EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Our objective is to hire Nunavut Inuit beneficiaries then we would like to get representative numbers.
We have a goal which states that 85% of Government of Nunavut employees will be Inuit.
So, that’s what we’re trying to follow by.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Tapardjuk.
Mr. Curley: Correct, that message is clear.
Why would you want to create an employment of 85% or more, why not 100%?
What is the magic number and why are you taking such a slow approach in achieving, trying to achieve 85% representative level and could you maybe tell this house exactly what you mean by beneficiaries staff in terms of land claims agreement?
What is the big deal about that 85% thing in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Well, Article 23 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement of Nunavut states that Nunavut Government employees will have to follow the representative, we have to be representative of the population, so therefore the 85% target was set.
Article 23 is stating that Government of Nunavut employees will have to have a representative level of the Nunavut population and we consider this in various ways within the Inuit employment division.
We even have a division of Inuit employment within our department to make sure that we comply with that article of the Land Claims Agreement.
Mr. Curley: Yes, I want to be clear because I want to share, I do believe in the objective.
If there were a court case to try and challenge that whatever your policy is, I want to ask you a question.
If that were to happen, would the Article 23 provision in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement prevail over the Government of Nunavut policy?
Not because I want to challenge your ruling, but what are the chances that someone that is a non-Inuit beneficiary were to challenge that employment policy and say: ‘I have been discriminated.’
Is the Article 23 discriminatory?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): If we look at Article 5 in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement why Nunavut was created, and it states in there and I am sure all of us are aware why we started negotiating land claims about 30 years ago.
In the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement it states: ‘Once Nunavut is created, it will be called Government of Nunavut, but it will be a public government.’
Having said that, Article 23 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement specifically states as to how many employees they should have.
Since Nunavut was created through Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the Nunavut Act, if we try to change Article 23, Government of Nunavut, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada will have to consider this jointly if they wanted to make amendments to Article 23.
So this agreement is in between the three parties and it’s in the constitution.
So we are just trying to comply with the legislation and statutes.
Mr. Curley: So the answer is that Article 23 is not discriminatory because it has a certain provision and recognition of the constitution.
I want you to confirm that.
In the event that the government’s current employment policy for hiring civil service is being conflicting with Article 23 or in the eyes of some individuals or Members of the Legislative Assembly.
Is there a provision in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement of which should prevail?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): First of all, as to which statute or agreement would prevail, it’s evident that if we were put into court, I am sure we will have to protect the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, but it would be up to the courts to make that decision.
But in regards to Article 23 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, it includes this and that’s why we are complying with it and we are working hard to comply with it.
So it can be in two ways: Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated can approach us and tell us to look at this Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, there’s Article 23, how come there are not enough representatives of Inuit in Government of Nunavut workforce?
I thought you all had agreed to the number of Inuit employed.
If that happened in court or if there was a liability case, I am sure the Government of Nunavut would try and protect Article 23, but it would be up to the total discretion of the court decision.
Mr. Curley: The reason I am asking that is because I seem to recall that Article 2 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement as a clear provision in the event there was a conflict between laws of governments, including Government of Nunavut, including municipalities that agreement is quite clear that the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement would prevail.
So I want the minister to be quite clear that I think you are on the same ground in trying to at least put 85 percent level of Inuit employment because not all non-Inuit people train more workers coming in.
I think it’s vise versa because people that are not beneficiaries normally have to be trained to be sensitive to the representative level and the demographics of the population in this region as well as including the orientation for sensitivity as well with the cross-cultural training needed to effectively carry out the job.
Is that part of the training that normally is taken into consideration?
It’s not just one-sided, Inuit must be trained because some are getting along quite well through the educational system.
Article 23 states that the government has authority to have a representative of the population.
So that’s why we have amended our priority hiring policy.
So during the consideration of those, we have faced difficulties and challenges.
If you become a government employee, these are the things that you have to know.
We do orientation to Government of Nunavut staff about Inuit societal values and also, it states in there that if a non-beneficiary is hired within Government of Nunavut that they should be orientated of the uniqueness of Inuit and their culture.
In there, we still want to do some Inuktitut as second language to the individual staffs to train them in the Inuktitut language for the non-beneficiaries.
In reference to the comment that you just made in the teaching of the Inuktitut language and the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, I believe that’s a policy of the government.
