Thank you, Madam Chair. We would like to continue with consideration of Tabled Document 188-17(5), the Department of Human Resources to be continued, Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, NWT Housing Corporation and Justice, time permitting. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?

We will proceed with that after a brief break.

---SHORT RECESS

I will call Committee of the Whole back to order. I would like to ask Minister Beaulieu if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I would.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Is committee agreed?

Agreed. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses to the table.

Minister Beaulieu, for the record, could you please introduce your witnesses again today. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right is Ms. Shirley Desjardins, deputy minister, Human Resources; and to my left, Ms. Michelle Beard, director, corporate affairs, Human Resources.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. We are on page 247, strategic human resources, operations expenditure summary, $8.339 million. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have one question for the Minister with regard to the percentage of senior management or Aboriginal employees within the government sector. We are hearing that there is a different percentage in each department. Are we getting closer to representing the population that we serve with our government employees? I know there was some type of discussion, and with the time we have left in this government, are we moving the bar up a half percent or a percent or something where we can say yes, we’re getting closer to the number of representation by the population that we serve in the Northwest Territories with our government employees, especially senior management and the Aboriginal people in our government? Thank you. That’s the only question I have.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Our affirmative action numbers are around 32 percent across the public service. Representative by population would be about 50 percent. We have an Affirmative Action Program designed to bring that number up more so that the public service is more representative. At the senior management level, the percentage is lower than that. I do believe it’s around 20 percent of our public service that’s Aboriginal. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I don’t know if the Minister wants to confirm

those numbers. I thought our senior management was a lot lower than that. I don’t know if he’s speaking specific for Human Resources that the upper management was 20 percent. I thought HR and Finance were having problems staffing from the Northwest Territories. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that.

As I go along, too, the 20/20: A Brilliant North, NWT Public Service Strategic Plan, I’m not too sure if this is the activity that’s rolling out the Regional Recruitment Strategy. I noticed that the Minister’s opening remarks didn’t talk about the Regional Recruitment Strategy. I know that it’s certainly an initiative of the Executive to get to the regions and say, look, you start hiring our people first, and I think many MLAs on this side of the House want to see that, because constituents are coming to us and saying, look, it’s so hard to get in the door, to get interviews, we don’t get feedback on our applications, and they really come to us complaining about getting a job or even getting an interview for a job with the Government of the Northwest Territories. If the Minister would please respond to that, the Regional Recruitment Strategy, as well as the senior management statistics. I don’t know if it’s for Human Resources, once again, and/or GNWT as a whole.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The exact numbers as of December 31, 2014, across the public service was 31.1 percent indigenous Aboriginal persons. In senior management, it is indigenous Aboriginal persons in senior management, 18.2 percent of the public service. Specifically in Human Resources, indigenous Aboriginal persons, 34.2 percent, and indigenous Aboriginal persons in senior management, 30 percent.

On the regional recruitment, it’s a program, I believe, that does have merit. We felt that it would be a program that would increase the Aboriginal content of the public service for sure, but the way in which we rolled it out, I think the uptake was not what we thought it would be. The responsibility and the way that the hiring process went, it seemed like once we identified a position for competition and then we went into a competition and if we felt that there was that specific job could have potential for regional recruitment, it was after we had gone through all of the steps and then we would consider looking at a regional recruitment process.

What we’re doing now is up front, at the screening. Where we think we’ll achieve success is that up front we’re now deciding prior to going through the recruitment or interview process. Once we go through the screening and we’re finding that the Aboriginal candidates are very close to screening into the job, instead of now saying, well, this

number is 60 percent and if you go below 60 percent you fail the screening, what we’re doing is going back to the department as the HR people, going back to the department and asking the department to look at regional recruitment for this position, and individuals that may have screened lower than what the requirements are could still be eligible to get into that position with an element or a portion of their salary going to training them up to meet all the responsibilities within that position. We think we will have success.

