No question there.

That would be our intention as well. Thank you.

We’re on page 3-15, human resource strategy and policy, operations expenditure summary, $5.470 million.

Moving on to page 3-16, information item, human resource strategy and policy, active positions.

Moving on to page 3-18, 3-19. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thought my question was more appropriate here. I had several situations and maybe the Minister can address it for me. When it comes in terms of trying to get our representative public service, I know that in my riding I had about four or five individuals apply on public service jobs with our government but they were screened out. So they’ve come to me and said, look, we got screened out. When that

happens, there’s no mechanism for an appeal to take a second look at their application. Maybe somebody made a mistake here. That makes the people that are applying...It happened to them more than once; there were a couple times. They tell me, Mr. Chair, they actually tell me, look, government wants to extend every effort to hire aboriginals yet I’m not even getting to the interview stage. I don’t know if in the Minister’s strategy if his new strategic plan is to somehow address this. I’d certainly like to see how we can address this. If our people aren’t getting to the interview stage, no wonder our numbers are low. Maybe the Minister can address that. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Just for the record, we’re on page 3-19, management and recruitment services, operations expenditure summary. Minister of Human Resources.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The hiring of aboriginal people is one of our top priorities and is provided for through the affirmative action policies of this government. If people feel they are being screened out unfairly, then, of course, they have recourse through staffing appeals. There are independent staffing appeal officers that will hear the appeal and if there was something that wasn’t done properly, they would rule on it. Our preference is to have individuals meet with our human resources staff who can work with them, counsel them, and also work with management in the government to try to find positions and jobs for aboriginal people in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just a little bit of clarification on recruitment services. When somebody doesn’t get to the interview stage, Mr. Chair, they don’t get a chance to appeal that job or that position at all. They don’t even make it to the interview stage or they get screened out. When people get screened out they don’t have a process to appeal or a process to complain and that’s...I think we should have that for an indentified P1 applicant, that if they’re going to get screened out before they even get an interview that there’s got to be a good reason for it. Maybe something like a school teacher applying for a doctor’s position, that’s a legitimate screening. But if someone’s got strong administrative skills and they’re being screened out for an administrative job, there’s something wrong here, Mr. Chair, and we should address it and make it part of our strategic plan. There’s no reason for somebody that’s administrative applying for an administrative job to get screened out. That’s something that I’d like to raise at this point. There must be a way to address it. I would ask the Minister to look at some kind of mechanism to prevent this in the future. Thanks.

I guess I see that the existing processes should have sufficient safeguards to make sure that didn’t happen, because our human resource officers participate in the recruitment and also the review of the applications. If anybody has the qualifications and is screened out, then definitely that would not be in concurrence with our Affirmative Action Policy and it should be brought to our attention.

Secondly, if they are screened out and they feel that they have the qualifications that meet the job requirements, then they do have the right to appeal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If that’s policy or guideline, maybe if I can get a copy of that so that the next time somebody contacts me, I can provide them with at least an alternative or a way for them to address their concern that they got screened out improperly. The key message for me on this line item is that it’s happened more than once. It happened in the past couple of years at least four or five times that people got screened out. I’d just like to raise it. It sounds like there’s a mechanism there, Mr. Chair, and I’d sure like to have a copy of that for my future reference so that I can address it with the constituents and/or people applying and identifying themselves as P1. I’m happy with that answer and I’ll await the hard copy of that policy or guideline. Thanks.