There have been workshops held in the communities to orientate the new employees about Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and how much money is used to hold those workshops?
Are the participants mostly non-Inuit?
I will have my deputy minister respond to your question.
As a government, we orientate employees of the government, and especially the new government employees to teach them about the government procedure, and also to teach the non-Inuit about the Inuit culture, and also the way the system works up here.
For example, just last week on March 14, we had a workshop for new employees, and the majority of the participants were Qallunaat.
There were some Inuit but it was a whole day workshop, we taught them what their rights were, what was about their salaries and how the whole financial system works, their leaves and credits and also on Pinasuaqtavut which outlines the goals of the government.
Also, they were oriented on the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement that we hosted through Nunavut Tunngavik, we also get people who used to work or negotiate for the agreement, we also teach them about the Inuit culture and we have also sent them out on the land on a day trip or to in the summer to go out there on the land with participants from the elders and interpreters are provided.
And we’re starting to do that outside of Iqaluit also and in the ten years we have a goal to orientate 1,500 employees.
We’re going to start going through the planning process with that goal in mind.
The one is culture orientation and the employment orientation.
I’m very pleased to hear that we’re seeing these orientation programs and I see more Inuit teaching.
The employees are orientated and even the teachers are starting to do that and I’m sure that the new employees enjoy those orientation programs.
Are most of the government departments doing those orientations and are they planning for it?
The Department of Human Resources are not the only ones making those types of plans.
The Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth are involved in that and we work together to put those plans.
In regards to your second question, it will be answered by the deputy.
We do, we want to start putting plans together so that they can have an orientation programs at the community level and in the Kitikmeot, Baffin, and Kivalliq, there have been participants.
We have had regional representatives sitting in on these planning sessions and in order to help the communities we have put together a CD which will be updated shortly.
This CD will be given to the new employees and for the ones who are hired at the larger centers can access that information through the computer or through the internet.
It will give you an outline of Inuit culture, the government’s goals and priorities and for the smaller communities, and those who don’t have access to the Internet will be receiving the CD’s.
We are looking at September 2005 where we will be giving out the updated CD’s.
There are more and more people who are working for the government.
Another question that I wanted to ask is in regards to the Inuit hiring policy.
Even though we do have a policy, I don’t think it means that you are going to be hiring people who don’t have the adequate training or skills.
There are quite a lot of people who have not worked for the government, but because of the education level going up, there are more people coming in.
When we say priority hiring it doesn’t mean that you are going to start hiring people who don’t have the qualifications or the skills.
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Well it doesn’t mean that.
For example, if a job opportunity comes out and if the interested individuals; we will make sure that they have the skills and so on.
We just follow those policies, but we do focus on the beneficiaries and they are always the first ones to be screened.
Once every applicant is reviewed and if the beneficiaries don’t qualify for that position, then we will look at the other applicants.
If a job opportunity comes up, the beneficiaries would be the first ones reviewed.
If there’s none there, we would review the others.
We look for the qualifications and skills required to fill that job, and again, we have the Inuit Employment Division which is there to provide support to beneficiaries… we’re constantly evolving and changing.
We are looking at how everyone can better help the Inuit get government jobs through resume writing workshops and so on.
But in order to answer your question, if it’s an Inuk, it doesn’t mean that they will automatically get the job; it depends on their qualifications and skills, but they would be reviewed first and foremost.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): I have another question either to the deputy minister or the assistant deputy minister.
When we talk about on-the-job training, people out there automatically think that they are doing that just because it’s an Inuk, but I have been working for a very long time, but when a Qallunaaq goes in or an Inuk, even if they start at level one as a clerk, they get training so that they can up the rope.
People out there think that they just train Inuit, but I don’t think that’s the case.
Maybe the minister can clarify this.
Even if you are an Inuk, Qallunaaq, French, there’s always orientation training and professional development available to all of those employees. Isn’t that the case?
Yes, that’s very true.
Once you start then you get the training.
What I was saying is when the Inuit are applying and during the interview process they are a little bit intimated by the whole thing.
So, were going to change the interview process so that the Inuit feel more at ease at the process and after the interview of course they would be rated as the interview goes along, and he might be very well qualified or skilled to fit into the position but through the rating system he might not make it to that minimum mark.
So, we would suggest on how he could improve the resume writing or the interview process.
