Rylund Johnson

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories requires all departments to conduct exit interviews with all Indigenous employees, including interns and summer students; ensures exit interviews with Indigenous employees leaving a department are conducted by Indigenous staff of the diversity inclusion unit; and, requires that all public service annual reports include a section with an analysis of why priority 1 employees are leaving the public service. Thank you, Mr. Chair

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. You know, the most inspiring things we heard from committee were those cases where there were language nests for preschool children. Their brains are sponges. That's where we were learning. That's where we heard cases where you have young children talking to elders, and they are learning the language. And I think we have fortuitous timing that we are rolling out universal child care in this next few years and we are spending, you know, unprecedented dollars on child care and building spaces. And so I think it's important that we should try and prioritize a...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would really encourage the department to take a look at that. I think our Indigenous harvesters have a right to commit some sort of commercial activity on the lake. I know that's a complicated question, but I think it's a very kind of similar case to Miqmaq fishers with the lobster fishery, where the Supreme Court gave them essentially a moderate livelihood test. They were allowed to go out and do as was their tradition. I've spoken to many fishers on the lake. They will get licensed, they will go through the commercial applications, but they do view it as their...

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories and all departments update the job descriptions of all public service positions to ensure the inclusion of value statements which affirms the importance of Indigenous knowledge and community experience; update job information section of all job descriptions to ensure that only plain language is used; ensure that each job information section provides an equivalency formula that is publicly accessible and demonstrates concrete examples of what education equivalencies will be accepted in place of...

Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories restore Indigenous language terms and spellings to refer to languages and communities;

And further, that the GNWT should update all legislation, regulations, policies, guidelines, standards, and communications within the life of the 20th Assembly;

And furthermore, the GNWT should also consult Indigenous communities on the changes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my statement, it was my understanding that as we proceed on unauthorized rights, it was essentially if it was an Indigenous person and there was a potential rights case, we weren't going to evaluate it; we were just going to put it in a box and to the side. I've recently learned that that is not the case and there are cases where we will go forward with eviction for Indigenous peoples unauthorized using public land.

My question is for the Minister of Lands. Can he just tell me what exactly is the test being used? Are there some sort of hard limits here...

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories, for the purpose of capacity building, make it a standard policy to ensure that an Indigenous person consistently occupies at least one assistant deputy minister position within all departments; consistently staffs all regional supervisor positions with Indigenous employees; promotes and requires, where possible, that all public boards and agencies have a minimum level of Indigenous representation within the overall makeup of their board of directors; requires, where possible, for agencies to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is something that the federal government does for French. And I've actually had a job for the federal government where they would pay me for four hours on Fridays to take French lessons. And I think it would be great to see us doing the same thing for our Indigenous language speakers in the GNWT. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories identify which headquarters positions can be located to the regions, which jobs can be tagged as flexible and moved among a number of locations, and those that could be classified as remote working arrangements aiming to allow priority 1 employees to work in the community of residence. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends that each department and agency be required to have an annual official languages action plan to improve and revitalize the language skills of its Indigenous employees. Thank you, Madam Chair.