Human Resources Committee on March 27th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

I've been informed by Ms. Sims that she'd like to have a point of order or a comment before we start.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Yes, I would, thank you. It is directly related to the study we are doing right now.

While I was away I believe the National Association of Friendship Centres made a presentation, and one of our MPs said they would like to have them back again. I believe they've been in touch with both the Conservative and the NDP offices and a meeting has been arranged between the Conservative members, but not the rest of us. So I would like to see them being invited back for 10 minutes so all of us can benefit from the new information they have to share.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Is this something that you've talked to—

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

We just heard as we were coming in that they now have a confirmed meeting with the Conservative members of the committee. We thought if they're coming to meet with some of us, maybe all of us should meet rather than having separate meetings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

I understand what your desire is, and it's an idea that I think should be discussed with your colleagues.

I don't think we should take time out of the witness time today.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I'm perfectly okay with our having a conversation because I know we're going to find a resolution.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

So I'll leave it up to you to sort that out and see whether or not there's some agreement there.

Let's begin our meeting.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for being here. This is meeting number 17 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Today is Thursday, March 27, and we're continuing our study concerning opportunities for aboriginal persons in the workforce. Today is our second last meeting of witnesses giving testimony for the study. We have a number of experts here today to provide their input.

For our first hour from the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve we have Colleen Wassegijig-Migwans, the coordinator of the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy. From Acosys Consulting Services Inc., we are joined by the president, David Acco; as well as Jerry Peltier, vice-president of government and indigenous relations.

Finally joining us from Halifax, we have three chairs. If you know the storm conditions on the east coast, you'll understand that they may arrive or they may not. They're driving in from Dartmouth, and we haven't heard whether they will arrive in time to provide testimony.

So can we begin the testimony, and Colleen would you like to start, please?

[Colleen Wassegijig-Migwans, Coordinator, Aboriginal Skills Employment and Training Agreement (ASETA), Enaadmaagehjik Development Commission, Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve]

Good morning, committee members.

By introduction, my name is Colleen Wassegijig-Migwans. I'm a band member of Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve. That's located on Manitoulin Island in the middle of Lake Huron. I have been associated with aboriginal human resource programming now for over 20 years. I started as a project officer with the Mnidoo Mnising aboriginal management board in 1993, just one year after the official start of the pathways program, which was the initial strategy to address aboriginal employment and training.

In Ontario, those were our glory years, which witnessed the movement of first nation workers into certified training environments with appropriate supports. Doors to employment were opened for our clients that previously were inaccessible, and as the strategy grew we saw more doors opening as time went on. There was accountability to local communities and local decision-making, alongside partnership with our financial co-managers at HRDC, as it was known at the time, for at that time it was still the department that was cutting the cheques.

Here's a brief history. Accessibility to industry and employers has increased for aboriginal people through the eras of regional bilateral agreements, AHRDS-I, and AHRDS-II. I have had the pleasure of working through these strategies in a first nation environment as well as in an urban environment. There have been learning curves associated with each new strategy. They all take time to run smoothly, and then another one comes along.

AHRDS-I started with six pillars. The concept of pillars was quiet during AHRDS-II, and now ASETS has three pillars. I don’t recall that ASETS holders were consulted on what the pillars should be. We were only required to respond to them through the strategic business plans that were submitted as part of the application process.

Through the pre-ASETS period, the first nations technical working group advocated for the concept of parity to be incorporated into the post-AHRDS strategy. Apprenticeship was another key area. That partnership was one of the pillars is so ironic, given that AHRDAs had basically been developing these throughout their history, albeit informal ones.

ASETS holders are basically administrative vehicles. For first nations, the creation of formal partnerships is essentially a political exercise, given that many partnerships are now affiliated with proposed or finalized impact benefit agreements with industry. Adding to the irony is that government has eliminated the funding for the sector councils, just as many aboriginal ASETAs were starting to form meaningful relationships with these entities in the interests of our clients.

