Thank you very much.
Good afternoon.
I work for Moose Cree First Nation, as the employment and training coordinator for the Lower Mattagami River project. The hydro redevelopment project is a partnership between Ontario Power Generation and Moose Cree First Nation. I am here through the successes of our aboriginal skills employment partnership program as well.
Last night, according to my database results, our employees are currently at 441 in our database system, and this is just after about 16 months of operation. I believe our successes are really due to and consistent with a number of findings in the business case for investing in Canada's remote communities, specifically the need for flexible and diverse training programs. A lot of our successes are from learning from best practices regionally and across the country, and likely the key to the success in our program is from the integration of community participation in the processes of the project.
SIBI Employment and Training received aboriginal skills employment partnership dollars in June 2010, so it has not been long. These dollars have been an important piece of our training employment funding. Our organization actually began building capacity in 2007, when, in preparation, Moose Cree First Nation and Ontario Power Generation put together a human resources survey for our community and we identified what the current skills were in the community.
The database continues to grow, with over 1,000 clients. From the database we identified four groups that were interested in working on the projects—first, individuals with specific experience and certification—the qualified people. So those are easy. They are our journeypeople, of whom we have very few. We have say five carpenters, one plumber, and two electricians. I can count them. They can go directly to the unions. In fact, with our Lower Mattagami River project, Moose Cree First Nation had the first journeyperson carpenter at site, so that was really positive for our community.
The second group, which is the largest group of workers, is people with experience but who don't have the accreditation. They don't have their certificates, and likely it would take too long to actually go back and achieve their certification. There would be too many barriers and they wouldn't be successful. What we did on that item for our project was to work with the unions to have interviewing and aptitude testing so that these individuals could qualify for employment on the project, but wouldn't have long-term union membership and wouldn't become journeypeople.
We also had individuals from past training programs, who had been trained but had little experience. For these individuals we developed work placement programs. And then we had a large group of people who were either new workers or returning to the labour force. We developed a seven-week introductory course that looked at self-knowledge and community knowledge, and we called it employment readiness. That program began in November 2009, and was delivered to 180 people through 11 intakes since November 2009.
Also, in identifying past training that had happened in the region, we noted that in a past project 250 heavy equipment operators were trained; however, they hadn't achieved employment. So those were our people that we sent to union-recognized training schools to get their certification. And all of those individuals worked at the Lower Mattagami River project at some point, or are currently working. Many have moved on to Detour at this stage.
We used our labour market information from the supply and the demand side, and then joined the dots.
What happened once the project started is that we developed a targeted training-to-employment plan with the contractor, and we've had successes in areas such as cement field testers for quality assurance, rodbusters, carpenters, drill and blasters, cement truck drivers, warehouse people, health and safety officers, security guards, cooks, and crane operators—so very diverse employment opportunities.
The success is collaboration on delivery agents, and curriculum and the training selection with all three stakeholders involved: the community, the industry, and the unions. I think government could be at the table as well, although they haven't really been at the table except through HRSDC representation with our project.
Having trainees do a turnaround at the site or any type of site visit is also another best practice that we have recognized during our training, so that people can see if that's the type of work for them. Getting the contractor involved with the trainees right from the beginning also makes it easier if there are delays in the work schedule in the training-to-employment program because then that trainee feels connected. We know it's challenging trying to work with industry, especially in a construction project, and meet schedules, timelines, and integrate the trainees into that. But if the contractor—and in my case, the union—is directly connected with our trainees, then that frustration isn't there because those people see there is a job eventually coming for them.
I do think a broad-based training program that does not overtrain in one area is necessary for a successful long-term labour force. That's really an important key to it being community-driven and dependent on the needs of the community.
A priority for SIBI is also apprenticeship registrations and completions, as past training initiatives have really focused on pre-apprenticeship models. Through this project, I've tried to look at the successes of past models, and found that we've had very few apprentice registrations from those pre-apprenticeship models.
With the Lower Mattagami River project we currently have through the union registrations and employer direct registrations two mobile crane operators, two electricians, one plumber, one heavy equipment mechanic, so six registered apprentices. Currently, there are also apprenticeship registrations happening at our Lower Mattagami site.
One of the common challenges I was reading about in the report and that I've experienced quite frequently is dealing with the provincial Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities on apprenticeship and dealing with different representatives. There are challenges and frustrations in dealing with the same government but with different analysts and different ideas coming from the offices. The main goal for us is to create a legacy of certified tradespeople from the youth that will be able to keep those skills in the community for the future.
This is related to education. I'm not going into all the barriers that first nations peoples face in education. I think in the last couple of days we've really been bombarded with information that to me are very band-aid solutions—such as Attawapiskat—but education brings all of those issues to the surface, right? One of the things that's been identified and has already been identified by Gary as well is the lack of career counselling and knowledge of opportunities, which results in problems, as I mentioned before, of many community members wanting to become heavy equipment operators because of a lack of knowledge due to the provincial and federal dichotomy.
I think it's really through our local businesses.... Another focus for our training dollars has been on wage partnerships, and that is to really encourage our local businesses to build their capacity. We've also done a workplace literacy program with local businesses. I think that is another area that needs to grow and that can really benefit the individual workers and the businesses. It's through our local business successes that long-term community economic growth will occur. The integration of the community into the project is the key to our success, and this has been achieved by the first nations Amisk-oo-skow agreement, which, as I've heard Moose Creek First Nation Chief Hardisty say, is a treaty-based agreement. It's based on partnership, apologies for past grievances, and a respectful relationship into the future that includes cross-cultural learning through recognition of traditional ecological knowledge on the project, integration of an elders' advisory working group, and then opportunities for Moose Creek First Nation business, employment, and training opportunities.
Specific to the results of the employment success is the integration of our office into the hiring process.