Finance Committee on April 8th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call this meeting to order. This is meeting number 29 of the Standing Committee on Finance. In accordance with the orders of the day, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are continuing our study of youth employment in Canada. I want to thank our six witnesses for appearing before us this afternoon.

In order, we have, as an individual, Professor Wayne Lewchuk, lead investigator of Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario, from McMaster University. We also have Mr. Noel Joe, the Assembly of First Nations National Youth Council co-chair.

If I'm pronouncing any names incorrectly, please do correct me.

Also, then, from Career Edge Organization, we have the president, Naguib Gouda.

[Naguib Gouda, President, Career Edge Organization]

It's “Naguib”. Pretend there are two Es.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you. The last name is correct? Okay.

From the Dauphin Friendship Centre, we have the executive director, Mr. Jeremy Smith. From Habitat for Humanity Canada, we have the vice-president, Mr. Jason Kuzminski. From Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment and Training Services, we have Ms. Beedahbin, or Dawn, Desmoulin...?

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

Yes. It's Desmoulin. Very good.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Do you prefer to go by Dawn?

[Beedahbin (Dawn) Desmoulin]

It's easier, yes.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

All right, and you're the communications officer.

Welcome. Thank you.

You each have five minutes for your opening statements, and then we'll have questions from all the members.

We'll begin with Professor Lewchuk, please.

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

Thank you for having me here today.

I am here today speaking on behalf of the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario research group, PEPSO, which I co-lead with Michelynn Lafleche from United Way Toronto. PEPSO is a joint university-community research group based at McMaster and United Way Toronto.

The focus of PEPSO's research is the impact of changing labour market outcomes and the shift to less secure forms of employment on household well-being and community participation. Based on a survey of over 4,000 individuals in the GTA-Hamilton region, we released a report titled “It's More Than Poverty” in early 2013, which documented the social implications of changing work patterns.

If, as many now argue, we are moving away from a labour market where the majority of workers are employed in stable long-term employment relationships to one of less permanent short-term employment relationships, then the findings in “It's More than Poverty” foreshadow a very different society than the one we live in today.

It is through the lens of our report that I wish to address the issue of youth employment.

When speaking of youth employment, we are immediately attracted to the exact opposite: the high level of youth unemployment. Last month, 13.6% of young people aged 15 to 24 were unemployed, double the national average.

While this is undoubtedly a concern, we need to be even more concerned about the characteristics of the pool of jobs that the other 86% of employed young workers share, and the kinds of jobs young people will move into as they grow older.

While we can only speculate on what the future holds, the evidence is clear that young workers are off to a slow start compared to earlier generations, and the changes we are seeing in adult employment today point to a very different future for young workers when compared to their parents. There are many good jobs available to young people today, but on average, young people start at lower salaries and are less likely to find a job with long-term prospects.

It is this shift to precarious employment that was the focus of “It's More Than Poverty”. Only half of our sample aged 25 to 65 were in full-time jobs with one employer, jobs that paid benefits and that they expected to hold a year from now. Even fewer newcomers and racialized workers were in such jobs.

These were exactly the kinds of jobs that much of the Canadian economy was built around in the post-World War II period. Our survey participants not employed on a full-time basis were paid less, were less likely to receive benefits or a pension plan, and were less likely to receive training from their employer. They were more likely to delay family formation and more likely to report anxiety at home, and they faced more challenges in participating in community life. This is the likely future of many young workers today.

In light of these changes, we need to be bold. We need to think about what we're doing in the next decade and how it will shape the future of Canada. We need to re-evaluate how we regulate labour markets and support families.

The old model of one worker per household, in a permanent secure job with benefits, is becoming less common. The old model of unions organized around one employer and one workplace is becoming less applicable as workplace communities are fractured by temporary work arrangements, outsourcing, and rapid technical change.

An unemployment system designed to support people during temporary periods of slack activity has become less relevant to workers moving between jobs on a regular basis. A pension program relying on employer-funded pension plans is less viable when workers no longer have a long-term commitment to a single employer. A training program relying on employers to train junior workers no longer works when the junior workers are temp workers or contract workers and the employer has no expectation that they will be tomorrow's senior workers.