The first regional engagement session of ESDC regarding a post-2015 strategy occurred in Little Current, in the territory of the Anishinawbek, at the Ontario ASETS holders quarterly meeting with Service Canada. The session included a presentation on the relationship between government and first nations people. It focused on the history of the relationship that dates back to the Treaty of Niagara, which preceded the Royal Proclamation. It was expected that the tone of this presentation would continue throughout the engagement process, in terms of identifying that the relationship hinges on the fiduciary relationship between government and the indigenous people of this country. Sadly, this is not reflected in the thematic aspect of the roll-up report of the engagement sessions that has been distributed to ASETA holders.

There are only three constitutionally recognized aboriginal groups in Canada. This is where the relationship starts to blur in terms of national program delivery. This impacts how a national formula is dealt with. To address the employment and training issues of these groups, it is imperative that government honour the fiduciary relationship with the constitutionally recognized groups. At our December quarterly meeting, Ontario ASETAs learned that ESDC has met with organizations such as the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the National Association of Friendship Centres, and the national Native Women’s Association many more times than with the constitutionally recognized national aboriginal organizations such as AFN, the Métis National Council, and the ITK.

Government needs to recognize that the members of the interest organizations are also members of one of the constitutionally recognized groups. This duplication needs to end, as the interest groups should be able to work with one or all of the constitutionally recognized groups to address their employment and training needs.

In Ontario, as we moved from geographical delivery under the pathways program to a politicized structural delivery, the urban population was left in a difficult position. While the workings of a revised structure were falling into place, a legal battle ensued, which is referred to as the Misquadis case. I was working in the urban centre where and when this occurred. The Toronto client brought a lawsuit against HRSDC for allowing the first nation AHRDA that was responsible for his request to deny his access to training and financial supports for that training. The real situation was that the client had been assessed and recommended for an intervention different from the one he sought. Further, the first nation had also not received confirmation of their budget or cashflow to properly allow for approval of funding. Sadly, the first nation was never called to provide testimony at court.

Eventually, HRSDC in Ontario provided a call for proposals for contract delivery of the urban fund. Wikwemikong responded with a proposal in recognition that half of our population is off reserve and living in urban centres throughout Ontario. Further, it had included a framework for aboriginal apprenticeship program delivery, as well as provision for a regional budget for larger inter-AHRDA projects. Wikwemikong was not awarded the contract, as it was obtained by the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres in partnership with Grand River Employment and Training, the Six Nations AHRDA at the time. The partnership became known as O-GI, which covered all of the Ontario urban, off-reserve areas. Another urban agreement, Miziwe Biik, under the Aboriginal Labour Force Development Circle AHRDA, served the greater Toronto area.

As the Misquadis case concluded, clauses for the inclusion of Ontario first nation clients became incorporated into the Ontario urban agreements. This was essentially a breach to the existing first nation AHRDS agreements. Prior to this change, the urban delivery sites were requesting funding approval from first nation AHRDAs. Accountability was now reduced with the new clauses as the urban delivery agents no longer had to request funding approval from the first nation AHRDAs or LDMs responsible for their member clients. First nation AHRDAs had requested roll-up numbers and dollar amounts from HRSDC for Ontario first nation clients funded under the urban agreements, but we have never received these statistics.

Now, ASETA holders are identified as stakeholders within a renewed urban strategy under AANDC, with a goal of increasing aboriginal people’s participation in the Canadian economy. Of course this would include skills, employment, and training, but this mandate needs to remain with ESDC and the ASETS agreement holders.

It is so disappointing that the department changed its name and increased its mandate without proper consultation with its constituent client groups. The mandates of the original Department of Indian Affairs have become blurred with the inclusion of the two other aboriginal groups. Indian rights differ from Métis rights. First nation rights to education differ from how the Métis administer education through their ASETS agreements.

Measuring results against targets is usually a good exercise if all the numbers are included. In Ontario, two of the largest first nation communities' numbers have not been incorporated into the regional or national roll-up properly.

In 2010 I requested from the region that the Ontario ASETAs be notified when the AHRDS numbers and the ASETS numbers are included in the roll-up. Eventually we were informed that, apart from the database roll-up, the numbers from Akwesasne and Six Nations would be added under an asterisk.

I do not trust that this is adequate. When statisticians obtain their information from electronic data I believe this so flaws the results at both regional and national levels as to greatly flaw whatever funding formulas may be drawn at both levels.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Colleen, can I interrupt you for a second? I think you were informed of the 10-minute presentation. We're over the 10 minutes. Could you wrap it up fairly quickly for us, your presentation?

