Thank you.
Good morning, and thank you so much, Chair, for the invitation to participate today and share some information.
My name is Colleen Hodgson and I am from Métis Nation B.C. I'm the director of industry engagement, partnerships, and education. As we know, Métis Nation British Columbia is one of the five governing bodies of the Métis National Council, which is like the AFN of the first nations, just for some background there.
I am Métis. My family originates from Hodgson, Manitoba. That's actually my community, or was my community; I live in beautiful British Columbia.
I would like to begin my comments by providing some context about my role with MNBC and how I am involved with post-secondary education and funding and the labour market. You'll see, as I share this with you, why that context is important.
Over the past several years I have been involved in the development of the aboriginal post-secondary education and training framework,which was a policy piece; the aboriginal service plans, which we started about five years ago; the Aboriginal post-secondary education policy table, which drives the policy and ultimately the legislation in British Columbia on aboriginal post-secondary education and training; and the northern B.C. regional workforce tables that the Government of B.C. implemented about two years ago. They started at northern B.C., so Prince George is the cut-off. The regional workforce tables were put in place to gather that information, that data, for implementation of skills training plans, knowing what was coming with industry.
I also worked on the natural gas workforce strategy with the government and actually a few of the folks from industry. It's interesting, a lot of government people seem to go over to industry, and industry people go over to government. I think that's a good thing; it makes a lot of knowledge at the table.
I've also worked with ASETS. I manage the partnership component of our ASETS program. We are an ASETS provider, which is actually not regional or local. It's provincial. We provide ASETS services to about 70,000 Métis people in British Columbia. I've also been involved in the SPF that came out, the ASTSIF, the ATEP, and the aboriginal community partnership program, which we like to call “the alphabet soup” one. That's from the LMDA and LMA funding, so this is what the Province of B.C. did with it.
Then I worked directly with the private sector and the public post-secondary institutions on skills training and employment, and as Ms. Hunt spoke about CN, I've worked with them as well. So there are lots of relationships there, and I'm sure it's taken 10 years off my life, as with my colleagues here.
I will speak to the “Federal Framework for Aboriginal Economic Development”, as I think it's a great guiding document. As you know, Minister Strahl, back in B.C. now, is from my community in the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, and he's been very involved with Métis and first nations in policy development and very supportive. I think that document is a good one. I've had many discussions with him about it.
I think it's a great set of guidelines, because it has the big picture. It connects economic development to skills training. We need to do that. I've seen often through many years that skills training is separate from economic development. They're not separate; they're one thing. When we connect economic development for a first nation or Métis community, that means jobs, that means training, that means those folks' going to work. So we have to look at it as one picture. I think that's a much more pragmatic way to look at things.
The framework states that the Government of Canada will support labour market programming that increases skills development and employability to help aboriginal people secure long-term jobs; foster linkages across initiatives supporting labour market participation, skills development, apprenticeship and training, as well as education and income assistance—so again, the income assistance and the EI piece is in there—and collaborate with industry, educators, and the voluntary sector to better match learning and training with job opportunities in the labour market.