Foreign Affairs Committee on March 7th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Sure, no problem. It's actually a conversation that Mr. Dechert and I had with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which he's referenced before.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Go ahead, Paul.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

He can play games.

It's the question of participation. What's your plan to get aboriginal people and the Inuit employed in the plans that you're putting forward, and particularly also women?

[Mitch Bloom]

It's a great question, and thank you for that.

I'd have to say, since Canada was created we've developed one new program, and it was the northern adult basic education program. I take personal pride in that, because it's foundational. The participants in that program are people who never finished high school. As you know, the high school completion rates in the north are atrocious. Having said that, the education departments of each of the territories know that and are working on that. As I said, being able to bring forward a program that picked up those who've now missed those opportunities—because they're basically passed the stage where they can continue in the secondary system—now they'll be working with the colleges to do that over the next five years. Even that strategy I thought was fairly well thought through, in that we want the colleges to build the capacity to do that. They have a presence in all the communities.

Frankly, once we get out of the three territorial capitals, the aboriginal population is the population. So working with the colleges on the ground in the communities, with programs like this, is a real way to get that foundation done.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Dechert, for five minutes, please.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I'd like to start with Ms. Labonté. You mentioned the potential for increased economic activity in the Arctic region, and Mr. Bloom mentioned 29 projects, I believe, totalling a capital investment of $23 billion. That's a very impressive number. You also mentioned, Ms. Labonté, how important skills training was for the people of the region.

Can you tell us a little bit of what you see has been done up to now in terms of projects in the Arctic, where people obtain skills training through those jobs or through perhaps some programs that your department is offering? Can you give us a sense of whether or not you think, internationally, there are some lessons to be learned from the Canadian experience that could be shared with other members of the Arctic Council?

[Danielle Labonté]

I'm going to ask John Kozij to respond because he's just done some recent work on that.

[John Kozij, Director, Strategic Policy and Integration Directorate, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Thank you.

I used to be a director with HRSDC in the aboriginal skills and development portfolio.

You probably know that this government, through HRSDC, has a suite of different programs and training initiatives both in the north and also across Canada. In a general sense, there are the labour market development programs, LMDAs, as well as the labour market agreements with the territories that deliver skills training. On top of that, you have an aboriginal skills training program, which is called ASETS now. It used to be called the aboriginal human resource development agreements. They are both involved with training populations that may have checkered work histories and things like that, or don't have a range of skills levels.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

What are the skills, specifically, that people are being taught?

[John Kozij]

It is a wide range of skills. Often those programs respond to client needs. There may be some circumstances, though, where mining companies set up their own training programs for industry-specific skills training. In fact, having self-government agreements widespread in the north as well as land claim agreements in the north gives those aboriginal groups leverage to be able to create what we call impact benefit agreements, which often lead to employment for aboriginal people in specific resource development projects as well as attendant skills training that goes with that.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Do you have knowledge of any of those specific skills training programs offered by the mining companies?

[John Kozij]

The Diavik diamond mine does extensive skills training with the Inuit participants as well as with the first nations participants. You'd also see the same in Baker Lake with the Meadowbank mine.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Very good. Have you done any comparison analysis among other Arctic Council nations about the types of skills training they do for the indigenous people of their territory in the Arctic?

[John Kozij]

I've looked at it to a certain degree. The indigenous populations in the north are quite different. We share some commonalities with the Inuit in Greenland, for instance, and the Inuit population of Alaska. The indigenous peoples in Russia are probably at a different state. Then the Sami peoples in Nordic countries are at quite a different level in terms of their higher education levels and things like that, which could be actually quite comparable to the Canadian standard.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

In terms of Greenland and Alaska, where there are some commonalities, are there similar kinds of skills training programs in place? Do you know?

[John Kozij]

I'm not really that familiar with the programs in the United States or Denmark.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Have you or your department had any dealings directly with any of the mining companies that you described, the Diavik mine and the mine in Baker Lake? Was that done directly between—

[John Kozij]

As I mentioned before, when you talk about impact benefit agreements, they are actually private contracts between the company and, in this case, the Inuit beneficiary in the circumstance of the Meadowbank mine in Baker Lake. Those are private agreements, not disclosed.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Well, I appreciate that.

I wanted to go to Mr. Bloom and ask him to give us just a brief overview of some of those 29 projects he mentioned.

[Mitch Bloom]

It's fascinating. In the north you get to the number of $23 billion because the size of the projects is so large. You simply cannot advance a project in the north unless it has significant size because of the cost of getting there. There's a lack of infrastructure. So that critical mass generally brings you between a $1 billion and $6 billion project. As we like to say, it's generally a large infrastructure project with a hole at the end of it, which is the mine or the oil and gas site, or things like that. They are quite large in scale and scope, and they're at every spot in the north. We share maps with a lot of our clients and we have dots on all of these projects. And Yukon, the NWT, and Nunavut all have these major projects that are coming through. Some of them are brand new projects of grand proportions, like the Baffinland iron ore mine, which has been known for 60 years and has now reached the point where it's ready to go. There's also a bit of a pattern that's developing where, through technology, some older mines, especially some older gold mines in the Yukon, are now able to come back on stream.

I had a fascinating meeting this week with a company that operates a tungsten mine in the Yukon. Through technology, they're actually able to go to an old mine and get a better ore output than they do from new mines in other parts of the world.

All this to say, they are at all different points and all different shapes and sizes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

I will finish up with Mr. Eyking, for five minutes, please.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair. Thanks, folks, for coming.

Recently a couple of articles came out. One was in The Globe and Mail the other day about how the activity up north, especially shipping and, as you mentioned, the mining and extracting industries, is going to really escalate. Also, there was an article in the last few days in The Economist on how the wildlife is going to change. Species of fish are going to leave an area and go to a totally different area, and the same with mammals and birds. There's going to be a whole shift. Then of course, you realize that the living conditions of people living up north are going to change. There are going to be challenges with the permafrost.

That being said, your two departments are going to be key on how we as Canadians, or the people in the north in particular, are going to adapt over the next few decades. My first question is, are you going to need more money for all the challenges you people are going to face in the next few decades? Also, do we need a change in the mandates of your departments? Do you need a change in how you operate, with the challenges and priorities that are going to be up there? That's a question for both of you.

[Mitch Bloom]

I'll try first.

The north is changing, and that's going to require an immense government effort. We try to do two things in CanNor. One is to establish how much money we are spending up there as a federal government—and they're immense dollars right now. The other thing is to develop those partnerships.

When I said that there is $23 billion of infrastructure going up, that's private sector money. That's not government money doing that. If you're able to work with territorial governments, if you're able to work with the private sector, if you're able to work with the aboriginal communities, there's a lot there to work with. I think the magic is going to be, for us—and I think this is speaking to your point on mandate—the ability to get those people to work together, to sequence and align their efforts in the right order so that we're doing the right thing.

That's why I use the adult basic education program. If somebody can't read a safety sign at a mine site, there's no job there for them, so you have to start at the base and then do these things in the right order, and make sure we're not duplicating and overlapping. I don't think there's a lot of that going on, but at the same time, I think we can work better together as partners. I spend a lot of time travelling from place to place, getting folks to work together. I think that's the key.