[Colleen Wassegijig-Migwans]

I had more points on employment insurance, savings, the SPF and ASEP, Canada summer jobs, NARAM, and FNICCI, but I believe you would all have the text of this too, so I'll just move forward to my recommendations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much.

[Colleen Wassegijig-Migwans]

The recommendations are that the post-2015 strategy be funded as a long-term commission as opposed to a five-year incremental funding, that reparations to Ontario and Alberta under FNICCI be made, that reparations to Ontario and Quebec for the flawed decision regarding Canada summer jobs be made, and that we need to ensure that history and cultural knowledge exchange sessions are written into agreements between the regional office staff of Service Canada and the ASETAs.

Finally, on March 25, two days ago, I attended the urban aboriginal strategy session for Ontario hosted by AANDC. There, I learned that AANDC has obtained ongoing funding for the urban strategy and is not having to endure these five-year funding timeframes as the ASETS program does. It really is time to follow their lead. Perhaps the first nation portion of the post-ASETS strategy should be moved from ESDC to AANDC.

It is so ironic that the federal department that was created to serve Indians has recognized ongoing program funding with urban entities with whom they don't have a fiduciary relationship.

Thank you, committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you, and perhaps some of the points that you summarized there at the end could be delved into through the questioning around the table.

Let's move on now to the next presenters, Mr. Acco and Mr. Peltier.

Ten minutes....

[David Acco, President, Acosys Consulting Services Inc.]

Thank you very much for inviting me here to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

This is my first appearance before a government committee, so guys, go easy on me.

My name is David Acco. I'm the president of Acosys Consulting. I'm a Cree-Métis descended from Cumberland House, Saskatchewan, and a member of the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan.

I'm joined today by Jerry Peltier, former grand chief of the Mohawk community of Kanesatake and currently our VP of government and indigenous relations. Mr. Peltier is responsible for partnerships with the federal government as well as with the national aboriginal organizations, the NAOs. He also supports Acosys corporate customers with respect to aboriginal relations and policy development.

Acosys is a 100% owned and controlled aboriginal company. We're a for-profit company. Acosys primarily provides professional consulting in information technology, human resources, and aboriginal policy development.

Acosys has a strong social entrepreneurial mission of inclusion of aboriginal people in the workforce at the professional level. Hence, we've been working very closely with government and industry to overcome the barriers to aboriginal people's participation and to enhance the socio-economic outcomes of our people and enable aboriginal persons to contribute and share more fully in all aspects of Canada's growth and prosperity.

On Thursday, December 5, 2013, representatives of Employment and Social Development Canada, or ESDC, and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, or AANDC, appeared before you to share their insights into this important topic. Recently representatives from the aboriginal organizations and groups appeared before you to share their concerns and recommendations with respect to aboriginal persons in the workforce and the funding support available to them through the federal government, including the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy, the ASETS.

They all provided you with their statistics on the aboriginal workforce and the education numbers for first nations and aboriginal people. I will not repeat those statistics or the aboriginal labour market and education information. I think you've already received all that information—which I agree with, by the way.

On November 7, 2013, during the second session of the 41st Parliament, the committee adopted a motion to study the opportunities for aboriginal persons in the workforce and supports available to them through the federal government, including the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy, which is up for renewal in 2015.

This committee has asked me to share my knowledge and experience with respect to the issues of education and employment of aboriginal people, which flows directly from our private sector experience. In our eight years of fulfilling our entrepreneurial and social mission, we have noticed the following recurrent challenges: a shortage of professional aboriginal resources for industry; a mismatch between industry's expectations for aboriginal resources and available resources; an increasing number of aboriginal professionals seeking employment from the public sector due to government cutbacks; the lack of recognition of skills and experience by the private sector from the public sector employees; systemic racism prevalent in Canadian society, which continues to affect aboriginal peoples in terms of openly self-identifying; difficulty securing employment for aboriginal job seekers; and a lack of recognition of the urban aboriginal population.