If he can’t fill out the application, even though he wants to try for a job, then Department of Human Resources can help him the resume writing and the job process.
There are training programs available and there is even a coordinator and at this time we are, we now have policies.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Tapardjuk. Mr. Curley.
I would even believe that if they say that Inuit are just being preferred but we do want to see a representative of the population in the government system.
Does the aboriginal self government, which I do believe in, the ones who did that, they failed.
I wanted to see a public government and Inuit are not the only ones working here.
We have the majority of the employees in the government are non-beneficiaries.
The Government, and there is also larger non-Inuit in the private sector and there is more non-Inuit living in these staff houses.
We have contributed a lot as Inuit and we’re going to keep doing so as we create jobs within the government.
But what I want to see is 85% in the government which would be representative of the population and I think we are moving too slow in that direction.
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Yes, I agree with the member.
We have to do more but if our government is going to run properly, we have to be able to hire competent people.
So, with that, then that is why we’d like to be able to train summer students and also we have goal and we have our policies and our guidelines that we have to be able to hire competent and this is what we are going to be doing in our Department of Human Resources.
And we’d like to be able to rush or try to get the Inuit employees into the government departments.
As I stated earlier, subject to the discretion of the chair, Mr. Tootoo you, I’ll give you one more.
Mr. Tootoo: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go back to that item that we referred to earlier about the return to oral question.
Mr. Chairman, so once the selection committee, I guess, says here that you unanimously agreed to re-advertise that position at a later date and hoped that they would be able to recruit a qualified beneficiary.
I would interpret that competition is closed and you have decided that they are going to re-advertise it at some future point in time.
Would that be a correct assumption?
Mr. Thompson: No. In the competition filed, if it’s six months or less, we consider them to still be active and as I said, the position is currently staffed on a casual basis, but the department has expressed some interest in looking at a direct appointment.
Our advice to them would be to go back into the file, look at the non-beneficiary candidates who are qualified, interview them, and maybe make them an offer.
The term position that can train the casual who seems to be doing well in the position as I stated.
If the file is over six months old, it tends to be dated and some of those candidates have found other work and may not be interested.
So in situations where the file is over six months, we do tend to go to re-advertising.
I just want to reassure my colleagues here that I am all for Article 23 and working towards a representative workforce in Nunavut of beneficiaries.
Having said that, we are a public government and we do have policies and procedures in place that are there for a reason would have to be followed.
We have a priority hiring policy that’s there to help our government, help Inuit try to obtain work and try to bring up our percentage of beneficiaries in the workforce.
But I think that that’s and the policy is there for a reason.
You had indicated yesterday that they are reviewing it and then looking at bringing on some changes, and hopefully some of these things that have been identified over the last couple of days will help refine that so that we can come up with something that does work better so that people don’t feel that they don’t stand a chance or that they don’t feel that they are being discriminated against.
As you know as Mr. Curley pointed out earlier, there are a number of people, and Mr. Peterson as well, that I know that have a good education and they have qualifications yet and they are Inuit, but they can’t get jobs.
Some of the people that are there that talk to me, they don’t even get screened in for an interview.
So maybe when you are going through this process of screening, who is on the screening committee and are there names of people that...I don’t care if this name shows up or not we are going to look at it for whatever reason or what because that’s, I think it’s a growing concern out there, I have heard it from a few members and I have heard it in my community on a number of occasions from different people.
I just want, for the record, I know what the answer should be, but I would like to hear from you for the record so that they can hear it and see it for themselves that they should have the same right and the ability to get screened in if they meet the basic criteria for any position.
I will get Ms. Okpik to respond to that question.
Like Assistant Deputy Minister mentioned that they do the screening first before the interview.
We usually have the screening people put in place even before we know, we put the advertisement in the media, they already plan before there are interviews or screening.
Because we usually have the screening criteria in place even before there is, we put out the advertisement.
In accordance with the priority hiring, we always have the Inuit put in first, they screen them, and then before the interview, that’s the way it has always been.
We don’t go around saying that I see this name, we don’t want that.
And, we have a plan in place even before we look at the names or do screening or whatever.
Mr. Chairman, I am relieved to hear that for the record because I could have told the individual the same thing but you know I think it is important that they hear on the record, coming from the head of the department and I know that the heads make sure that their staff follow and the other departments follow those guidelines.
