Human rights group to help ensure Natives get a fair shake at jobs

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Native people are three times more likely to be unemployed than other Albertans and a federal program designed to alter this situation will soon be studied to determine its effectiveness.

The Employment Equity program was set up in 1986 to initiate preferential hiring of Native people, women, the disabled and visible minorities within the federal sector.

Starting June 1, federal employees begin filing reports to the Canadian Employment and Immigration Commission (CEIC) in Ottawa detailing the number of employees they have on staff from the targeted group, as well as their positions of employment.

In addition, the Canadian Human Rights Commission will be looking at how many people from each of the groups are available in the work force in various parts of the country and compare that with how many federal employers have actually hired, says Wendy Koenig, public program officer with the commission.

"If they have a very bad hiring record we're going to initiate a complaint against them, she says, adding commission is going to be the "enforcement arm," of the program.

She says the program's intent is not to force employers to hire someone who is not competent or qualified, nor does it guarantee people jobs.

"If two people apply for a job and both of those people are equally qualified, and one is Native and the other is a white male, then the Native should get the job," she says, explaining the principle behind employment equity.

"What the program is geared to do is rectify some of the injustices in the pastthe discrimination that's been in this society of years against Native people."

In describing the employment situation for Native people, she quotes from 1981 census statistics which show the unemployment rate for Natives at 13 per cent compared with four per cent for the rest of Albertans.

Although the statistics are from 1981, she doesn't believe the figures have changed significantly.

"So these statistics are only one of the reasons why the federal government brought in the whole employment equity system to give Native people priority in hiring. The aim of the program is to help Native people get a leg up in the work force."

Koenig will be in Fort Chipewyan during the first week of May to meet with the federal employee's working in Wood Buffalo Park and she will also try to arrange to meet with Native people in the area to discuss the employment equity program.