We believe these challenges are insufficiently recognized in the current available analyses of the urban aboriginal employment gap. Understanding them will help the standing committee to understand the private sector's employment gap in greater depth and address it more comprehensively through policy. At present there are many employment training programs for aboriginal people who are subsidized by different layers of government and other organizations. These programs are short-term interventions that target entry-level and skilled labour employment with limited mobility.

With regard to the recent report entitled “Labour and Skills Shortages in Canada: Addressing Current and Future Challenges”, the Honourable Diane Finley, former minister of HRSDC, in her response to this report discussing strategies for reducing the unemployment rate of aboriginal people said, and I quote:

Aboriginal peoples’ labour market outcomes must be improved without delay to ensure that a whole generation of Aboriginal youth do not miss out on the opportunities resulting from a lack of skilled workers on major projects operating near Aboriginal communities.

As the Honourable Diane Finley remarks, the way to close this gap lies in helping aboriginal people to their full potential, and she notes that “improving the education and skills of Aboriginal people will be key to ensuring that they can reach their full potential in the labour force”.

In response to the challenges that we have ourselves observed that were presented in the report, “Labour and Skills Shortages in Canada: Addressing Current and Future Challenges”, and with regard to the response from the Honourable Diane Finley to this report, we developed an aboriginal internship program, which henceforth I'll refer to as the AIP.

To date, the AIP has generated 15 success stories. We believe that this successful program, which has moved beyond the conceptual phase, merits further investment by the Canadian government. The AIP has already been proven successful in helping aboriginal people find professional employment and management-level careers within top-tier private sector employers. This is a win-win result for our people and for the businesses they now work for. This is also a positive outcome because the program is helping build a stronger and more professional workforce now and for the future.

The AIP is an aboriginal-led vehicle for building aboriginal participation in the private sector at the professional and management levels, for growing role models and business networks, and for creating measurable results for the Government of Canada's investment. However, when we first started this program, there was no financial support from the NAOs or from the Government of Canada. Acosys funded this program from its own profits.

For the past two years, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples has funded the AIP from the ASETS program. However, CAP recently decided not to continue funding the program for the upcoming fiscal year 2014-15. We can get into that a little bit later on, I guess, maybe during questioning.

AIP takes a comprehensive approach through recruiting aboriginal people and interns by working with businesses, mentoring, and job-shadowing with our senior consultants, and by their certification through the university programs, while working on live project delivery on our client sites, which provides the businesses the opportunity to observe the aboriginal interns as valued members of a project team.

Our program is highly effective in matching talented aboriginal youth with private sector needs and supporting each participant's professional development through a 52-week program life cycle. When leveraging entry-level positions such as customer call centres within private industry, our focus has been on career paths, with the ultimate goal of building aboriginal talent for industry.

In these two examples, our AIP approach focuses on integration and long-term retention. We understand that the current program's measure of success is either six months of continuous employment or a return to school. Industry's measure of success is three years of continuous employment.

The AIP's success rate has been continuous employment over three years after hire, in most cases with the same employer, and our interns have continued their education through evening courses at the university level—in other words, increasing their marketability. In other cases, our interns have found employment on their own merits with other firms in the private sector, which has led to higher incomes and greater management responsibility. They attribute their professional success to the AIP for opening doors and giving them their first management experience to prepare them to be successful in their chosen fields—in this case, HR and IT.

We understand that this is an unprecedented success. Our first interns who went through our AIP are now engaged and are being promoted into positions of influence in top-tier management levels in private industry. This in turn builds management's better understanding of aboriginal people and a better network for newly graduated aboriginals looking for their first employment within the private sector.

As noted in the government's response to the recent report, “Meeting the skills challenges of the future will require not only concerted action, but also innovative thinking, approaches, and partnerships.” The AIP is a leading example of an innovative partnership.

Mr. Chairman, with the support of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, we propose to expand our AIP into a national pilot program of three years' duration, supporting 10 participants per year, with the aim of helping aboriginal youth develop the skills that today's employers need. We are confident that an expanded program can help advance the goals of the Government of Canada and the aboriginal peoples in building a skilled, flexible workforce.

In conclusion, I'd like to add that we have letters of support from the aboriginal organizations and from private sector for this innovative program.

