Evidence of meeting #15 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here. Starting with Ms. LaBelle, you talked in your submission that there was a potential overlap between SPF and ASETS funds. Do you want to talk a bit and expand on that a little bit for me?
Executive Director, Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre
Like I say, they're across the street from us, and they're mining. CCATEC applied for the same funds. We weren't awarded them, and that was fine. We support all aboriginal dollars coming into our region, except that they're the cream of the crop.
We were looking at doing a heavy-duty mechanics program, maybe six. We're in a very small region to start that training. I get an email that they're running the same program, so we won't do it. Nineteen thousand dollars per seat for 20 heavy-duty mechanics in our region is like flooding the market.
We're held accountable to do business plans, operational plans, so that the federal government, our board, and our staff know exactly where we're putting our dollars and where we're moving forward. To have that makes no sense to me.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
You also talked about—and we heard a bit about this yesterday—the provincially administered LMA money, that it's very hard for organizations like yours that is providing training for the aboriginal population to access that LMA money. Is that accurate?
Executive Director, Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre
That's accurate.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Would it not be better if the federal government actually directly provided money to the client, for example with the Canada job grant, so that they can actually reach out and take the training they need to take through, for example, programs like yours?
Executive Director, Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre
I feel that we have had some.... We have tried that, our agency, but we find that sometimes the client barriers are very strong and sometimes the training dollars don't get to the training agency.
No, I don't agree with that. I think the labour market agreement dollars in British Columbia should be targeted. We did submit a strategy to the province, to a number of the different ministers and MLAs, for an aboriginal strategy for British Columbia that complements the ASETS agreement.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Thank you.
Mr. Ritter, on to you. You talked about some of the work you've done reaching out to different groups in the community to try to build apprenticeships and to expand aboriginal employment. Have you done anything with the post-secondary institutions? Is there any relationship there?
Chief Executive Officer, Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission
Yes, we absolutely work very closely with post-secondary institutions. We contract a variety of the institutions. The Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, SIAST, is our largest training provider. So they're a service provider for us.
But I mentioned earlier in my submission that one prerequisite to being an apprentice is that you have a job. That seems to be the issue. In Saskatchewan we're running a 4% unemployment rate. Economists would suggest that's very close to full employment. We have 2,200 unemployed first nations people on reserve between the ages of 18 and 24. For that particular population the issue seems to be in providing the essential skills that would be necessary to allow them to secure that first job, which would then allow them to undertake an apprenticeship through to journeyperson.
Some of those essential skills, in my discussions with employers, relate to challenges around transportation: not having a driver's licence to be able to drive to work, not having adequate child care if a child gets sick and they can't go to day care, not having a back-up. Some of those very real challenges represent a barrier for their participation in the labour market.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
You also talked about completion rates, and you've done a lot of work on the research. You also said the next step is to look at some of the barriers that cause the completion rate to be lower. We've heard from other witnesses that there has to be some successful pre-training done on basic job skills so that you can actually leave the reserve or community.
We've also heard that there's great difficulty, particularly for someone leaving home for the first time, which many of these young people are who are engaging in this training. It takes a lot of work for the employer as well to reduce some of those barriers, flexible work schedules. Are you finding that some of those programs that employers are doing have been effective?
Chief Executive Officer, Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission
For sure.
One of the success stories that I want to highlight, and I mentioned it in my submission, is the Regina and Saskatoon Trades and Skills Centres. They have a formula that should be replicated more. What those two organizations do is, first of all, they offer very short programs. From a pre-employment perspective, they're not 20 weeks long, they're six to eight weeks long.
In those six to eight weeks they do a few things very well. First off, they offer some basic safety training so that the employer knows they're not going to hurt themselves or somebody else on their first day of the job. They give them a basic orientation to the tools so they're going to be somewhat productive. They build that attachment with employers so that at the end of that eight-week period, all of those students are offered a job. The last thing is that they really focus on essential skills. If you don't show up every day for one of the trades and skills centre's courses, they'll fire you, just like what happens in a real job. They focus very hard in those four areas and they've had great success.
They're a wonderful feeder program for the apprenticeship system because students who complete there go on to get jobs. They ask their employer to indenture them as an apprentice, and then we take over from there. That seems to be a very effective model.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Phil McColeman
Thank you, Mr. Ritter, for that success story at the end.
Thank you for coming, on behalf of the committee. Thank you for travelling. I know it's quite a distance for you. We were originally anticipating being in your territory, but we were unable to complete that, but thank you for taking the time today.
This is an important study. Everyone knows that we need to tap this resource of first nations and aboriginal peoples and we're working towards a very fruitful study. Your input is very important to that, so thank you once more.
I'll suspend for just a brief minute while we go in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]