Human Resources Committee on Feb. 25th, 2014

[Scott Wells]

Thank you for your comments and your question.

First and foremost, I tried to present the importance of the programs we deliver, as the others did, I'm sure: the youth employment strategy for the young folks; FNICCI, the first nations and Inuit child care initiative for people who need to be in training or work; the ASETS program for employment wage subsidy-type programs, employment training; and of course, the CED program, the community economic development program, which CanNor delivers.

So recommendation number one is these programs are very important to our operations, to the people we serve, and to the way we do business. We will soon be in the last year of ASETS and a new post-ASETS arrangement will be coming forward. The CED program is currently in program renovation; it has been for four years now. As I mentioned, unfortunately the YES program was cut by 18% this year.

We are touching people, we are serving people, and we are reaching people with the programs we deliver. We are getting success from those programs.

It's been mentioned that we are unique, each of us is unique. Our region, Nunavut, is unique. It's very different from a southern first nations reserve. But we still have similar problems, similar challenges, and we have tried to be flexible and use the ASETS program and the YES program.

For example, two years ago we partnered with Baffinland Iron Mines and with the Government of Nunavut to do a work readiness program. The people who were going to be hired to go to Baffinland Iron Mines would have to go through a two-week soft skills training program. They would have to do things like money management. They would have to deal with issues like being away from family—three weeks in, one week out—drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling, things of that nature. All of those soft skills issues, nothing to do with their occupation. That was a pilot program we devised and wrote in Nunavut, a made-for-Nunavut program that Baffinland has now adopted and is continuing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you for that.

Now we move on to the Conservative Party.

Mr. Armstrong, you have five minutes.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Wells, you had in your presentation talked about how your organization supports the purchase of businesses to employ first nations people. Could you explain and maybe give me a specific example of how your organization supports that process?

[Scott Wells]

Yes, certainly. Thank you for the question.

We administer the Aboriginal Business Canada program, the ABC program, and as an aboriginal financial institution, we have a loan fund there as well, the Makigiaqvik loan fund.

What we would do if a client comes in, or we identify opportunities, we would start working with the client. In a lot of cases, we work from the very beginning, helping them with their business plan, helping them with a feasibility study. We have a small grant program, the Sivummut fund. It's a parent organization...land claims dollars. We give a grant to assist them with a feasibility study, with a business plan, and that sort of thing. Then we start working with other organizations, Baffin Business Development Corporation—organizations like that—and with Economic Development and Transportation, Government of Nunavut, and we start leveraging funding from other organizations to assist them to either start their business or to purchase a business, for example. Then we would move to the aftercare phase, where our staff would assist them with the operations, with their accounting processes, and that sort of thing.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

So if clients came to you and had an interest in purchasing a business, they could pretty much walk through your doors and in one-stop-shopping have access to all of those programs—you would help to facilitate that—and they could get some funding from your organization as well.

[Scott Wells]

They would get some funding from our organization. They could probably get a maximum of maybe $30,000 to $50,000 in grants, $150,000 in loans, and then we would assist them in finding other sources as well.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Crocker, these are the main things I'm hearing from you. We need some programming to make sure we do proper recruitment of employees to support businesses, and ASETS has been working on that. We need flexibility within the system so we can meet the needs of various different types of reserves and communities that provided those employees. Also at the end, once the employee has been hired, trained, and on the job, we need to have some aftercare to make sure some of the barriers they may face to maintaining their employment are overcome.

Am I accurate in saying that's the crux of what you presented to us today?

[Stephen Crocker]

Yes, absolutely, they are the three key messages that I wanted to bring. In Alberta and on the prairies, the smallest first nation in Alberta has under 100 members, and the largest has over 14,000. So the capabilities of those two groups are completely different, and their needs are different, so that's why the programs have to be flexible.

