Evidence of meeting #16 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 training.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Corporate Affairs, Vale
I'll defer to my colleague from Voisey's Bay who's familiar with the operation.
Bob Carter Manager, Corporate Affairs, Vale
Thank you.
Most of the businesses that support our operations are joint ventures. When we signed the IBAs, it was very clear in terms of the commitment that the company had given to the aboriginals that all business opportunities flowing from our operations would be given first, as a priority, to aboriginal companies.
We, in fact, had to educate the business community—and there were models that existed elsewhere in Canada that we built on—that if they wanted to do business with us in Labrador they must find an aboriginal partner. The mainstream contractors that helped build the facilities, in fact, had that experience in both northern Alberta and in the Diavik experience in the Northwest Territories. The industry is learning that if they want to do business in areas where aboriginal title is a key consideration, they must form business partnerships.
What we've seen mature over 10 years is a business relationship that is gradually seeing more capacity being built within the aboriginal communities themselves to manage the businesses and mature and grow. Thus our ability to flow over $1 billion in supply contracts to the businesses is indicative of how successful that model is.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Thank you very much.
I just want to continue on that line Scott was pursuing. You go to some of these sites and very few of the actual bodies on the site are direct employees of the company. The vast majority are contractors.
I think it's noble. I think it's important and it's in everybody's best interest to take the approach that you guys have taken.
Do you identify a portion of how many contracts are going to be awarded to the indigenous community, or is it just encouraging the partnerships?
Manager, Corporate Affairs, Vale
Our working assumption is that all will be awarded to aboriginal businesses. Our procurement model requires, and our contractual agreement with the aboriginals requires, that we bring all business opportunities to them first.
They've been able to develop, over time, relationships with non-aboriginal businesses that have expertise in areas that we require to support our operations. They've been able to mature business relationships such that—with the exception of buying bulk materials that we require, such as fuel or some of our consumables that you wouldn't expect to be supplied by an aboriginal business—all of the support services that we require at Voisey's Bay are now running through aboriginal companies.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Is it a similar approach for the other companies as well?
At Rio Tinto, is it a similar approach for you?
Director of Environment, Communities and Regulatory Affairs, Rio Tinto
Yes. An example within Rio Tinto would be something like the Kitimat aluminum smelter upgrades or modernization program and the Kemano project, whereby we look at and work with the local suppliers, first nations suppliers, and try to structure the contracts to meet their scale of operations. We also used a phased or regional approach to contracting where the first round is within the local region, and then you expand out in concentric circles if the local area and next area are unable to meet those contract needs.
Director, Aboriginal, Government & Community Relations, Canada and United States, Goldcorp Inc.
We've taken I think a slightly different approach in Quebec, depending on where we are located. You have to understand that in Quebec, our Cree partners already came to the table with significant capacity in terms of business. So the business is there.
They themselves told us, “We don't want all the contracts. We want to be able to negotiate with you on certain contracts that we think we can execute very well. We want to be able to bid on certain contracts that we think we can deliver quite well. There are some that we recognize we can't deliver, so we're not going to worry about those just yet.”
So they've taken that approach, and we've agreed to that approach, but we have this ongoing dialogue with them on what's coming up, what big contracts are coming up, and we ask them if they think they can execute these well and all those kinds of things. We've taken that approach in Quebec.
In Ontario, where we have two historic operations, Red Lake and Timmins, there's already an existing well-established contractor community. The first nations recognize that. There what we've done is we've said that we're willing to work with you to start off on a slow basis. They recognize that they don't want us to get rid of our existing contractors to put them at the front of the line. What they've said is, “We'd like to work with you on opportunities where we can build our capacity from the ground up, where we can execute contracts where we already have existing capacity; we'll talk to you about those ones. Over time we'll build up our capacity where we are owners of the businesses and owners of those and we can execute them well.”
That's the approach we've taken in both Red Lake and Timmins.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
I feel like I know you guys. You get on the plane every Monday morning and you're heading to either Red Lake or Diavik. Cape Bretoners are everywhere. Like earwigs, we're everywhere—
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
—many in Fort McMurray.
