Mahsi, Madam Speaker. I understand the current Government of the Northwest Territories Affirmative Action Policy began around 1976 and was related to a report from the Commissioner of the day, the late Stuart Hodgson. The report was the Hodgson Report, and it set out to achieve training positions for Native Northerners in order to meet the objective of increased Aboriginal employment in the public service. This led to the creation of the Office of Native Employment. That office developed a discussion paper in which it was noted the difficulty in employing Aboriginal people in numbers reflective to the ratio to the general population.
In 1984, the then Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, the late John Parker, commissioned a discussion paper, the Parker Report, which recommended the development of a Native employment policy. The report also noted concerns with the constitutionality of an affirmative action program directed specifically for Aboriginal people born and raised in the Northwest Territories. The report notes that the Canadian Human Rights Commission raised concerns that the Affirmative Action Policy could be challenged under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Madam Speaker, in 1985, the Native Employment Policy recommended increasing Aboriginal representation in the public service from 30 percent to 52 percent by 1990. It was noted by a review in 1989 was that the increase was only two percent from the years 1985 to 1989. Madam Speaker, the report of the day by another firm indicated most government jobs back in 1989 only required a grade 10 education and noted that the majority of Native people had less than grade nine education. The report also goes on to state 48 percent of today's GNWT jobs require a university degree, not only about six percent of the Aboriginal population had a university degree.
Madam Speaker, I would like to point out that in the many meetings with the senior management teams of the GNWT that I was involved with, I did not see any First Nations people amongst them. Mahsi, Madam Speaker.