We have the Aboriginal Management Development Program. We use direct appointments. We have an advisory council, Aboriginal Employee Advisory Committee, and we have just completed a survey, working with, I can’t remember the name of the organization at this time, the Aboriginal Human Resource Council. We also have Aboriginal and cultural awareness training in the public service. We’re hoping that many of these programs and initiatives across the government led by Human Resources will increase our numbers.

To answer the question of both the Members that we do anticipate that once the accountability framework rolls out in all the departments at all levels that we will see an increase in the Aboriginal content in the public service.

Just with the Regional Recruitment Strategy, I’m glad that the Minister was able to explain it a bit. I’m really curious why he didn’t reference it specifically in his opening remarks, because it was a significant initiative by the Executive to say, look, you’ve got to start hiring our local people and our Aboriginals. I don’t know what the number is at now of empty positions, but I’m sure my colleagues must have asked that earlier as they deliberated this department.

A lot has to be said about some of these entry level positions being over-qualified. What happens there is that as our people look at the job requirements, they get, I don’t know, apprehensive, so it seems overbearing, and in reality it’s just entry level positions there. Has the department begun reviewing some of these entry level positions and making it easier for our Northerners and our Aboriginal people to apply for these positions, because I think that’s a huge part about these positions. Because I know that a lot of people don’t know that there’s training behind these positions.

A classic example that I use, I think it was in the Justice department where there was an entry level clerk position. They wanted them to have a legal terminology course and a few other things when in fact it was about being in the front line, about setting appointments and that kind of stuff, and a legal terminology course, that’s something that can be done afterwards. You know, let’s hire the people. I’ve always found that once people learn the job, learn the organization, they’re the ones that

become the longest lasting employees of any organization. It’s just a matter of getting in the door.

I’d just like to ask the Minister again about, I don’t know if it’s part of the 20/20 plan or is it part of the Regional Recruitment Strategy, when and how will they be reviewing a lot of these job descriptions?

We have worked with that as a department, Human Resources. We’ve reviewed all of the vacancies to be filled. We’ve looked at the qualifications of those vacant positions and we’ve looked at if any barriers at all were placed in any of those positions, barriers that would make it difficult for individuals of a priority group to get into those jobs.

One of the things that we had always talked about was positions that were considered to be difficult to fill. Initially we were looking at I do believe it was between, the number kind of moves around, but I would say a good, safe number would be close to 300 positions were in that category. After we reviewed the qualifications of these jobs, we’re saying that we could probably bring that number down, which were truly difficult to fill positions, to about 80 by reviewing the qualifications and making sure that the qualifications laid out in these jobs that were vacant are qualifications that are needed to fill the functions of that specific position. We’ve been going through that, so we’re thinking that once we remove unnecessary qualifications, unnecessary experience, then you would see that more individuals become eligible for these jobs. We’re working with the departments on the succession planning and workforce, in addition to all of these reviews that we’re doing on the job descriptions. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Next on the list I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate this opportunity to ask a question here. I have an issue that comes up frequently with constituents with a variety of backgrounds. Many seemingly very qualified people don’t even seem to get interviewed, and these are long-term residents, Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal, quite a variety of people from all walks of life. I know I’ve talked to the Minister about this and I know he’s aware of this.

What sort of monitoring is done? Like, do you monitor the number of complaints about this and requests for appeals or however people might respond? What are the plans to try and dig deep into this one and perhaps give it a little study or research to see if there’s something we can’t do to respond? These are long-term residents and they’re being forced to leave in some cases when they can’t get employment. I know that’s not consistent with the goals of this government.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Many of the items that I spoke of, the qualifications review, the barriers, would help in some of these cases, but I know what the Member is referring to when the individual is clearly qualified, has the experience and has all of the education requirements to do a job that’s listed and the individual doesn’t succeed either at the screening process or the interview process. Each time those types of things occur and an individual, whether it’s to the Members here or directly through our department of HR, launches a complaint of that type, we do follow up and check. So I guess it’s a matter of providing a response back to individuals that would come to us, but I’m going to have the deputy minister just touch a bit on how we’re trying to address that specific issue.