You've asked some very complex questions, obviously. I know that you know that.
You've heard from us about how people can organize and work together, where industry can develop a joint approach. I've suggested to you that it's very important to look at it from the point of view of marginalized individuals, including aboriginal workers, for example. I have a broad-based practice in working on labour market issues as they affect aboriginal people in particular.
I talked to you earlier about a single-window entry system, horizontality--which is incredibly important--and funding stability, and investments. We're in a position in the west in particular such that most of our governments have a large amount of money in surpluses they are accumulating and they are able to spend some of that money to improve the social conditions that exist in our communities.
In Saskatchewan, as I'm sure all of you know--particularly Mrs. Yelich, because you're a member from here--solving the problems that Mr. McKinlay and Bev have alluded to, for example, may not be within our power to do, just because of the demographics. If we employed all the aboriginal people in our province who could be employed at the same rate as non-aboriginal people are employed, and if we employed all the disabled people in our province at the same rate as non-disabled people are employed, we would still have a shortage of workers. We'd still have a supply-demand gap. So this is a larger problem we're talking about.
If we're speaking about the future and about our lack of ability as a province to solve the problem of bringing aboriginal young people into the mainstream of our economy through training and education--and we do have a very large structural problem doing that in Saskatchewan, as you know--then we have to look at what the best way to invest is.
One of the things that have been done very successfully here in Saskatchewan to invest in the marginalized aboriginal worker is a program called the Saskatchewan aboriginal employment development program, which is funded by the Saskatchewan first nations and Métis relations department. That program has provided in excess of 2,500 linkages to employment and direct jobs for aboriginal people. These have been lasting jobs and they've been created through the removal of barriers. It has been very cost-effective to do this. The cost of this type of intervention is less than a quarter to perhaps an eighth of that of other types of direct intervention by governments.
Some of these things work. We're not spending enough money on them. We're not focusing enough on the wins. I see our relationship with the federal government in terms of--taking off my professional hat and putting on my volunteer hat--social agencies in our communities. These are very large social agencies. The food bank in Regina has the largest client base of any non-government or community-based organization in our province. We're not talking about small organizations. We're talking about 10,000 members in our community service village, for example.
You can have an opportunity to bring those people into the labour market. You have to spend money on enhancing their skills. Additionally, Saskatchewan has a labour market that has a fairly high rating in terms of the IALSS skills registry--I've forgotten the exact terminology, but I'm sure you're familiar with the IALSS skill analysis that is done on an international basis--but we have too many people in our economy who need to be moved from one level of skills to another, say a level 2 skill, which is a literacy-based skill, to a level 3 skill, with which people can work independently.
How are you going to do that? You need to invest in that sector, and things need to be targeted. We need much more strategic thinking, and we need much more investment on a targeted basis to solve those problems. Even if we do all of those things, we will still need to develop a strategy around immigration that's better focused. I know those things are being worked on, but it takes time.
We need horizontality with the feds, and we need a significant level of strategic coordination, funding stability, and a single-window entry system so that we can work on these things together.