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Aboriginal jobs with GNWT flatlines

Herb Mathisen
Northern News Services
Published Friday, June 13, 2008

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Aboriginal employment with the territorial government is stagnant and MLAs want to know why.

David Ramsay, MLA for Kam Lake, said Monday that even though the affirmative action policy has been around for nearly 20 years, the government is failing to employ a workforce representative of the population.

"Currently, we have just 15 per cent of the GNWT's senior management listed as aboriginal," he said, adding for the entire GNWT, the percentage was somewhere near 30 per cent.

He said the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations has just one aboriginal employee listed in senior management, and Industry, Tourism and Investment, which has 21 senior management positions, only has one aboriginal senior manager.

"We need to find out why there is always a huge discrepancy between the percentage of aboriginal employees in government and those in management," said Ramsay.

Bob McLeod, minister of Human Resources, confirmed that for the last eight or nine years, aboriginal employment levels have "flatlined" at 31 per cent.

McLeod said low percentages of aboriginal employees in senior management is "an issue for our government."

However, he added, "Not everybody wants to work for the government of the Northwest Territories. There are a lot of options for aboriginal people who have the qualifications (for senior management positions).

"In order to improve the performance of the affirmative action policy, we have to find a way to provide additional training to accompany it."

Glen Abernethy, MLA for Great Slave, proposed revising the Public Service Career Training Program (PSCTP), which was eliminated in the 1996 budget cuts.

"The PSTCP had an 84 per cent success rate and was graduating 30-plus aboriginal people a year into meaningful jobs in the public service," said Abernethy.