Page 4-24, activity summary, intergovernmental relations, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $654,000.

Thank you. Page 4-25, information item, intergovernmental relations, active positions. Questions? Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I could have asked this question previously under the active position summary for the entire department, but I’ll ask it under intergovernmental relations. In the past, the committee has brought up the fact that the department has been low in its number of aboriginal employees and senior management. I am just wondering if the Minister could update us on the strides the department has made, if any, in the area of aboriginal people in senior management within the department. Specifically, because we are on this page, Mr. Chairman, intergovernmental relations, most of the work this government does, although some of it is with the federal government and other provinces and territories, I would say predominantly that’s dealing with aboriginal governments. Of the six employees shown on this page, how many are aboriginal? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue of the department’s human resource plan and affirmative action, more specifically, has been one that we’ve dealt with for some time, some initially would say, and challenged us to step up to the plate here and make some changes in the area of delivery. I must say that, or sometimes I would say, the concern about our aboriginal affairs status or percentage of employees is one that we’ve taken to heart. Although, I must say that our success has also been our challenge in the sense we’ve had some of our managers go through here and then get picked up by other departments and move on. One of the things we’ve been working on, along with the Department of Human Resources, is to come up with our human resource plan in the area of looking at our aboriginal content within the department. An example of what we’ve done in this last year is the associate director position where we’ve gone through and we put out for a position that aboriginal people could apply for. They had to be an affirmative action candidate and come into the department at an associate director position and get additional work in that area. We had very good success in that area. Of course, there are many more candidates that we would like to see pursue along these plans and, in fact, I think this example should be undertaken overall by the government through our Department of Human Resources and look at this area so we can have similar positions with our departments to move forward.

Specifically under this section of intergovernmental affairs, there are only six people in this section. One is an aboriginal P1 candidate; two are non-

aboriginal but long-time Northerners. So 50 percent of this section make up those stats. Thank you.

I guess, if the committee will allow me to ask this question on this page, maybe if the Minister could just speak to the… I didn’t hear him say it, but overall, the department, the senior management or the department, has there been any improvement there with the number of aboriginal employees in senior management inside of the department? Thank you.

I would say there has been an improvement in the way we’re doing our business when it comes to our human resource plan. Number one, we’ve put a plan together. We’ve worked on the associate director position. We’ve also done a number of internal transfer assignments so we could have managers in training, and how we structured our negotiations teams, as well, has been positive. But for more detail, I’ll go to Mr. Robertson.

Thank you, Premier. Mr. Robertson.

Thank you, Mr. Robertson. Thank you, committee. We’re on page 4-25, information item, intergovernmental relations, active positions. Questions?

Page 4-26, information item. Lease commitments, infrastructure. Questions.

Page 4-7, information item, work performed on behalf of others. Questions?

Page 4-28, information item, work performed on behalf of others. Questions?

Committee, I’ll ask you to turn back to page 4-7 for the departmental summary. Department summary, Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations,

operations expenditure summary, $8.180 million. Agreed?

Does committee agree that this concludes the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations?

I would like to thank the witnesses and ask that they be excused. Call for the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses from the House, and thank the Minister.

The next on our list, committee, is, I believe, the Department of the Executive. Does committee agree?