METS partners with other training and employment organizations in Nova Scotia. Currently in addition to the ASETS agreement holders there are a number of skills and partnership fund agreements in our province with various end dates.
The largest of these SPF programs is the Nova Scotia aboriginal employment partnership. This program expires at the end of the 2015 fiscal year as well. NSAEP focuses specifically on employment opportunities within the $25-billion Irving Shipbuilding contract and the resulting spinoff opportunities.
We have been working in partnership with NSAEP to understand the needs and to promote, recruit, and train individuals so that they have the skills to succeed despite the first deal for these ships not being cut until 2015. This SPF project will receive approximately $5 million over a two-and-a-half year period. Continued resources will be needed to resume this work effectively and increase aboriginal participation at all stages of this project. It is estimated that at its peak, between 2020 and 2021, there will be 2,000 to 2,500 people employed at this site.
It is commonly stated that Nova Scotia's aging population is suffering, and will continue to suffer, from a shortage of skilled workers. We are currently working with Irving, the provincial and federal governments, as well as key aboriginal organizations to create a strategy for engaging first nations individuals and businesses to benefit from these opportunities. Ongoing resources will be key to implementing the strategy and for Mi'kmaq people to successfully prepare for these opportunities.
In addition to the Irving Shipbuilding contract, there are a number of other provincial economic development initiatives under way over the next few years that will require many skilled workers: for example, the Maritime Link project, the construction and operation of the Pictou County jail, first nations-owned wind projects, and the Melford terminal.
In addition, the assembly of Mi'kmaq chiefs and the KMKNO office have signed, and are currently negotiating, MOUs and IBAs with a number of companies, including Port Hawkesbury Paper, Donkin mines, Emera, Shell, Pieridae, and Moose River. All of these projects will have considerable opportunities for the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia. With our limited budgets for training and employment interventions, we do not have the financial resources to adequately prepare our community members for these opportunities. It is imperative to the Mi'kmaq that further and greater funding resources be allocated post-2015.
Working in partnership with all aboriginal organizations in the province has helped to eliminate redundancy and the silo effect. However, even with our combined expertise and resources, our people are still facing many of the same barriers to gaining and sustaining employment. Some of these barriers include low literacy skills, limited educational attainment levels and access to education, racism, discrimination, low self-esteem, poverty and poor housing conditions, lack of driver's licences and transportation, the recruitment and selection process for employment itself, access to affordable child care, proximity of employment opportunities to their home communities, and still very few aboriginal people being in positions involving real decision-making authority.
In addition to these barriers, there seems to be a gap between official government policy and practice in relation to workforce diversity. These barriers will require commitment from not only the Mi'kmaq but also all levels of government and industry themselves. A future agreement for employment and training should be one that is flexible, with a longer funding commitment. The historical and systemic barriers that aboriginal people have faced for gaining self-sufficiency will not be changed in the next five years. In order to achieve the greatest success, continuous planning for short-term as well as long-term results will need to be sustainable over a longer duration of time.
Many of our clients come with multiple barriers. They need multiple interventions, in addition to requiring an array of services. By providing wraparound services that will ultimately prepare clients with the fundamental and foundational skill sets needed, greater results will be captured. We know, as employment experts, that we want to engage our clients while they're excited to start on their journey to becoming self-sustaining. Having year-after-year wait-lists for training only further handicaps our people before they even begin.
To date our communities have used the LMA dollars to offset expenses and capture a wider audience. These funds were used for on-site literacy, essential skills and skills development projects, work placements, and workplace education. With the transfer of funds from the LMA to the Canada jobs grant, the aboriginal communities will not be able to provide these types of programs on site. Nova Scotia is made up of a majority of small to medium-sized businesses. With the financial strains of today's economy, very few businesses will be able to meet the criteria of matching requests to access this fund.
Not only aboriginals but Nova Scotians as a whole will feel the effects of losing these dollars that could be utilized to bridge the gap to employment. Given the remote locations of the majority of our communities, these are the types of businesses we have partnered with for required hours, work placements, and cost sharing.
Without additional dollars, we will not be able to meet the demands of our regular programs, plus much needed community-based projects with links to our regional community—