Thank you very much, Mr. Casson.
First, I thank you for your kind words.
Our objective for mentoring is to try to get more of our own membership at the management level. We're not all the way there yet, but we are moving in that direction. We have over 200 people who are employed directly with WFN, if I include the Pine Acres intermediate care facility. It's certainly a big area for employment. Through general administration, the work we have, and the various corporate entities we have, well over 200 people are directly under the employ of WFN.
As far as management, we work purposely to try to provide opportunities. As an example, our new director of operations is a band member who took the position as of April 1. Our existing director of operations will continue throughout and well into the summer months and will also be available to work on special projects that we've discussed with the outgoing director of operations. In our community health division, for example, one of our band members works as the overall manager. Others are in training. Our objective is to provide that opportunity to the next band member. Those are some examples.
We have a lot of experience in things such as shopping centre developments. One of the conditions we put in our joint venture partnerships is for not a lot but some money to show the intent that a band member would have an opportunity to learn about the leasing of shopping centres and how shopping centres work. It's a position we've intentionally tried to create to provide management opportunities in that field in the future.
We still have a long way to go. We still need post-secondary training and business attributes, but we're getting there. Those are forms of mentorship that we find are working.
In our constitution, for example, when we have self-government, we have to balance the issue of human rights with regard to employment. One of our objectives in the community when there are opportunities is to give first nations members at Westbank the first chance. We then look at other families of first nations and other first nations people in the area.
For example, a lot of labour is involved in our contract for the Campbell Road interchange. A requirement put into the provincial contracts was that 10% of all labour and employment had to come from the Westbank First Nation. It had to at least be available. We built the same thing into the Westbank interchange. Those are avenues we've worked on.
For Walmart, Home Depot, and the other shopping centre retail outlets on the reserve, we don't have an actual policy saying they must do that. It's not in a contractual binding agreement for some of the leasing arrangements. We very quietly talk to the management at Home Depot, Zellers, and Walmart. If there are an opportunities, we ask them to look at employing first nations people. We'll help those individuals get to the needed levels to be good employees for the businesses.
Through those things, I think we help in mentoring and working towards employment.