It's unlikely that we'll ever go back to a 1970s labour market of permanent full-time employment with benefits and of households organized around a primary breadwinner. What is needed are new institutional arrangements that reflect the changing nature of labour market outcomes.

Countries such as Denmark have pioneered a system referred to as “flexicurity”: flexible employment for employers, but generous income support and retraining for those moving between jobs. Denmark's economy is highly productive and innovative, boasting one of the most satisfied workforces in Europe despite also featuring one of the highest levels of job churning in Europe.

Over the next 12 months, the PEPSO research group will bring together a panel of employers, unions, employees, community representatives, and academics to discuss changes made necessary by the shift to less permanent employment. Our discussions will be based on a document we have prepared that reviews the hundreds of proposals and implemented policies that address the changing nature of labour markets. While our policy research is in its preliminary stages, it has already revealed dozens of innovative solutions, solutions that we look forward to sharing with you in the near future.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now hear from the Assembly of First Nations.

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

Thank you.

I want to thank the chair of the finance committee for inviting the Assembly of First Nations to present on this very important study in regard to youth employment.

I would like to thank the Algonquin peoples for allowing us to undertake business on their unceded territory.

My name is Noel Joe. I'm the male co-chair of the Assembly of First Nations National Youth Council. I also sit as a councillor for the Miawpukek First Nation in Newfoundland.

Before I talk about my own experiences, let me give you a brief national overview on first nation youth employment.

The first nations population is young and growing fast. Fully half of our population of 930,000 is under the age of 25. To put things in perspective, there are more first nation citizens than the population of greater Ottawa, including Kanata. There are over 100,000 more of our people than the entire population of New Brunswick, and you could replace the entire regional municipality of Halifax with a first nation population under the age of 25.

First nations need immediate investments in order to reach employment parity with the rest of Canada. By doing so, it is estimated that by 2026 first nations will contribute a further $400 billion to Canada's economy, while saving at least $115 billion in costs associated with poverty.

For the past decade, the AFN has been calling for additional investments in education and skills training. In our submission for the 2014 federal budget, we have requested an additional $500 million per year over the next five years in order to ensure that first nation training and employment organizations, as well as first nation economic institutions, are properly equipped to provide business supports and skills training to first nation citizens.

Since 1991 first nation citizens across Canada have counted on their local aboriginal skills and employment training strategy holders, or ASETS holders, to provide opportunities for training, education, skills development, and employment. For many of our peoples struggling to seek a way out of poverty, our ASETS holders are the first people they turn to for assistance.

The assistance ranges from support for child care, literacy, and life skills, a variety of trades, and first aid and safety training. However, it should be noted that basic skills training, along with upgrading to specialized and technical training, requires more time and financial resources in order to move a client from his or her current situation to employment. Regardless of location—rural or urban—each ASETS holder occupies the best position to both understand and serve the unique job market needs, whether it be in mining, transportation, energy, forestry, or tourism, or in dozens of other industry sectors.

As a band member in my home community of Miawpukek First Nation who participated in a training program through the local ASETS holder, I can personally attest to the effectiveness of the ASETS program. I spent five years in an aspect of the program that gave me the opportunity to work for my band, develop the skills and tools I need to support my community, and experience the growth that made me a viable candidate for band council, a position which I currently hold.

Since 1996 ASETS holders have not seen any funding increases, despite a growing population and growing client demands. As it stands right now, the cost of doing nothing will result in a growing annual multi-billion dollar burden in terms of dealing with the social impacts of poverty and despair.

The five-year ASETS program is coming up for renewal at the end of March 2015. The AFN has been communicating with Employment and Social Development Canada officials, as well as Minister Jason Kenney, on the importance of increased funding and support for ASETS. We hope the finance committee will recommend that the ASETS program be renewed and strengthened in order to meet the growing demands for skills training of first nation youth. The price of adequate funding will be paid back in the building of a dynamic future for the first peoples of our land and for all Canadians.

Two years ago, at the 2012 crown-first nations gathering, Prime Minister Harper echoed our goals during his opening speech. He said:

...such will be the demand for labour in our future economy that we are positioned today to unlock the enormous economic potential of First Nations peoples, and to do so in a way that meets our mutual goals. Canada's growing and vibrant economy will require a skilled and growing labour force in every region: urban, rural and remote. Aboriginal peoples are Canada’s youngest population. It is therefore in all of our interests to see aboriginal people educated, skilled and employed....

