Human Resources committee  Good morning. My name is Danielle Levine. I am the Executive Director of a newly formed organization, the Aboriginal Social Enterprise initiative, a grassroots national initiative that works with indigenous people and communities to develop entrepreneurs and local economies. I

Human Resources committee  I think I can speak most to the post-secondary environment. I am aware of the issues in K to 12, but I am more aware of the issues and the gaps in post-secondary training. Often what I would see as an aboriginal educator is the need for some kind of remediation. Often the aborigi

Human Resources committee  I see this every day. It's enormously frustrating for me to work with communities and not to be able to fully effect change. What I see as an evolving best practice is doing inreach into communities, meaning not taking people out of their communities but actually going into the c

Human Resources committee  In the work that I am doing—it's a new organization—I'm not finding any funding out there to do what I'm proposing to do. The provinces say that they're not necessarily interested. I just don't see the funding pots there. I have been successful in working with the aboriginal fr

Human Resources committee  I grew up in Winnipeg. My indigenous roots are in Winnipeg. I'm also very familiar with northern Manitoba and northern Saskatchewan, but my home base is Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

Human Resources committee  The overarching theme would be around economic reconciliation, for one.

Human Resources committee  I know there are more official definitions floating around, but to me, economic reconciliation comes when communities are on par with the rest of Canada. Having an unemployment rate that is almost the same as the rest of Canada is economic reconciliation.

Human Resources committee  An evolving best practice that I see is we need people to actually go to the communities. How many people have actually been to the communities with 95% unemployment? How is the work going with their local municipality? Are they involved in economic development planning with thei

Human Resources committee  I would just point out that the context in British Columbia is very different from what we see across Canada. Generally in British Columbia, because of the lack of treaties in some areas, I think industry is more attuned to the opportunities for and the necessity of working with

Human Resources committee  Based on my experience working with first nations in British Columbia, each community is unique. Each community is on a spectrum of, on one end, completely against resource development, and on the other end, is in active pursuit of development. Communities can fall anywhere on th

Human Resources committee  I'm sorry I don't have an easy answer for you.

Human Resources committee  Yes, I am.

Human Resources committee  It depends on where the individual is from, but yes, it is.

Human Resources committee  I wouldn't be able to give you that percentage. I don't know that off the top of my head. Some communities have been very successful in doing something called a certificate of possession, which allows them to unlock the potential in their reserve holdings, but I would not be able

Human Resources committee  I hear about those kinds of situations all the time. The irony here is that those who are most marginalized and want to start a small business will often get turned away. They don't have any financial access to credit to start their small businesses, even from the aboriginal fina