Natural Resources Committee on June 19th, 2012

[Michael Miltenberger]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Very quickly, in the Northwest Territories we are very focused on first trying to get children to stay in school and to graduate. We have as well, with industry over the years, developed very productive working relationships with the government and with the colleges to look at training—apprenticeship training, pre-employment training, mine processing training. The diamond mines have just gone underground. We're working with them to set up training for developing the skills for underground mining.

It's that type of relationship, the partnering in and sharing of resources, we're really focused on. Most of the communities in the areas all have people working in the mines in one form or another, but it is tied to the skills development piece.

The other big issue, of course, is to deal with some of the challenging issues Dr. MacDonald talked about earlier. In some of the communities there are alcohol and drug issues that in some cases limit a person's ability to take part in that type of work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Dr. MacDonald, go ahead.

[Dr. Ginger MacDonald]

The social side of work is something that's quite neglected, so the barriers Mr. Miltenberger is referring to, such as money-management skills, the social side, the family side--managing your family, being away for two weeks--are pretty complex. Getting to a mine and managing all of your money and all of your family issues at a mine site when you have very limited numeracy and literacy....

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Where should that be done?

[Dr. Ginger MacDonald]

Right now, most of that northern mine strategy is being developed by the mines and by the territories. The aboriginal governments, the people who bear the cost of social issues and tend to manage it at a community basis, are not at the table and not talking to these issues. So the barriers--money, work, addictions--have to happen at the local level.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

So they have the responsibility at the community level?

[Dr. Ginger MacDonald]

They do, for all of the social side of work. In order to work you have to be drug- and alcohol-free, you need to be employable. That burden falls on community governments or on communities. The communities need to be able to articulate the barriers and then build the programming on a community basis, and it's very tough, really hard. Most of the training is happening in Yellowknife, in the major centres, and bringing people out of the communities and out of their social support networks dooms them to fail at times.

The other side of it, though, is where we have targets in impact and benefit agreements. They hold the companies' feet to the fire so that there are aboriginal apprentices. Right now it's much easier to bring somebody in from the south. We need to force the question of apprenticeships and advancement as being critical issues so that there is the appetite in the companies to get really creative about their training and their education.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

We've talked about at what age or what level those companies should be starting to insert their resources. We've come to the conclusion it needs to be long ahead of graduation from high school.

[Dr. Ginger MacDonald]

It's good to have it early. Right now we're seeing a very strange dynamic that is echoed worldwide, where a lot of young men are leaving because of the high-paying jobs. In the high school I'm most familiar with, the second-highest population to graduate is older women. Young men below the age of 18 are the third population to graduate from Chief Jimmy Bruneau High School in Behchoko, just outside of Yellowknife. That is an education dynamic that's being magnified by the diamond mines, because they're pulling that cadre of young men out of the high school.

So education...absolutely--giving them information earlier on, and also encouraging a diversity of options.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Can I ask you a question?

The young men who are going out of the community into the diamond mines are getting training on-site. Do you see that as a negative thing or a positive thing?

[Dr. Ginger MacDonald]

It's a positive thing, but having grade 12 is absolutely fundamental to future success.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

Mr. Daniel, up to five minutes, please. Go ahead.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses.

I'll follow up a little bit on the education theme, since I have an education background.

You talked in your first point about the lack of advancement. Can you explain that a bit more, and can you talk about what's hindering these advancements for the local community? Clearly, taking supervisory and senior roles in the industries is a good point for the indigenous people.

[Dr. Ginger MacDonald]

Thank you for the question.

Education is clearly one of the issues. There are barriers to advancement that are based in people's confidence and their literacy and numeracy abilities. But they're deeper than that. Unless there are people who are being advanced, there are no role models. People need to see people advancing in order that they can then feel that they can succeed themselves. There's a lot of favouritism in the northern mines so that southern people are favouring non-aboriginal people who are putting themselves forward. They're self-seeking, self-promoting, and they put themselves forward; therefore, they get leap-frogged over somebody who is in a haul truck who's not putting himself forward and self-promoting.

There are a lot of endemic workplace barriers that are about culture and sometimes about racism that are stopping people from moving up, in addition to the role model factor. We simply haven't seen it. Ekati has been operating for a long time. Diavik's been at it for a long time. We don't see senior-level management in those companies.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay.