You made the comment that you're miners, not educators, and I respect that comment. Do you see the role of the company as being more making sure that all local people are aware of the scope of the opportunity? The way you explained it is relevant, that it goes from exploration to the mining to the cleanup to the monitoring in years out, so the whole spectrum of opportunity is vast.
Do you see yourselves as, more than educators, just promoters of the opportunity?
Director, Aboriginal, Government & Community Relations, Canada and United States, Goldcorp Inc.
Yes, we are, actually. Absolutely we—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Phil McColeman
We're over time on the response, so I will have to end it there. Perhaps the response can come out during another question round, but that's it for that round.
Mrs. McLeod, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses. It's great to have you here today and to hear about the work you're doing.
My first question, which should be a quick one, is for everyone. Typically the federal government has what they call the “asset holders”. Do you have a direct relationship with the asset holders in the areas where you're doing business?
Maybe I can just do a quick down the row there.
Director, Aboriginal, Government & Community Relations, Canada and United States, Goldcorp Inc.
It's not typically a direct relationship. In certain instances, yes, but it's not a direct relationship, or not in our experience to date.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
So you're not looking at your needs, talking directly with the asset holder, and then sort of collaborating in terms of where the opportunities are and where the training support is needed?
Director, Aboriginal, Government & Community Relations, Canada and United States, Goldcorp Inc.
Our preferred approach, or at least my preferred approach, is that the communities come to the table with us and say, “We have the ability, with this organization, to work with you.” We work with the communities directly.
So it's not necessarily direct, but it's very close to the asset holder. They're absolutely there in the background, for sure.
Manager, Corporate Affairs, Vale
Our experience is a little bit of both. The thing you have to understand about mining is that it takes a long time to get a project started. In our case, in Labrador, it was about 10 years from when we discovered the property to when we could actually break ground. In that 10 years we spent a lot of time in the communities doing what I call missionary work, making sure that the communities understood what the opportunities were and what our requirements were. Thus, we developed relationships with training institutions, with governments, with communities, and they've stood us well over time. The federal government was flexible enough when we needed support to begin the training specifically for our operation to allow this pilot program called JETA to be created. There were no rule books. We all thought a little bit creatively, broke some of the rather restrictive models that sometimes you see with government programming to make it work.
Director of Environment, Communities and Regulatory Affairs, Rio Tinto
I would echo very much Bob's comments in terms of our own experience. We try to engage very closely both with government and the training institutes to identify skill needs, job opportunities coming up, and then work with them to develop the training modules that are needed to meet those opportunities. An example, going back to Diavik, which I talked about earlier, is we have in place a Diavik community-based training program. Over the past two years about 200 people have participated in that program and 90% of them have gained employment, either directly at Diavik Diamond Mine or in other jobs and opportunities in the region.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
A quick yes or no on this, was that supported through ASETS?
Director of Environment, Communities and Regulatory Affairs, Rio Tinto
I'd have to check on that. I'm not exactly sure of the funding sources.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
If you could get back that would be great.
You probably are aware that many of the provinces have now signed off on the Canada Job Grant. As companies, in terms of how that might match with how you move forward with the aboriginal training process, where there truly is going to be a partnership—federal government, provincial, organizations, companies—do you have any comments, thoughts, or any thinking that's been done on that one?
Mr. Webster.
Director, Aboriginal, Government & Community Relations, Canada and United States, Goldcorp Inc.
Certainly.
I don't want to come back to this mineral development sequence, and the opportunities associated with all of those different phases of mineral development, but when I saw the announcements coming out, there's a huge opportunity here for connecting all of those things and doing it maybe not on a grand scale but certainly in a more geographically reduced scale. I look at northern Ontario as being a prime example of that when we have historically operating mines. We have three mines in northern Ontario. There's obviously a significant amount of exploration going on in northern Ontario. To me, it sets the stage for a really interesting dialogue with industry, with governments, training institutions, and first nations to look at the human resources needs across that spectrum and across all those different communities.