Unfortunately, as it stands right now, the majority of first nations youth have not graduated high school. Until such time as our high school graduation rate equals Canadian levels, more resources, such as essential pre-employment essential skills training, will be needed for clients who lack high school completion. More resources will also be needed for child care, as there are many young single mothers and fathers who are my age and much younger.

In the meantime, I welcome questions from this committee. I look forward to the day when first nations are no longer called the labour force of the future but Canada's new working class. With the proper investment and support by the federal government, we can meet our mutual goals. We can build stronger communities and a stronger Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much.

We will now hear from Career Edge, please.

[Naguib Gouda]

Mr. Chair, my name is Naguib Gouda, and I am president of Career Edge.

First of all, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to appear as a witness before the Standing Committee on Finance as part of its study on youth employment in Canada. This subject ties very closely to the work that Career Edge does, and I feel privileged to share both our insights and our history at today's hearing.

Career Edge was created in 1996 by a group of business leaders from a number of prominent enterprises in response to a finding in the mid-1990s that more than half a million Canadian graduates were either unemployed or underemployed. Since then, these founding organizations have been joined by over 1,000 additional employers to provide close to 12,000 recent university and college graduates, including those with self-declared disabilities, and internationally qualified professionals with career-launching paid internship opportunities.

I'm proud to say that the Government of Canada has been a great partner of our organization, taking on over 2,400 Career Edge interns as part of the federal public service youth internship program between 1997 and 2000. This program was critical to Career Edge's success in its fledgling years, and has greatly contributed to our long-term sustainability. Furthermore, the Government of Ontario has taken on close to 700 of our paid interns since 2004. Nearly half of those were federally funded.

Today’s levels of youth employment are reminiscent of those when Career Edge was founded. We believe that working in collaboration with the Government of Canada we can once again play an important role in helping young Canadians find meaningful work that is consistent with their skills and education, by providing a much-needed boost to their career and quality of life and to the country’s economic development.

Although many of the findings or the comments in the report are statistics that you all know, I just want to highlight a couple of key insights.

First, youth unemployment is nearly double that of the general population. Part-time rates are 30% higher for youth compared with the general population. In terms of Career Edge's own database of recent graduates, it has shown no worthy fluctuations in Canada's youth labour market. Education levels of Career Edge's registrants, who are the people we help, have significantly increased since 2008, with recent grads with bachelor's degrees returning to school to pursue a master's degree or a post-degree certificate when faced with little or no job prospects.

From our 17-year history, we know that paid internships work. As stated on page 4 of our report, more than half of Career Edge interns are hired by the host employers at the end of their internship. The majority of the rest find meaningful employment elsewhere within six months of finishing that internship.

While investing in the creation of internship opportunities that promote greater levels of youth employment prospects, we recommend that the government enact federal legislation to the Canada Labour Code that specifically outlines the conditions of internships across all of Canada's provinces and territories. This will ensure fairness, and the protection of young workers, while giving employers firm guidelines for incorporating internships and internship programs into their recruitment, retention, and succession planning initiatives.

In addition to the above, we recommend that the Canadian government provide funding to employers to encourage the creation of paid internship opportunities.

With reference to chapter 3.1 of Canada's economic plan 2014, Career Edge endorses the federal government's plans to focus investments on improving the youth employment strategy by supporting internships in high-demand fields and supporting internships in small and medium-sized enterprises.

Thank you once more, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on Finance as part of its study on youth employment in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now go to the Dauphin Friendship Centre, please.

[Jeremy Smith, Executive Director, Dauphin Friendship Centre]

Thank you, House of Commons finance committee members, for the honour of coming to Ottawa to present to you on an issue of importance for our entire country.

Today I will share with you information on a provincial survey that we were involved in undertaking, the resulting successful program that was developed in response to this survey, and our recommendations for improving youth employment outcomes.

In 2009 we embarked on completing a local survey to determine directly from youth what was preventing them from fully participating in the economy. It targeted youth 15 to 30 years of age who were not attending school or employed. We also completed a survey with local businesses to see why they were not hiring these youths. With guidance from a great team of Service Canada staff and community partners who assisted us, the results of the survey were unveiled in 2010.

