Evidence of meeting #30 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was youth.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
How does Actua decide where to go nationally? What's the criteria? How do you decide where to go and what programs to implement in those different regions?
Chief Executive Officer, Actua
Our network members are based out of universities across the country, 35 of them.
November 22nd, 2016 / 10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Chief Executive Officer, Actua
Yes, and they deliver in 500 communities across the country. Those are either long-standing relationships that they've had with communities, community demand, or data analysis of where there are gaps. We actually look across the country to see how much of the population we're engaging in our range, and if we're under the targets that we have, we will direct resources into those communities.
Liberal
Chief Executive Officer, Actua
We fund the programs they offer that are subsidized. UNB is a good example. Worlds UNBound would apply to Actua and we would use the funding that we collect from corporate sectors to support their indigenous outreach. They're delivering in six reserves across the province. We would support their programming with boys and girls clubs, for example. We'd support their girls club.
All of the programming that's offered at no cost to youth, that's how we provide funding to them.
Liberal
Chief Executive Officer, Actua
Our funding currently has to go through our members, yes.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Okay, got it.
Very quickly, I have a question for Ms. Hare and Ms. Levine on financial literacy. In both of your presentations you talked about the importance of financial literacy. Can you elaborate?
We'll start with you, Ms. Hare. Do you feel that financial literacy should be included in school curricula?
Manager of Public Policy, Momentum
What's most important is that financial literacy programs are relevant and personalized to an individual's challenges and unique circumstances. Speaking to a teenager about building their retirement assets does not resonate in the same way as talking to them about their cellphone bill. We can meet people one on one and even provide individualized coaching or counselling. It's much more valuable.
So, yes, it should be included in K to 12 education, but even more important, upon graduation when individuals are experiencing life challenges, starting a new job, making a first down payment or paying the first damage deposit for rent, having a child, becoming ill. These are all unique and individual experiences, so we must meet people where they're at through financial counselling and individualized educational programs.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
I'll just stay with you, Ms. Hare, if you don't mind, for one second.
Knowing that a lot of the poverty reduction strategies go through the provinces, do you see conflict at times, a lack of alignment, if you will, between the feds and the provinces? Do you see that? For example—
Manager of Public Policy, Momentum
No, I see great opportunities for collaboration and great synergy between what we're trying to achieve in terms of the basic tenets of financial literacy, and opportunities to collaborate are much more abundant than areas of conflict.
Liberal
Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC
Okay, I'm going to make this quick.
Sticking with my theme, we have high unemployment; we have entrepreneurship training; we need to be thinking about sustainability, and I hear the word “opportunities” flying around quite a bit.
My question is for either Ms. Flanagan or Ms. Levine, and you can both answer it.
How do we create an opportunities bank—and when I say an opportunities bank, I'm not necessarily referring to an actual bank—so how do we connect, be it franchises, be it opportunities? If we can't see the opportunity in front of us, we don't think about it. How do we create that awareness—coming back to that notion of an opportunities bank—that connects private institutions with some of the opportunities in reservations so that they start to think, “Hey, we could do that here”?
Do you have any thoughts?
Ms. Flanagan.
Chief Executive Officer, Actua
One of the things we have proposed as part of our request for federal funding is for high school internships, paid internships, that we would do within our indigenous programs. Part of that is to provide an experience that is guided, and not only a work experience, so not just being employed, which has value, but actually in that employment providing some skill and leadership development at the same time.
Again, that would connect not only to opportunities that exist in the future, but would also start to get kids thinking differently about how they identify those opportunities. We could do that in high school, and actually train kids how to seek out and find those opportunities, because you're right in that they're not always offered up on a plate in front of them.
Liberal
Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC
Thank you.
Ms. Levine, you have about a minute to answer that one.
Executive Director, Aboriginal Social Enterprise Program, As an Individual
Saskatchewan is going to be focusing on the practice of unlearning. Let's unlearn everything we have been taught.
I'm going to be invigorating an entrepreneurial mindset. The students or the participants will walk away with an opportunity portfolio that's relevant to them. It could be addressing social issues. If housing is an issue, can the community itself look for opportunities in housing or collaborate with other first nations that have been successful in building their own housing stock? That's where my focus is going, not necessarily teaching a business plan, because I know that does not work. That's the stuff that does not work. What I want to do is very tailored to the community, bringing in a lot of ideas, opening up the possibilities in the full range of entrepreneurship.
