Thank you, Mr. Chair and standing committee members. Thanks for inviting me.
I want to take this time to present to you some adult learning statistics from the census of 2006 and talk about how they can be seen as both barriers and solutions to economic development.
The underlying strength and promise of the Canadian economy is evident even in the midst of this downturn. This is also true of Nunavut.
Nunavut's construction and transportation sectors remain relatively strong, and as the economy recovers, mining will also recover along with it. However, Inuit Nunavummiut will not benefit from the recovery to the same degree as non-aboriginal Canadians, both in Nunavut and in the rest of Canada. In large part, this is due to differences in educational attainment, as reported in the 2006 census.
I provided speaking notes when I came to register, so I won't go through the table, but you'll see in the table some key elements.
If we look at Inuit Nunavummiut as compared to non-aboriginal Canadians, within the Inuit Nunavummiut, 60% are without high school graduation compared to the rest Canada at only 15%. When it comes to trades, the comparison is much closer. About 10% have some trade certificate compared to the rest of Canada at about 12%. When it comes to college, a career certificate or diploma, again, it's quite close with 18% in Nunavut and 20% in the rest of Canada. When we get to university we get back to a very large disparity. Only about 4% of Inuit Nunavummiut have any amount of university compared to the rest of Canada at 28%.
We're reasonably close in things like trades qualifications and college career-preparation qualifications. Where there's a very acute gap is the 60% of Nunavummiut aged 25 to 64, the age group that comes out in the 2006 census, without a high school diploma, as compared to 15% for the rest of Canada. There is only 4% with some university as opposed to 28% for the rest of Canada.
When you look at the table when it's distributed to you, with the employment rates, the unemployment rates, and the average earnings, you'll see that that's reflected there. For instance, there is an unemployment rate amongst Inuit Nunavummiut of 19%, with the rest of Canada at 5%. These are 2006 figures.
With that as your background, I just want to comment very briefly on some successes and then move on to challenges.
In fact, Nunavut has a number of very impressive successes. Nunavut Arctic College was established as a separate post-secondary institution in Nunavut about 15 years ago. We deliver adult learning and training programs through three regional campuses in Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, and Cambridge Bay, and we have community learning centres, sometimes just a rented classroom, in every one of Nunavut's communities. We have a great deal of scope now. That's a very important element.
In terms of developing a skilled workforce, we have a lot of partnerships with southern universities. We've been offering a B.Ed. in elementary education since 1986, and currently with the University of Regina. We have a B.Sc. in Arctic nursing, in partnership with Dalhousie. A full law degree was offered from 2001 to 2005 in partnership with the University of Victoria, and another one is being planned in partnership with the University of Ottawa. We're doing pretty well on that front.
We've also had really good partnership, particularly with the Department of Health and Social Services of the Nunavut government, in developing Nunavummiut for employment in the health sector. With their support, we've offered several programs: nursing, midwifery, maternity care, home care, continuing care, mental health, human services, and community therapy assistance. In fact, recently we graduated the first two Inuit midwives, fully registered to Canadian standards, in the last couple of weeks.
On the trades front, and largely again as a result of a partnership with the Nunavut Housing Trust, we've offered community-based pre-trades training in virtually every community at least once, and produced a significant number of people ready for apprenticeship.
On the front of trades, the Government of Nunavut is making significant investments. The trades training centre will open in 2010 in Rankin Inlet, and it will enable us to offer oil burner mechanic and housing maintainer, which are two trades particular to the north, and also electrician and plumber. And we've recently doubled the capacity of our carpentry training program here in Iqaluit.
We've started planning the mine training centre in Cambridge Bay. When it's finished, we'll be able to offer millwright and welding. We've already started thinking about phase two of the trades training centre, which will help us produce heavy equipment operators and heavy duty and auto mechanics.
So we have a lot of successes behind us. We've done well. But we're still facing some significant challenges. You'll notice, if you look at the statistics, that we've done best at the trades level and the career preparation of college, and where we do offer university, it's always in professional education. It's occupationally focused. That's because almost all of the dollars that come to us have that particular focus to them. If construction industries are booming, invest in carpenters. If mining starts taking off, invest in mine workers. If we need more teachers, invest in teachers. If we need more nurses, invest in nurses.
What we are lacking, and I go back to sort of the bookends of that 60% of Inuit Nunavummiut without a high school diploma and only 4% with some university, is funding for what I call general capacity building. That is not necessarily career or professional occupationally focused.
We need more money simply to enable adult Nunavummiut--and again I'm talking about the age group 25 to 64--to basically return to school. The reasons for the imbalance are historical, everything from the residential school system to lack of funding, to the late development of the eastern Arctic. On the high school end we have a major need. And given territorial fiscal capacities, I think the only government with the fiscal capacity to address that is the federal government.
On the other end of the book case, I call it my other bookend, is university. I would call on the Government of Canada to support building university capacity in the north by endorsing and funding the Jago report on the University of the Arctic in Canada. I'm sure you've heard about this already from both Yukon College and Aurora College during your stops.
The Jago report was commissioned by INAC to investigate sustainable university capacity in the north and how to fund it. Their recommendation was $2.5 million a year for five years, to give us predictability, and also some matching dollars. So I come back to it. Until we have that kind of funding, the major lack of high school diplomas in a workforce where increasingly employers are seeking high school certification or equivalency is a major barrier to economic development.
Thank you.