After our survey was successfully completed, Service Canada contacted our organization wanting to replicate the survey process in rural and northern communities around the province of Manitoba. The provincial survey obtained information from more than 500 businesses and from 1,700 youth who were unable to integrate fully into the workforce or further their education. In September 2011 the final research report from the new comprehensive survey was published.

The findings offered a great deal of insight into how some youth face major barriers to entering the workforce in our province, including lack of education, a family history of unemployment, inadequate accessibility to child care, and having little employment experience. Also, they were generally discouraged due to a lack of family and community supports. These findings were consistent throughout the province regardless of whether the youth lived in a larger rural centre or a smaller northern community.

Employers reported difficulties finding qualified employees despite there being unemployed youth. They also identified that there was a lack of youth willing to work, a lack of workplace skills, lifestyle barriers, and other issues that were a challenge when hiring youth. They also stated that general skills, including customer service, verbal communication, and interpersonal and organizational skills, were important for their business, yet youth seemed to lack these skills.

A positive outcome of the survey was that in 2010 we established a youth skills development program. Partners included Service Canada and provincial departments, including MB4Youth, Workplace Education Manitoba, Neighbourhoods Alive!, and the Dauphin Friendship Centre. We developed a curriculum that addresses the lack of essential skills identified in the survey and provided participants with group-based programming and individual instruction and counselling.

The barriers to employment are addressed in a 16-week classroom program, which prepares the youths for an eight-week paid placement in which they can put their new-found skills to practical use. After the completion of the program, the participants are monitored for 16 weeks to ensure they have maintained employment.

In the four years of offering the program, we have successfully and consistently achieved a success rate of at least 70%. This year's success rate to date has been 90%.

We believe that encouraging essential skill development is the future in assisting unemployed youth to be better prepared to participate in our economy and is important for many reasons. Youth who lack decent work skills early in life often show unsuitable employment behaviours later in life. They don't contribute fully to the Canada Pension Plan, and their social issues can be compounded as they go through life. Unfortunately, these barriers often become a cycle and are passed on to the children of these youths, making it difficult for them to lift themselves out of poverty.

Of major importance in finding a solution to engage all youth in the economy is establishing community partnerships. Trying to help youth overcome their employment barriers shouldn't fall on the shoulders of one entity to solve. It need to be a collaborative effort by entire communities.

The solution to addressing youth employment also needs to come from and have the support of federal, provincial and local levels of government. We need to be proactive in our pursuit of getting youth involved in the workforce, especially as our population ages.

In order to improve youth employment outcomes in Canada, a national youth employment strategy needs to include provisions for youth for essential skills and literacy training, wraparound supports, and socially innovative programming like that offered by our friendship centre.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have one minute.

[Jeremy Smith]

Further, this strategy needs to support the meaningful matching of youth employment aims and employer needs, as we have done at the Dauphin Friendship Centre in our 2011 survey, which I've described.

I recognize that there are many other examples of youth employment programs and strategies across the country, and I'm hopeful that the issue can be addressed, as this is key to the future of the Canadian economy.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Smith.

We'll go to Habitat for Humanity.

Mr. Kuzminski, please.

[Jason Kuzminski, Vice-President, Habitat for Humanity Canada]

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity and invitation to share what Habitat for Humanity is doing to help train youth with the skills they need to join Canada's labour market.

Many of you are familiar with Habitat for Humanity as a leading developer of affordable home ownership in Canada.

Habitat for Humanity affiliates across Canada help low-income families build safe, decent homes for them to purchase at payments they can afford.

Habitat for Humanity affiliates across Canada help hard-working low-income families build safe, decent homes for them to purchase for payments they can afford. Our traditional approach has been to enlist volunteers and donors from business and faith communities, as well as neighbours, who are touched by the need, want to help, and recognize how Habitat home ownership helps break the cycle of poverty permanently.

We will always offer this opportunity to community volunteers, and I invite community leaders like the members on this committee to come swing a hammer with us this summer and build alongside a partner family whose lives you'll help transform, but the reason I'm here today is to remark upon what has happened as Habitat affiliates diversify the approach to how we build our homes.

In recent years, several Habitat affiliates partnered with local colleges, trade schools and skills centres, and high schools to offer Habitat home builds as a living classroom for training youth in building trades and other skills that lead to apprenticeships. In 2013, over 1,500 students earned credits in carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and other construction trades taught on our home builds.

