Human Resources Committee on Sept. 27th, 2012

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

First, the training is paid for by the Government of Quebec. The Ministère de l'Éducation pays for the students to be trained.

When we work with various school boards around the province, we get involved by helping them with the operational costs, given that training is not offered everywhere. If I use the example of Matimekush-Lac John, we had to ship all the equipment there for the heavy equipment course.

Instead of taking Aboriginal people out of their areas to study, knowing that the retention rate is not good and that they are going to be working in their communities anyway, where the jobs are, we move all the equipment so that we can offer the training. So those are extra costs that normally get added to the training and that are not reimbursed.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I suppose you could call them extra costs, but here is what I think. There are extra costs, but clearly, a need is being met. The north needs workers.

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

Yes, it does.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

So I do not see them as extra costs, or as a loss. They are potentially an investment. Let me try to get this all straight with you. If we have a cohort of 20 people and 18 of them get jobs, what could the extra costs mean? What kind of wages will those 18 young Aboriginals be making? It all has to be balanced out; it all has to be clear. Yes, there is a cost, but do the results pay off, in general, over a five-year or ten-year period? At first glance, I think they do, but I would like to establish that with you in more detail.

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

That depends on the type of training and where it is given. For a heavy equipment course, there are a lot of big machines. By comparison, for a carpentry course, there really are not many operational costs.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Because the equipment is lighter.

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

Exactly. We have given them in Maniwaki, for example, and in other places, and there are really not a lot of major costs. For a drilling and blasting course, we have had to send our clients off to various places. There were not a lot of operational costs for the linesman course either. There are not really any operational costs for the equipment course we are giving in Vaudreuil at the moment. The costs are really for a follow-up officer to go with the clients to make sure that they really are successful at the end of the program and that the clients will get a diploma and a job.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Take an example of a cohort of 20 students. If we did things the other way around, if we did not make that extra investment to do the follow-up and hold a course “on location”, how many successful people would we have instead of 18? In your experience, might we only have ten people passing the course?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

I cannot give you an answer because this is the first time for the vocational training centre. Our success comes from the fact that our cohorts are made up of Aboriginal students only. With Aboriginal students scattered all across the province in various school boards, they begin the training, but some drop out. Our cohorts are made up solely of Aboriginals, with a follow-up agent who goes with them and makes sure that each student finishes the course.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

About how long has your first cohort been in the workforce?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

You can see in the document that the first cohort was in 2009. The training was held in Sept-Îles. It was a carpentry group.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

And they had a similar success rate, over 80%?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

They did. If you look at the documents I gave you, you can see that, in that group of 25 students, 20 completed the training and four did not because they had to take some modules again, or do make-up exams.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

So 20 people out of 25 are now in the workforce?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

Correct.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

And that program did not cost a lot because there was no heavy equipment?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

Exactly right.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

So those 20 Aboriginal students are now paying taxes and contributing to society.

What reasons were you given to justify stopping the federal funding for your projects?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

When we got the funding for the project, it was for five years. In the first year, the consortium was put together and there were no activities. Then we had to advertise all over Quebec in order to make ourselves known, we had to identify and recruit clients and put the various training courses together. The deadline was March 31. The feds had given us $5 million to start with, but it was never possible to spend it all. We had to give $2 million back to them. So we had spent $3 million to set up the centre and our organization, to get the cohorts going, to look after the kids and everything. But we have still trained 700 people.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Still, was it those $2 million that justified cutting...

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Monsieur Lapointe, your time is up. If you have a short question you want to ask, you're welcome to.

No, you're good.

All right, we'll now move to Mr. Shory, and you're sharing your time with Mr. Butt. Go ahead.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, as well.

My question will be for Madam Mary Ann Desjardins.

I'd like to thank you for doing some good work in the field where our study is headed, with the mandate of providing skills training and skills specialization to aboriginals, whom I call my Indian cousins.

I need some clarity. What I heard from following up the last question was that there was five-year funding of $5 million, of which $3 million was spent and $2 million was returned. Is that correct?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

Yes.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Would you be able to clarify this $3 million in five years? How many students were enrolled and how many have successfully completed their education or training?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

In the document that we gave you, the upgrade for ASP Construction, 305 trainings were completed. At CCGIC, 112 were completed, and there were 203 students for the DEPs, the diplôme d'études professionnelles—148, and 55 who are doing it at the moment for a total of 203.

I would say approximately 700 people were trained by the vocational training school. We've got a comité de gestion, and the people on the comité de gestion asked the Commission de la Construction du Québec how many of them are currently working in the construction file. We're waiting for all the information at our next committee meeting.