Mr. Chairman, the minister yesterday indicated that they’re reviewing the priority hiring policy as per cabinet directive and I’m just wondering when they plan on having that if you can refresh my memory from yesterday, I think it was 2006 you said yesterday, so I wonder if I could get that clarified.
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Yes, Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The date or the month that I said would be completed for the review or the changes done is in August to be we would want to finish that by 2005.
When did that change from the March 31, 2005 deadline that’s in the department’s business plan on the 15th?
In regards to the member’s question, I will get Miss Okpik to respond on why that date has been changed.
What we have, we always look at review everything in the business plans.
Sometimes we have to delay some items because our policy people are have a lot to do during the exclusive handbook and public service act and so we have to delay a lot of stuff that we have to do so we have three casuals at the present time doing all those things that I mentioned.
We could not be finished by March 31 so we put it to August.
I want to refer now to the Hansard that was handed out and I know that the minister and his staff have it in front of them.
In his response to the written question that I asked him on November 29, he had indicated when I was asking a question on the hiring policy of the department and of the government, and one of the quotes, that was a nice quote from my question, and if look at page 645 the second last paragraph where it says that we are a representative government and are obligated to hire on the basis of fairness and equity and if the community feels that . . . this process is not fair, then we are obligated to ensure fairness and equity.
I am just wondering if the minister could refresh my memory through what was in between those dots?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): I am forgetful like you and I don’t have the Hansard from that date but I will certainly inform him accordingly.
I am not really exactly sure what those three dots contain.
Minister Tapardjuk, You don’t have the Hansard on page 645?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): I have the page 645 of December 1, 2004, I have a copy of it.
He has it there, if memory serves me correct and I didn’t want to say it wrong, but I think if the community feel whether it’s correct or not that this process is not fair, we are obligated to ensure fairness and equity.
Maybe I would just like to ask minister if he could explain that as a direction going from an employer to an employee if the lead department in the labour relations under the staffing could just explain that.
I will let my deputy minister respond to that.
The Human Resources, we receive letters all of the time from the people who had applied for positions from the communities or from the employees or from the Members of the Legislative Assembly.
We study those and if there’s an indication of why those people didn’t get the jobs, we go through them to make sure that there were no discrepancies during the process.
We respond.
In the case where the departments are unsure of what to do and in the case like this when someone comes to them and say that something is not fair and again whether they’re right or not, does the Department of Human Resources advise other departments in giving them advice on what to say on exactly like this?
Hon. Louis Tapardjuk (interpretation): Yes, that is very true.
The departments sometimes ask us for advice on what we should do.
But then, their own departments and its up to them and what has been the case before is that we tell the departments that it would be more, better according to the policies if you go through this route.
But then it’s up to the department.
But we try and give them advice that in Department of Human Resources we have these policies and regulations and if you go through this route. We try and advise them on those things.
Mr. Chairman, the part I was quoting from on there and then the minister almost quotes back on complete check of the words whether it is right or not correct or not. In this particular case, did the department provide advise to the department that had the questions in this case?
Yes, I was already informed when they first started dealing with this and we were advised that the department would be runned better and be more effective if they do things in a certain way but we leave the discretion up to the individual departments and we continue to do that up to now.
That is the advice that we give them.
If they ask us for assistance, then we tell them the same approach.
But it is up to the department and up to those people.
Mr. Chairman, and this wording and the reason I was asking the question at that time was that you know one really looked that, you can see that, if the community doesn’t feel that it is fair or right whether they are right or not, that the government is obligated to act and that could be anywhere.
And you know, I saw that, the dangerous precedents and if that is the case, you know if the community does not feel that something is fair or equitable, they want the government to act on it, who do they have the contact?
And how many people have to contact who in order for them to be obligated to act on it.
We have our own policies and regulations and collective agreement, public services acts and employ any new and we try to abide by those agreements.
I don’t know if there a problem in Iglulik or Hall Beach or one of the employees, if there is a complaint towards the employee, there are procedures that we have to follow and we do follow the procedures that we have to go through and if there is a concern, we can check into it and maybe have negotiate with the department but because it is mainly dealt with by the appropriate departments.
I still, I guess, wonder if my interpretation of that reading is even if a community doesn’t feel that it’s fair or equitable, they can go to someone and let them know that and then the government is obligated to act on it.