This works out to approximately 900,000 hours of training taught on Habitat home builds, most of which is counted toward apprenticeships. Not only are these students given valuable practical training, but they're also given an opportunity to meet and work with the families who will own the homes they're building.

Our success rate for retaining these students in trades programs and seeing them go on to trades is between 80% and 90%. Anecdotally, many of the students say that it's the human experience, more than anything else, that motivates them to continue pursuing a career in a trade. When asked why and what that meant, the common reply is that they come from families that are in circumstance similar to those of the families they're helping and who they met on their home build.

There are several reasons why Habitat for Humanity has moved into the direction of skills training partnerships.

Some affiliates did it out of necessity to add new volunteers so they can scale growth in homes built and families served. Others did it out of our own sense of corporate social responsibility or a duty to leave a legacy that goes beyond the homes we build and the families we serve. Still others saw it as part of a plan to attract new resources and donors interested in supporting education and youth, and not just affordable housing.

We understand that if you poll Canadians on their top 10 priorities, affordable housing sometimes comes in at around 11, but jobs and skills are always consistently at one or two. Creating skills training benefits and affordable homes out of the same dollar is something that we knew we could do. Our investment in these partnerships has begun to pay dividends.

In Canada's economic action plan 2013, Prime Minister Harper and his government acknowledged the success of Habitat for Humanity Canada in leveraging skills training from affordable housing dollars. We thank him and we thank you for that.

In Saskatchewan, Premier Wall has been a leader in Canada by doubling his investment in Habitat homes, which his housing minister, the Honourable June Draude, has said is attributable to the skills training partnerships that we've leveraged and the results we've proven out there. Minister Draude and her government are eager to explore with the federal government what other ways there are to leverage programs that achieve results for multiple priorities, and I thank her for her leadership.

Status of Women Canada's support for Women Building Futures, a skills program based in Alberta and targeted for women, also benefited Habitat Edmonton and the families they serve. Habitat affiliates in Manitoba, Prince Albert, Kingston, and the national capital region have also partnered with CORCAN to give federal offenders a second chance by learning a skilled trade and building a home that gives a low-income family their second chance.

The Canadian public is excited when we tell them what we're doing, and many are eager to support us with funds to enable us to grow these partnerships. Given the impact we have on government priorities for youth skills development and affordable housing, we look to governments at all levels to recognize these returns by investing in our ability to grow these programs.

Merci.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now go to Ms. Desmoulin.

[Beedahbin (Dawn) Desmoulin]

Thank you on behalf of KKETS, the Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment and Training Service, more easily pronounced as “KKETS”. The Matawa employment and training service would like to thank you for involving us in this process on youth unemployment.

KKETS is the ASETS agreement holder for Matawa First Nations. Matawa First Nations is a tribal council that represents five remote communities and four road-access communities.

It is no secret that the aboriginal population is the fastest-growing and youngest segment of the Canadian population. In fact, between 2001 and 2006, the aboriginal population grew four times more than the non-aboriginal population and, with a median age of 26.5 years, it is 13 years younger on average than the rest of the Canadian population.

Over the next 10 years, 400,000 aboriginal Canadians will reach an age to enter into the labour market, which represents a significant opportunity to help meet Canada's long-term demand for workers. Matawa First Nations must take advantage of this unique opportunity by preparing our people through education and training that will see great returns in the near future.

In order to create, develop, and implement training programs for Matawa First Nations, KKETS has taken on the role of performing a number of research projects within our Matawa communities. One of the initial ones was the implementation of a skills inventory. The skills inventory was basically a snapshot of each of our first nations. It collected data that identified attributes such as registered membership on or off reserve, gender, age, level of education, training achieved, employment status, and number in household.

The empirical data from these surveys was synthesized and used to develop a skills inventory. From there, we were able to take a look at the skill gaps and educational gaps within our first nations and where we need to go from there: what do we have to do to fill these gaps in order to create a regional training plan?

A number of identified gaps in training and education had surfaced, to be a starting point for future planning. Within each of our first nations, it has become apparent that there are gaps in education attainment, leading to a lack of specific training certification. Although the nine first nations are all under the Matawa tribal council, they are also very distinct as individual communities, with similar training and educational demands.

