Thank you.
I have a question from a first nation/Métis/Inuit perspective on employability, but maybe I'll give a bit of context before I ask a very simple question.
One of the things I realized in my past work is that you can't get an unemployment rate in an aboriginal community because in order to be unemployed you have to register somewhere. When you're in an isolated community, that's a challenge. I know in my area this is the reality, so we end up having to focus on employment rates.
The unemployment rate of non-aboriginals, pan-northern Saskatchewan, is about 63%, and the first nations employment rate specifically is about 28%. I asked an economist, in my previous job, to find out this answer for me. In order to get to 50% of the first nations population, what do we need to do? He came back with figures, after a couple of weeks, that indicated we needed to generate the equivalent of 585 jobs a year for 10 years just to get to a 50% employment rate.
Employability is a huge challenge in the aboriginal community, but they also represent a huge potential in a province like Saskatchewan. When I got that, I was thinking to myself that I have some students right now in grades two, three, and four. With determinants on educational success like housing, when you have 10 or 12 people per house, what's the impact on literacy, learning, health, and self-esteem? I'm thinking about those kids in grades two, three, four, or five who are scheduled to be in the workforce a few years later.
In the Saskatchewan context, 50% of the Saskatchewan population is going to be aboriginal by the year 2045, or earlier—and of the labour force, by probably 2035, much earlier. When I look at employability, post-secondary education, and literacy issues, which are key determinants of success, I look at a number of factors that need to be overlapped and to have a bigger picture taken.
We've all heard of Dr. Foot's Boom Bust & Echo. He wrote a very valuable document that the world has used as the baby boomers have aged. We now have an aboriginal population, and I can see clear lessons to be learned from some of these predictions, as we're seeing another baby boom in Canada of this aboriginal community.
My question is very simple. Do you think enough is being done? I'm not saying that as a negative on current governments or past governments, but in general right now, overall, do you think enough is happening to mobilize that population to achieve the rates of employability that I'd like to see, from a post-secondary context?
Perhaps the CCL and the CLC could comment on that.