I'm tabling four additional copies of our presentation about our company and who we are and the aboriginal internship program for your consideration. We're prepared to meet with your committee members in order to elaborate on our AIP and discuss other possible options of addressing the education and employment challenges of aboriginal people and what aboriginal people face.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for listening and I'm prepared to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you.

We'll move on to our first round of questioning. These are five-minute rounds.

Ms. Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank you for the presentation.

Colleen, I hear that you had to face terrible weather to get here so an additional welcome to you as well.

This is a very important study. I think one common thread we're hearing from a number of presentations is that the best way to deliver this training is when it's localized and in the hands of first nations people—aboriginal, Inuit, and Métis—and that they have a lot of control over it. We've also heard that in having it community-based you also need to make sure that child care is available. We've heard that over and over again, because we want to make sure that women get integrated into the workforce as well.

We're looking at some specific recommendations for our final report so over to you first, David.

Are there specific recommendations you would like to see going forward? What would you see as best practice, the best way to carry out what is much needed in the area of improving employment skills and integration into the labour force for our aboriginal workforce?

[David Acco]

I think it's a two-pronged issue. One of the issues is the fact that the Government of Canada is asking businesses to have more participation and engagement with aboriginal peoples. Our experience has been that, yes, it's true that executive management has stepped up, and yes, it's true that human resources have stepped up, but when you come down to the operational level, this is where it's lacking. There are issues around how we can address this through sustainable procurement policies, especially when large government contracts are being handed out with the whole-of-government approach. HRSDC is aligning their objectives with aboriginal affairs and aboriginal affairs are aligning their objectives with PWGSC and that's a great place to start because then you can influence business into engaging with aboriginal peoples.

The other issue is the fact that there's no management layer in corporate Canada. By this I mean an operational management layer, not the vapour trails that we see right now with the appointment of aboriginal leadership to the boardrooms. It seems that the influence has always been down at the entry-level position skill level. At the management level, where the buying and hiring is being made, there's no aboriginal representation there. That's because a lot of aboriginal people decided to take careers in the public sector, at least on a professional level. That's what we were encouraged to do. That's the natural step that we took. I'm born out of the private sector. I'm one of the few aboriginal people that actually decided to take this path. The way I took that path, I didn't recognize my aboriginal heritage. Only when I started recognizing my aboriginal heritage did I start seeing issues of systemic racism within business units. That's one of the issues.

The other issue is the fact that when it comes down to the business unit, and rightfully so, their focus is on delivery—meeting their project objectives. When you're looking at an aboriginal person trying to transfer their career from public sector to private sector and you have businesses that don't recognize that experience, it becomes very hard to convince them the person has transferrable skills. This is where we've been working with private industry in trying to get them to recognize that a policy analyst is much like a business analyst. No matter how you slice it, those are transferable skills in project management.

Finally, the last thing I'd like to talk about is the fact that if we look at the demographic that are returning to school, it is aboriginal women that are returning back to school. A lot of them are going back for a second career. This is a second career for them or even a third career for them. Yes, child care support is a very big issue and they have to have that child care support and the educational support that's associated with it. I don't want to comment on how these programs should be delivered; I'm a businessman by trade.

Jerry, if you could add a few words on the way these programs work....

[Jerry Peltier, Vice-President, Government and Indigenous Relations, Acosys Consulting Services Inc.]

No, I think you cleared it up.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Very quickly, you have 20 seconds.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Very quickly, what percentage of the people you've managed to move up the ladder, so to speak—and I hate to use that term, but it's the one that I think will describe it quickly—have been women?

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Be very brief and concise, please.

[David Acco]

Basically it's been all of them. Out of the 15, we're seeing the progression. We started to do this in 2009, and our first intern got a job as a business analyst in the IT group with RBC, and she's considered to be, I would say, just below a senior business analyst in IT. This is a person who comes from Thunder Bay and who worked for the national aboriginal organizations before she retooled her career to become a business analyst. I'd say three-quarters of the people who are in our program are women who are now in their third or fourth year of work experience and are entering, I would say, the director's positions today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you.

We move on to Mr. Armstrong for five minutes.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you.

I thank our witnesses for being here this morning especially, for some, on a difficult weather day.

David, your 15 interns who have gone through the program—are all of them female?