We found that it's really important, especially in remote-site accommodations, that we help the individual get over three rotations—three weeks in, one week home—and then the family gets used to it. They get used to the rigours of employment and they get used to the job. It's those three rotations, so three months of providing supports, that is really critical in terms of long-term retention.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

So you would say that if you were able to provide these supports at the front end of employment, after roughly three months you're able to acclimatize that client, that employee, so then you can wean them off those supports and put that focus on the new employees who are coming in and following them. Am I accurate in saying that? That's kind of the barrier, that three-month transition period.

[Stephen Crocker]

It is. It's so easy to slip back. In three months the financial aspect of having a full-time job in a remote site kicks in. Everything is provided for the employee, and after three months the family gets used to having new boots, new coats, and being off social assistance and having their own money. They enjoy financial independence, and it's important to provide those supports for that period of time. Once they're financially independent and the family is used to their mom or dad, or both, going to work in a remote site, everything kicks in. We do have husband-and-wife teams from first nation communities working at our sites.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Mr. Armstrong, that's the end of your questioning.

Now we move on to the Liberal party with Mr. Cuzner for five minutes.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'm just going to keep on with Mr. Crocker if I could. Most of the three weeks in and the week out rotations are in bull cook or kitchen positions for your first nations employees. What would the salary range—

[Stephen Crocker]

There's also housekeeping.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Yes. What would the salary range be there? Is there an hourly rate? Is there a premium rate for everything over 40 hours? Could you give us an estimation of what kind of money they're making?

[Stephen Crocker]

Yes. We have no grade 12 hiring requirement so for someone with no education or experience, and we've hired many, we start them off at $20 per hour. On top of that they receive $4 an hour that goes into an RRSP fund beginning at hour 1. All benefits such as medical, dental, eyeglasses, and prescriptions kick in after 30 days. There is a transportation allowance to get from their community to the site. After three rotations there's an automatic $2 increase. After another three, there's another $2 increase. So in the first year they can work themselves up to $26 an hour.

At site they generally put in 10 hours per day, so every hour over 8 is at time and a half. Because they are working 21 days the breakdown would be 120 hours at regular rates and then another 90 hours would be at time and a half. We've done the calculation and gross income is somewhere between $95,000 and $100,000 for somebody to be washing dishes or cleaning a room at our remote-site accommodations.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I might dust off the resumé here.

I would think the lion's share of your camps are zero tolerance as well?

[Stephen Crocker]

We have three levels. It's really determined by the customer. Some are dry, where alcohol is not permitted. Some are what we call damp, where alcohol is allowed in the room. For some we have full-service bars, which are highly monitored and highly restricted. There are limited hours of operation and rules of one drink at a time. If there is any notice of somebody becoming intoxicated they are immediately cut off.

We have found that the dry sites are where we have more problems than at the wet sites.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

If I could just get your comments on retention rates and what they would be.... Are there opportunities there for first nations to move up into management positions or pathways into trades opportunities?

[Stephen Crocker]

The company does offer apprenticeship opportunities. The person would have to complete their probationary period, show an interest in that particular trade, and then go through the internal process. Of course because of apprenticeship requirements we are limited on how many apprentices we can take on at any given time. There is a ratio between journeymen and apprentices. But we do offer apprenticeships and we have a number of aboriginal people engaged in the program.

Also, all our jobs are posted internally and on our website. We do encourage people who have been working at site to move up into supervisory positions. We have some that are going up to supervisory. Some people don't want to take on responsibilities like that. They would just rather do their job and not have the problems that go along. They just want to work and go home and they're happy.

Right now I believe we have somewhere around 15 individuals that are in senior management positions throughout the company. Some are in sales. Some are in human resources. Some are managers and operations managers and they are first nations and Métis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much.

That ends our time for questioning. We thank the witnesses for taking the time today to be with us to help us along with this study. As I mentioned to the previous group of witnesses, we'll be undertaking this study over the next number of weeks. If you have any additional things you'd like to submit to the committee, please do so in writing to the clerk of the committee.

Again, I appreciate your taking the time. Thank you very much.

Committee members, please remain in your spots while we go in camera for our committee business section.

[Proceedings continue in camera]