Given the prodigious appetite we have in the North for things like junk food, if there was a definition that was agreed to and a tax that was agreed it, it would maybe generate an initial spike of revenue, but if the Member’s rationale proved out, then the demand would drop off precipitously. But it could be, if all the stars aligned. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in the day I spoke about the difficulty my constituents had, the long-term employees advancing as well as new employees that want to get in with the Government of the Northwest Territories. I want to ask my question to the Minister of Human Resources.

In our 20/20: A Brilliant North, NWT Public Service Strategy Action Plan 2012-2016, how is the Minister and this government planning to advance our Aboriginal employees in management and executive? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are starting to employ the Regional Recruitment Strategy as one of the strategies that we’re hoping will bring the Aboriginal numbers up across the GNWT. Also, as far as trying to advance more Aboriginal employees in the GNWT to senior

management and management level, we are using the Aboriginal Development Program, which is we are placing associate superintendents and associate directors, Aboriginal employees, into the system for them to take those jobs on. Also, we are now developing associate managers so that people from lower than managerial positions, such as officers and clerks and so on, can be advanced into manager positions. Thank you.

One of the issues raised was when they created a new financial shared services division, a long-term employee with many years of experience and training applied for a management job and yet that person wasn’t qualified. Once again, I question the government’s ability to over-qualify jobs and not giving enough attention to many, many years of service. How is this plan addressing that? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Aboriginal employees are all employees that were affected by the financial shared services. Regionally there were 16, and 15 in headquarters, so 31 people were affected by the position, and the majority of them were placed into jobs with the government. I think there is a possibility that a couple of the specific cases where individuals may have been applying for the positions that would have been considered an advancement did not get the jobs, but my understanding is that there were some discussions held with these individuals. I don’t have the specifics on the individuals that may have been looking for advancement and didn’t get it, but my understanding is that most people who were affected were placed in other jobs within FS, financial shared services, or retained in their own departments. Thank you.

I continue to urge the HR Minister and all the Ministers that when we’re trying to advance our Aboriginal employees that we pay attention to them like we say we do in our plan.

I also spoke about the frustration that individuals are having trying to gain employment with the Government of the Northwest Territories. They apply on many jobs and every time they have to do a personal screening test for each and every job. I can see how complicated and how frustrating that can be.

Does the plan include anything to make it easier for potential new employees to gain employment in the Government of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we do have a Workforce Planning Strategy and where we’re looking at including the strategy I referred to, Regional Recruitment Strategy. There are various strategies that we are employing as a department, working with other departments in the GNWT. Our intention is always to try…(inaudible)…our numbers set out by the Affirmative Action Policy. The

Affirmative Action Policy calls for the government to be representative of the population and that’s our goal, so we do work, as a government, with other departments to try to achieve those goals.

We’re moving ahead with some of the committees, like the Aboriginal Employee Advisory Committee and get some advice on them. They’re from across the regions. Aboriginal employees from across the regions are giving us advice on how to move forward on hiring Aboriginal employees into the public service. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Once again, for new employees, entry-level jobs are often overqualified and they don’t get attention for the years of experience and training that the individuals we have.

Does the plan address this fact? Are they reviewing those entry-level jobs and lowering the qualifications because people cannot get in. When you want a new employee, it’s about just getting them in there. They’ll learn the system; they’ll learn the organization and become long-term and valuable employees. Can the Minister look into that?

We can discuss this with the departments. The departments do the job descriptions and through their knowledge, skills and abilities that are typically required for a position that they’re posting. So they need to do a certain job; there are tasks that have to be done; the department determines what type of qualifications that individual needs to carry in order to do that job. So, if we’re discussing with the department on looking at those qualifications that maybe a job with a different type of task in there may be sufficient, then we’ll have that discussion. I’m more than willing and prepared to do that through the deputy to have those discussions with the other deputies in the other departments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I couldn’t possibly know how often that occurs in the government. I indicated in the House previously, we have anywhere from 1,600 to 1,700 staffing actions per year going back I don’t know how many years. How am I able to determine how often this occurs in the government? I would perhaps do a long research and then we would probably be able to come up with this number, but it would mean tracking everybody that qualified up against the individuals that got hired in order to determine that number. Thank you.

