This past March, I visited Cowessess First Nation. They have a renewable energy storage facility. Chief Cadmus Delorme wanted me to see their new 10-megawatt solar power farm. This is the country's first hybrid renewable energy system for solar and wind, which store in batteries.
Indigenous communities right across the country, like Cowessess in Saskatchewan, are already doing the work. We need to listen to them, learn from them, and figure out how best to support them. That is a big part of what we're doing now, during the consultations. We also have programs like the sectoral workforce solutions program and UTIP, which we can leverage to support these communities, but a lot of the work is yet to be done and we want to make sure we do it right.
There are a number of first nations communities that are already well attuned to this. I spoke about the labour shortage earlier. There are a number of people.... I think particularly of Lyle Daniels, who is the indigenous advisor to the Building Trades of Alberta. He's attuned to the fact that there's a real effort by a number of unions out west. I'm thinking of Building Trades of Alberta particularly, which is working with first nations directly on reserve to try to get more indigenous young people into the trades. We have a population boom in many of our first nations communities. People are hungry to work, contribute and make their way in life, and the trades could be an answer for them. It could also certainly help our energy industry.