Finance Committee on April 8th, 2014

Evidence of meeting #29 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was skills.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Youth Employment in Canada

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Naguib Gouda President, Career Edge Organization

Beedahbin Dawn) Desmoulin (Communications Officer, Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment and Training Services

Wayne Lewchuk Professor, Lead Investigator, Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario, McMaster University, As an Individual

Noel Joe Co-Chair, National Youth Council, Assembly of First Nations

Jeremy Smith Executive Director, Dauphin Friendship Centre

Jason Kuzminski Vice-President, Habitat for Humanity Canada

5:15 p.m.

Beedahbin (Dawn) Desmoulin

Currently, no. Not at this moment.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

But if they proffered it, they could—

5:15 p.m.

Beedahbin (Dawn) Desmoulin

Absolutely, and this is kind of what we're taking a look at. We're trying to be innovative and maybe bridging our RoFATA program with our ASAP.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Okay.

One of the things you said that really struck me was that you said if someone was coming from your community and going to a city like Thunder Bay, the cultural differences between the community there and Thunder Bay.... For a lot of us, Thunder Bay is seen as a smaller centre, so if you go to a larger centre like Toronto, it's an even greater impact.

The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology out of Edmonton has two mobile classrooms. I think they call it mobile NAIT or something like that. To take kids out of their community at a very young age and put them into Edmonton, it's a very large culture shock, so what they do, as I understand it, is that they move these classrooms around to various communities and they do all sorts of training in that way.

Are any of you familiar with that? In your mind, does that work well?

5:15 p.m.

Beedahbin (Dawn) Desmoulin

Yes. Actually, we have a partnership that's been developed with Aecon. We have a remote training centre in one of our first nations, one of our remote communities. Neskantaga actually has a remote training centre. That was developed in partnership with KKETS and Aecon to deliver training programs. Currently we have training programs running there. Mind you, they aren't your high school courses or anything like that. It's actually training.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

So when you have on your brochure here the apprenticeship skilled trades, you can do that at the mobile...?

5:15 p.m.

Beedahbin (Dawn) Desmoulin

Absolutely. There are components that we are trying to put into those communities. Aecon has the remote training centre only in Neskantaga at this moment, but what we're aiming for is to have remote training centres in each of our communities in the future, so that when the time comes, there are specific components that can be delivered in the communities.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Okay.

This has been a fascinating discussion. The bells just started ringing, and as the chair I do have to stop the committee at this point, but I want to thank you all so much for participating today.

If you have anything further you wish the committee to consider, please submit it and we will ensure all the members get it.

Thank you, colleagues.

The meeting is adjourned.