Currently, Matawa First Nations has a population of over 10,000 members on reserve, with a 70% to 75% unemployment rate, approximately 65% of which, in our population of 10,000, is attributed to our youth. Within our first nations, the majority of employment for youth comes from summer student employment programming that prepares youth with job readiness skills and provides an income for the majority of the secondary and returning post-secondary students in our communities throughout the summer.

These jobs of course are focused on band infrastructure and community capacity building. These positions are minimum wage and last for the duration of summer break only. Other than that, there is no option for employment within our first nations for our youth in Matawa.

Another research study done at the same time as this skills inventory was the qualitative research that was done with Matawa youth. A session happened in each first nation in visits with a group of youths aged 16 and older. The whole purpose was to give them a voice to be heard and to have them become more engaged in their futures.

Discussion topics ranged from community politics and drugs and alcohol to what they desired for their communities' well-being. The report spoke to the reality of life in our first nations for the present youth generation. The testimonies shared were from groups of 15 to 25 youths. Recommendations coming out of this were based on categories that were prevalent through the report: training and education, cultural issues, and health and wellness.

Youths spoke about the challenges they faced when they tried to leave their community to attend post-secondary school. Even after graduating from high school, they encountered new challenges that school had not prepared them for, such as work at a post-secondary level. So KKETS has developed programs such as ASAP, the aboriginal skills advancement pilot program, whereby we were able to recruit clients from each first nation to get their OSSD. Since its inception in 2012, we have seen 63 out of 100 clients this year graduate with an OSSD. This week was their graduation.

Overall, we've had processes that we've been taking on, and things that we've been doing are the various studies in order to meet the demands of the labour market that's coming forward. We all know that Matawa First Nations are in the centre of what's going on in the north, which is the Ring of Fire, so right now we need to bring forward all of our resources and our partnerships with the various industries to create a workforce that's going to meet the demand.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

Colleagues, we'll begin members' questions with Mr. Cullen, please.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses.

I represent a very large riding in northwestern British Columbia, in Skeena. It may be somewhat similar to the situation with Matawa and the Ring of Fire. There are a lot of prospects, in resource development in particular, and 35% to 40% of the population is first nations. A large proportion of that is young first nations, and too large a portion of that is unemployed.

I want to talk about this in a more holistic approach. We can talk about program funding and different aspects of how to get young aboriginal people to work and secured in work, but I want to talk about the whole person, because oftentimes the barrier that gets placed in front of young aboriginal people isn't that there isn't a job available somewhere but that there are steps and barriers in the way. I want to start with that as a principle.

Is any one of our witnesses today familiar with the cultural connections for aboriginal youth program?

Mr. Smith, you're nodding.

The challenge I have with the government is that when I talk to young first nations groups, they talk about how the funding is intermittent. There are programs that are set up and then cancelled. They get some effectiveness, they run for two years, the names are changed...there's a lot of uncertainty. They're asking for long, stable....

I think this connections program speaks to something you said just in the middle of your piece, Dawn, about the barriers, about when a young person has a job and moves, particularly from a small town into a camp life or into a city.

Can you talk about specifically what you find and what some programs can address in removing those barriers?

[Beedahbin (Dawn) Desmoulin]

Absolutely.

What we've been seeing is that within our first nations, especially the remote communities, there is no opportunity for high school education, for secondary education. What they have up there are elementary schools. The other option would be Wahsa, which is correspondence, so we're seeing youth graduating from grade 12 and then moving to the city. They're basically leaving their home at the age of 14 and living with strangers in order to go to a high school.

Not only do they have culture shock, but they're also away from home. They're away from their families. And then a lot of times they're lacking the support that they're needing to move forward with their education, whether that be tutoring, assistance, or getting around in the city—especially Thunder Bay. They're coming from one of these remote communities like Webequie, for example, or Eabametoong. A lot of them don't leave their communities. When they do come, they have no idea or a sense of direction about where they're going in the city of Thunder Bay.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

So a program like the cultural connections, which was meant to be that bridge, meant to say “okay, here is help getting around with transit, here are some of the pitfalls to avoid when you get to the city or get to a larger community”, has not been renewed. Those are programs the government has not pursued.

Is there any evidence those programs were not helping? This is what I'm trying to understand.