Thank you, Mr. Chair. The bill speaks to a number of points I have listened to from my colleagues and to the Minister. It certainly raises the questions on the appointments by this government for employees. Certainly for us in the Sahtu region, we have a different perspective. We are looking at the percentage of representation by this government of the people they serve into those higher levels of management.
Recently, I’ve been very pleased with the increase of northern Aboriginal people who are qualified who are now taking senior management positions. I believe that many of them have won these positions through a competition process.
I want to ask the Minister the breakdown of direct appointments for the Sahtu and also generally on the number of direct appointments within the government, because the Minister stated in his presentation that this bill does not expand the powers of the GNWT to appoint individuals without competition. I want to ask the Minister for some of these numbers that I’m asking for.
I know also that in the Tlicho Government human resources steps show that the Tlicho Government is doing well above the percentage of having their own people working. I think they post about 70 percent. I think we are below. I don’t know if we have done any good in the last three years. Maybe
some departments; I don’t know. I can go upstairs and get my numbers and figures. But what struck me, looking at the Tlicho Government, is that they have close to 70 percent of their people working within the government. That is a very good representation of the people they serve. The same with our government, our government is not doing too well in those areas. I’m more interested in how do we increase those numbers.
Over the years of being in the position of MLA, I always want to increase the representation population in our public service servicing our people. More so now in the senior management positions. I believe and I guess it’s really a balanced approach to a direct appointment competition. I know in my region a lot of people, for some odd reason, even though they’re qualified and whatever, they just don’t seem to make it within the competition race, and I get calls. Because of existing policies or something like that, they don’t get that second phone call. Sometimes we have to look at these cases and see that possibly a direct appointment could work.
I’m looking to a balanced approach on this issue here. I’m more interested in having the numbers increase with our government by the population that they serve, and right now what I’m reading, we’re not doing too well in that area. I know there’s a slow growth, and I know the Minister, through other programs and services and initiatives, is looking at increasing that number, but right now it seems to stall, maybe I could say. Is that the right word to use? Some departments are not doing too well, and I could list the departments where you see those numbers. Some departments are doing really well and they’re increasing. This is a huge department and this is affecting people. This is not like talking about roads and bridges. These are actually people who want to work within the government and people who want to make a difference in their lives, especially in our small communities. Like I said, in the Sahtu now it’s starting to change but there is still some work for us to do there, and I’m not too sure how or when those changes will happen. We need to look at that and be realistic about it and start making these changes.
I indicated in my Member’s statement earlier in the House, there are 75 students who are going to the Aurora College in the Territories, 79 students. Sorry; they are in Aurora College or some Aurora College learning centres. These are the people that are in business management, nursing, heavy equipment operator, office management, teachers. We’ve got to show them there’s a pathway there. I’m looking for that to see how we could work with them, knowing that they have the qualifications. I wanted just to say those are my comments for the opening of this bill here.