Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I firstly want to say that in no way do I want to simplify the issue and while I can give some responses from the perspective of the hiring department, it's an answer that does look back to everything starting from maternal health to education to mental wellness that the more people are ready, able, willing to work, trained to work and healthy to work, then there's more people available to be hired. So this is a responsibility for all of government to ensure that we are all doing those things to have -- to achieve those goals. As the hiring department for the public service, Mr. Speaker, that too, there's a number of things that we are looking at doing, looking at job descriptions, ensuring that they are not overinflated and ensuring that they consider equivalencies that may reflect the skills and the abilities of people in the Northwest Territories and what we actually need to accomplish with the jobs that we have, and to ensure that we are looking past internal biases, that we are looking past if there is a cultural awareness and cultural safety which training, again, is now mandatory. Everything we can do to change the mindset, often unconscious and often unaware, of who it is that we have in our roles and what we need. So, again, it's -- saying I didn't want to oversimplify and now I'm going to get a bit long. I will stop there, Mr. Speaker, just to say there is a number of fronts on which we are trying to tackle the issue. Thank you.
Caroline Wawzonek on Question 1452-19(2): Affirmative Action Policy
In the Legislative Assembly on March 8th, 2023. See this statement in context.
Question 1452-19(2): Affirmative Action Policy
Oral Questions
March 8th, 2023
Page 5769
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