Good morning.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for inviting the Centre for Aboriginal Human Resource Development, or CAHRD, to present.
I hope everyone has had the opportunity to view the short video we sent. It is somewhat dated. We've developed more programming since then. But it provides the essence of the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy, ASETS, program in Winnipeg.
I'm going to make a few points, and then hopefully I can answer any questions you might have.
As I said in my brief, I belief the ASETS and previous aboriginal labour market programs have been very successful and essential. As well as allowing us to provide employment and training to aboriginal people, ASETS has also allowed us to leverage many other services to support them.
CAHRD has also used two other federal employment programs in the recent past. One was the aboriginal skills and employment partnership, ASEP; and the other was the aboriginal skills and training strategic investment fund, ASTSIF. Both were positive, and helped us to train and find employment for aboriginal people. We also have dealings with Western Diversification as they continue to be supportive by helping in the acquisition of machinery and developing training space for us.
The ASEP program allowed us to develop more capacity to deliver programs that facilitated the establishment of a modern, state-of-the-art, flexible training centre. Neeginan College, our training institute, was able to expand its industry partnerships, and also credibility with industry was enhanced. When our ASEP project, aboriginal aerospace initiative, was over, CAHRD continued with the infrastructure and training with some of the partners through our ASETS funding. Our programs, which were industry and apprenticeship accredited, finally allowed us to train aboriginal people for employment in the gas turbine overhaul and machinists at apprenticeship level 1 in aircraft maintenance. For that program we had a total of 101 aboriginal people employed.
The ASTSIF program was shorter and it had timing issues, but it also helped us to establish ourselves more in terms of working with industry. We developed two programs there, one for medical device reprocessing technicians, and the other for industrial manufacturing technicians.
To end then, there's another question that I'd like to answer, and that's the one about employment opportunities for aboriginal people. I do agree with the previous speakers, all of our issues are so very important, and the work that we're doing is so important. Aboriginal people do have opportunities in employment but we have to prepare them for the workforce, and we need to prepare the workforce for them. From our experience, we know that industry wants to work with us to train and hire aboriginal people. We couldn't do the type of programming needed to accomplish this without the ASETS program. Although we try to use a holistic model at Neeginan and CAHRD, we still don't meet all the needs of our clients. We would be more successful over time if we did a better job at providing full wraparound supports. The participants who access our services are susceptible to falling back into their former lifestyles. The better we are at engaging them in new lifestyles, education, and training, the more successful they will be. This is why future ASETS programs have to continue to be a balance between direct training skills for the labour force, and providing resources, so that we can provide the education, training, personal and cultural awareness, development, and stabilization that our clients need if they're going to be able to enter training and the workforce.
We did a cost analysis for a family consisting of one parent and two children going from employment and income assistance to a salary of $25,000. This shows that the benefit to the government funders would be approximately $25,000 for that small family, and this also includes the $5,000 that it costs on average for one employment placement by CAHRD, our agency. If we multiply that by the number of clients we place in employment in one year, this is a saving of over $22 million. This is a social return on investment of 460%, and it doesn't speak to the intergenerational benefits of not raising children on welfare and of breaking that cycle of poverty.
Now I want to talk a little about developing partnerships. Employers are susceptible to stereotyping on past experiences with aboriginal workers and they also have production needs that have to be met. Thus they're sensitive to workplace issues that may present themselves with our trainees.
We make a great effort to support employers and our trainees in work practicums and on the job. When we develop a partnership we're very candid with our employers and we let them know we need their support to maximize benefits for trainees and for the workplace. We have job coaches and other supports for the trainees and employers. These are essential.
We have worked with Standard Aero for over 15 years. Both Standard Aero and CAHRD are proud that it was this partnership that resulted in Standard Aero having a 10% aboriginal workforce. This formal partnership, based on a letter of understanding and joint steering committee, is designed to fulfill Standard Aero's attrition rate of approximately 10 to 15 gas turbine technicians each year. I'd like to say that one of our first training programs with Standard Aero 15 years ago was training all women to work in the industry. Some have moved on but I do know there is one lady still there and she's in a supervisor position.
Employment and Social Development Canada's focus is on training to guarantee jobs and having employers share in the costs. CAHRD has always had a model of training for employment with employer partners, but in most cases employers didn't contribute financially. They have provided, and do provide, in-kind assistance in terms of their time on committee, work practicums, and even giving machinery and providing some training. For example, this is very tentative but right now we're talking to an employer outside of Winnipeg who is willing to shuttle aboriginal workers to and from work once we have them trained. This employer is also willing to bring the product and his workers to supervise our trainees so that the required work practicum can be done at Neeginan College. At Neeginan College we train if we have employer groups interested in hiring. But because of how quickly the labour force changes, not all trainees are always employed immediately after the program ends. But they do gain the skills to enter the workforce as soon as there are opportunities.
Finally, I want to comment on our relationship with the Province of Manitoba. In my brief I mention that we didn't have a collaborative relationship with the labour market program, which is true and it would have been helpful, but I do want to make note that we do receive quite a large amount of support from the province for several of our programs, including an adult learning centre, housing for our students, two day cares. So far this year we've received about $250,000 from the province for tuition for our students who have been attending our Neeginan College of Applied Technology.
In closing, I want to thank you for listening to us and also give my support to the previous proposals because we all have the same story. There is a great need to continue these programs and enhance them.
Thank you.