Are they being educated to take on those roles? In other words, are you seeing indigenous people going in and getting their MBAs, getting qualified so that they can actually take those roles?

[Dr. Ginger MacDonald]

Absolutely.

One of the wonderful things about the mines having impact and benefit agreements is that there are dollars that are free to apply to things like education. For example, the Tlicho Nation has $800,000 yearly that they allocate to scholarships for people who are pursuing their education in the south. Those people are then becoming lawyers, or all sorts of different careers are opening up to them. The possibility for them to start to be promoted if they choose to be in mining is certainly there.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

To the other folks, we've talked about the northern territories having pretty high growth rates—11.4%, 7.4% growth. Is this something that's actually a hindrance in terms of the development of your communities?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Taptuna, go ahead.

[Peter Taptuna]

Thank you for that question.

It's one of the envies of the other jurisdictions. You want your GDP to grow, of course.

The lack of education is always a struggle within our territory. One of the things we're trying to do is promote more on the parenting side. As you know, parents have to be involved in education and what not.

Mr. Chairman, if I could, I'd like my deputy minister to supplement my answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, please, Mr. Long.

[Robert Long, Deputy Minister, Department of Economic Development and Transportation, Government of Nunavut]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think some of what I want to say will reinforce what Dr. MacDonald has mentioned.

Because we have gone from a situation where we only have one mine operating to a whole number coming into production and going through the regulatory process at this point, we're looking at how best to put our people to work.

The first issue obviously is literacy and numeracy, which we're attacking on two different fronts. We want more kids to graduate from high school. The mining companies are beginning to become involved with the school system. We're encouraging teachers to identify mining as a real opportunity for the future. When I say “mining”, I mean that in the broadest sense. Obviously there are people operating machinery. There are also people cooking and making beds and repairing equipment and all that sort of thing.

The school system is beginning to address this. Literacy and numeracy is a major initiative that we're undertaking. With some thanks to CanNor, the northern agency, our college system will be enhancing their literacy and numeracy programs in every community in Nunavut. We have our central campuses, but we also have a learning centre in each community for the college.

The second point is the technical skills. The minister mentioned the idea of hands-on learning as opposed to academic learning for that process. They're now through the door because they have the grade 12 to get there, and we're working enthusiastically through our mine training strategy to make that part happen.

We also recognized early on with our first new operating mine that retention is a big problem. That opens up the whole spectrum of the transition from a low income to a higher income, and the 14 days in and 14 days out, all of the issues around not being at home. We are trying within our mining strategy to identify the job orientation and training issues around that, so it becomes a significant part of the training.

It really has to happen in all three areas in order for us to succeed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Daniel.

We go now to Mr. Julian, for about six minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thanks to all our witnesses.

Mr. Miltenberger, it's very good to speak with you again.

I'd like to start off by asking you and Dr. MacDonald a question. You both spoke very eloquently about the importance of getting balance around sustainability, ensuring that while we are looking to mining operations we're not destroying an already existing economy and existing practices in the north.

There's been a lot of controversy around Bill C-38 and the elimination of environmental assessments. The Commissioner of the Environment stated before the finance subcommittee dealing with that portion of Bill C-38 that we will be moving federally from between 4,000 and 6,000 environmental assessments down to just a handful annually.

I'm wondering if you could both respond on that. Does it worry you that we're virtually eliminating environmental assessments at the federal level, including for many mining projects? What does that mean to achieving that balance you've both spoken so eloquently about maintaining?

I'll start with you, Mr. Miltenberger.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, Mr. Miltenberger.

[Michael Miltenberger]

We are concerned to see what the impacts are going to be of those decisions. In the north, we're working hard to make sure that we maintain our ability to be as thorough as we have to be to provide reassurance and comfort to all parties, but the full implications and impact of all the recent decisions have yet to be felt.

We've registered our concern about changes to the Fisheries Act. We're working on the regulatory reform. We're working on devolution. We're working on transborder negotiations with Alberta for water. We are in a whole host of areas, working on ways to manage the interface between resource development sustainability and protecting the environment. We are watching with great interest all the changes that have been proposed.