Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Telford, I just want to follow up with you on the line of questioning that my colleague Ms. Crockatt was working on.
I'm an Alberta member of Parliament, as she is. I was formerly an instructor at Red Deer College, and I know very well about the massive investments that most of our community colleges have made in training tradespeople. It's wonderful to see virtually full employment in Alberta.
The sign I see most often in my riding in central Alberta is “help wanted”. That's a good problem to have, but we have to get these things right.
I do represent a large first nations community that still suffers from very high unemployment, notwithstanding the fact that they do have some oil and gas assets on reserve and some companies that do some work. They're not situated proximal to the oil sands, which is where the advantage of the Fort McKay band actually lies.
You said that in 2009, 10% of the oil sands workforce was aboriginal people and that there were contracts of up to $1 billion. Where do you see your organization playing a role in making sure that we can capitalize on what is the fastest growing population?
I represent the four bands at Hobbema. Over 50% of the population of those bands—some 16,000 people who live there—is under the age of 25. Unemployment is between 50% and 80%, depending on the numbers you believe.
Where can we go in terms of government partnerships and so on with an organization such as yours to make sure that we fill those gaps and make sure that Canadians have jobs?