Regina health region apologizes to Indigenous people after 'unfortunate and grave' job posting

A job description more than a decade old has the Regina Qu'Appelle Health Regionapologizing to Indigenous people.

The offensive job ad was posted on June 30, but contained a job description that was last used 13 years ago.

In part, the description in the job postread,"As the Native person does not understand our rules, regulations, policies, procedures or internal structure,they should not be expected to live around or according to them. It is the responsibility of the administrative assistant to conform to the needs of the client."

The regions vice-president of human resources Mike Higgins was left stunned when he saw the ad.

"I was aghast.I could hardlybelieve it," saidHiggins.

"Without reservation, I apologize to allIndigenouspeople and to the general public for this very unfortunate and graveoccurrence,"said Higgins.

• ReginaQu'Appelle Health Region apologizes for offensive job ad

Higgins said he takes full responsibility over the mistake but he said he will not resign over the controversy.

"We have taken immediate stepsto remove the job ad from our website. To ensure that it's removed from any external websites that it might be on," Higgins said.

A spokesperson for RQHR said the job description was last used 13 years ago but Higgins believes it was written long before that. He did not say exactly how old it could be.

"I have to assume it was appropriate at the time or considered normal at the time. It certainly is not today," said Higgins.

RQHR currently has roughly fourper cent Indigenous staff. Higginssaid the region is looking to grow that number, so it is more representative of the population.