Maybe the Minister is starting to grasp the complication behind this particular problem. I’ve got people who have applied with 10, 20 or more years of experience, but they’re screened out and the competition is awarded and they don’t know until after the appeal period is gone, but then again their rights don’t really matter. Of course, they feel they don’t matter because their experience is weighed directly against credentials of the university. So let’s go with this group, and by the way, the footnote I’d like to add is quite often I hear of this complaint, and it’s a good complaint and it needs to be solved, by women and certainly Aboriginal women are screened out because their years of experience clearly don’t matter. So maybe the Minister can help us, help the House, help the public understand how does the department weigh experience on a job and evaluate them against somebody who has the official credential, because it appears right now if you have experience it doesn’t matter, if you have the certification by a university diploma then they’ll look at you? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, related experience does matter. Minimum qualifications, as far as education goes, and related experience matter. It’s written in most job descriptions, if not all job descriptions, that we receive from the department. If an individual has directly related experience in the job they’re applying for, it has a significant impact on whether or not the individual gets hired. If a person has directly related experience, education that may not be directly related, but many years of directly related experience as the Member is talking about today, we will not screen that individual out. The person with directly related experience will be interviewed. Thank you.

Thank you. Recently I had someone who applied or wanted to apply for a job, but of course it says, as a must, they have to have a high school diploma, but their 20-plus years of experience didn’t matter because their job was pre-qualified and they were encouraged to apply anyway. Frankly, they had to make a choice at that high school year severely impacts their life. Somebody defined it as it continues to haunt their life because they had to make the choice that was right for them, but they can’t apply.

So perhaps I’ll ask it this way, how does the Minister see someone with 20 years’ experience – and, of course, he did say related experience matters – apply for jobs like this that they’ve been doing for years, but it doesn’t appear to matter because if they don’t have that high school diploma they don’t even get into the game and they’re told weeks later after the competition is over, hey, by the way, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Thank you. It’s difficult for me to speak on this. For me it’s a hypothetical case. If the Member has an actual case where an individual has 20 years’ directly related experience and was not allowed to apply for the job that they were doing, I would be glad to hear about the specifics from the Member and we’ll then contact the department and find out what the issue is. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If it’s difficult for the Minister to answer this question, quite frankly it’s difficult for the public wanting to apply for jobs if we don’t know how they can get opportunities that they rightly can do and they’re being blocked at the front door by this little sticker that says if you don’t have the university degree, don’t apply, if you don’t have the college diploma, don’t apply and in some cases, unfortunately, some people don’t have the high school, but they’ve got the 20-plus years’ experience.

I’m going to ask this question: How is the Minister going to fix this problem? Because we have a lot of good people and my experience, growing up in Fort Simpson, I can tell you some people just had to take paths that they didn’t necessarily like, but by golly they’re dedicated, hardworking and certainly capable and they’re being shut out because of these small things and we can make this happen. I’d like to ask the Minister how he’s going to solve this problem. Thank you.

Thank you. Again, I’m looking at case-by-case would be the way to resolve this issue. People have not come to me, individuals have not come to me and said that they had been working jobs, have 20-plus years’ related experience and then were not eligible to apply. I’ve had situations recently exactly as the Member

spoke, an individual that said that they had 20 years’ experience, but they didn’t have a Grade 12 education that was a requirement. I encourage the person to apply for a job at any event. So, I don’t know that is an issue. I haven’t specifically heard that is an issue until today. If this is an issue, it’s an ongoing issue, it’s a big issue, then the Member can provide me specifics on it and I will go to the departments and try to find a solution to get those people to work. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.