I have watched many governments and different sectors of industry really try to improve the work environment and the training opportunities for aboriginal people. The diamond mines in my riding have done many things that seem to be working. They've introduced literacy programs right at the work site. In the remote camps, they have literacy programs.
They've introduced mobility assistance programs. Some industries will bring in a worker from the west coast or the east coast and pay their way, but they won't pay for the aboriginal guy to come from the next community, even though he has no vehicle. They've introduced some mobility assistance programs that really help.
I watch some of the indigenous governments as they start to get involved in providing a lot of post-secondary support, and that seems to help. We still see large government projects that have nobody who is aboriginal on the job.
Do you think there are any programs we could introduce to encourage the government and any project that is government-funded or partially government-funded to force people or encourage people to start hiring and training indigenous people?
We have over 155,000 indigenous people sitting unemployed in our communities. Indigenous people don't normally migrate to where the work is, but there are reasons for that, and if there's a way to make it work.... If we're going to have true reconciliation, we need economic reconciliation. If we're going to do that, we need to start training people and we need to allow them to participate. Is there anything that you can recommend to us?