Advocates call for change as Indigenous employment in N.W.T. gov't hits record low

Two years after the Northwest Territories government established a plan to hire and retain more Indigenous staff, Indigenous representation in the territorial public service has hit a record low.

Only 28.7 per cent of staff with the territorial government were Indigenous and from the territory at the end of March, according to data from the N.W.T. government's annual public service report. That's the lowest percentage of Indigenous staff since 2000, the earliest year for which the territorial government was able to provide data.

The highest percentage of Indigenous staff the N.W.T. government has had over this time period is 32.3 per cent in the 2013/2014 fiscal year.

The most recent estimate from the N.W.T. Bureau of Statistics puts the N.W.T. 's population at 50 per cent Indigenous.

"It [28.7 per cent] is not the number we wanted to see," N.W.T. Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek told CBC News in an interview. As finance minister, Wawzonek oversees the public service. 

Wawzonek was also the finance minister in 2021, when the territorial government released what it called the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework, a 19-page document that came with an 18-page action plan.

The government's goal, outlined in the documents, was for an N.W.T. public service that is "representative of the population it serves."

The action plan included commitments to review all of the government's job descriptions to ensure qualifications weren't overinflated, to require all hiring managers to take unconscious bias training, and to create a mentorship program for Indigenous employees. The policy also required each government department and agency to set concrete Indigenous employment targets and track progress.

Wawzonek said that implementation of most of those changes only started in 2023, and she is optimistic that as the plan advances, those numbers will change. She also pointed to the fact that public servants have been dealing with many emergencies and crises since COVID-19, as one reason the changes have been delayed.

"It is not going to help if we try to press too hard and have impatience when we are actually asking people to change the way they think, to change the way they approach their work," she said.

"Would I like to see it all change overnight? Absolutely. Will we give up on the need to see the change happen in a meaningful way? Absolutely not."

Tsiigehtchic, N.W.T., elder Grace Blake is the president of the Native Women's Association of N.W.T. In her time in the role, she has been a vocal advocate for the need for more Indigenous representation and perspectives in the N.W.T. government.

She said the lack of urgency with which the N.W.T. government seems to be treating this decades-long issue is "mind-boggling" to her.

She said her biggest concern, at least in the Mackenzie and Beaufort Delta regions, is a pattern of Indigenous staff who do reach senior positions in the territorial government not staying in those positions for very long.

"They work so hard in their own lives to make things better for their families, and yet they go into a system where the system is rigid: 'Do it this way and do it this way and that's the only way,'" Blake said. 

She said this strong emphasis on rules and procedures can be especially hard to deal with for the many people in her generation who, like her, went to residential schools.

"Lots of us residential school survivors, it's really hard for us to be in a situation where you're forever complying, complying. You have to be peaceful, and you have to comply with the system and how they want it to work. We need a system where Indigenous voices are right at the table in every aspect of government," she said.

Former MLA Tom Beaulieu, who served as deputy minister of two territorial government departments before entering politics, said he believes the government should focus on increasing Indigenous representation in senior management positions where staff can change the corporate culture.

"The senior people in the government don't understand what's going on in small communities," he said. "There's no jobs available. That's what the issue is. And what they could do is they could create jobs." 

The public service is big business in N.W.T. Last fiscal year, the N.W.T. government spent over $900 million on salaries and benefits for employees — equivalent to almost half of the territory's $2.2 billion operating budget for that year.

Beaulieu believes the territorial government is still overly focused on formal qualifications when hiring, and many jobs in small communities stay vacant too long as a result.

"The government needs to show some flexibility by allowing… other people that have different types of qualifications but would still be beneficial to the community to fill those positions," he said.

Blake, like Beaulieu, would like to see more Indigenous people in senior government positions, and for all Indigenous staff at the territorial government to get more mentorship, training and support  — and she wants to see those changes made in collaboration with N.W.T. Indigenous groups.

"We have to be involved," she said.  "'My way or the highway' — it just doesn't work."