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Two news stories from the regional newspapers highlight Claudette Bradshaw's, Minister of State (Human Resources Development) commitment to supporting regional the Aboriginal Human Resources Development Strategy which includes the Sioux Lookout Area Aboriginal Management Board (SLAAMB). Bob Bruyere, Executive Director of SLAAMB and Peter Campbell, SLAAMB's chair and Keewaytinook Okimakanak's Public Works Manager met with the minister on Monday in Kenora to discuss the issues she is very interested in addressing in cabinet.

http://chroniclejournal.com/story.shtml?id=28140

Getting natives into labour market minister’s goal

By Julio Gomes - The Chronicle-Journal

July 20, 2005

Ensuring that native youth have all the skills they need to thrive in a modern economy will require the efforts of a cross-section of partners, says a federal government minister.

“The private sector, the chamber of commerce, the Rotary clubs — everybody needs to be participating. Everybody has to say, these are the basics we need to make sure that the retention is there,” said Claudette Bradshaw, Minister of State (Human Resources Development).

Bradshaw was in Thunder Bay on Tuesday to meet with native groups and literacy organizations to discuss strategies for improving the labour market participation of Canada’s aboriginal peoples.

In a speech delivered Friday to the Manitoba Keewatinook Ininew Okimowin (MKO), Bradshaw said native youth and working-age adults are the fastest growing segment of Canada’s labour force.

However, she noted in that address, “Far too many of these young people are struggling to find a meaningful job that could lead to a productive career.”

To that end, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada is responsible for delivering the Aboriginal Human Resources Development Strategy, or AHRDS.

During the first five years, it assisted more than 90,000 people to find employment and more than 26,000 to return to school.

Based on those numbers, AHRDS has been renewed for another five years, with $1.6 billion in funding.

During Tuesday’s visit, Bradshaw toured the Our Kids Count non-profit program in Academy Heights. It’s part of the Thunder Bay Aboriginal Headstart program, which provides a place for native children aged 2-6 to develop language and cultural skills as well as eat regular meals.

The program is dear to Bradshaw (L-Moncton–Riverview–Dieppe). In 1974, she founded the Moncton Headstart Early Family Intervention Centre, where she served as executive director until 1997.

It’s programs like these, she said, that provide the building blocks to allow natives to gain the confidence to succeed in life and get the good jobs that are going unfilled. Companies like Bowater and Home Depot, she said, are crying for workers and are willing to sit down to develop plans to give natives in both urban centres and remote First Nation communities the opportunities they need to successfully make the transition to the 21st century workforce.

“We don’t need to bring foreign workers to our communities,” Bradshaw said. “We have the Canadian people here to work within our communities.

http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com/story.php?id=173535

Minister of State searching for answers to aboriginal employment issue, literacy
Every company says it wants to hire them — and many act — but then the problem is continuing their employment because things like housing and literacy get in the way.

By S. Patrick Moore
Miner and News
Tuesday July 19, 2005

Every company says it wants to hire them -- and many act -- but then the problem is continuing their employment because things like housing and literacy get in the way.

These sentiments, and others, have been repeated for the past three weeks to Minister of State (Human Resource Development) as she travels Canada holding discussions with aboriginal and business leaders to develop strategies for increasing aboriginal employment rates and improving literacy. She will address the cabinet with her recommendations in October or November.

She came to Kenora Monday because it offers a better glimpse into problems associated with remoteness. Although her trip to a First Nation was canceled, Bradshaw intends on visiting some before her report in parliament.

Currently, aboriginal unemployment rates are 2.5 times higher than non-aboriginal levels. In every community Bradshaw visited, the aboriginal unemployment rate has never dipped below 25 per cent, she said.

The ministry expects a labour shortage in Canada’s future, and therein lies a hope.

The ministry identified aboriginal people as a potential “untapped resource”; indeed the aboriginal population is the youngest and fastest growing domestic segment of Canada’s population (50 per cent of aboriginal peoples are under the age of 25).

Businesses have told Bradshaw they would like to hire aboriginal people but they want a safety net because of low retention levels.

Bradshaw said this is because support networks are lacking. To explain, she told an anecdote about Ted, a man who left his remote community to find work, succeeded in that task but could not find affordable housing or a social support network. Ted suffered too much economic and social burden and left work. But Bradshaw said Ted could have succeeded with help and better education.

One solution Bradshaw has obtained in her travels is to help municipalities build transitional housing so people from remote communities can stay there while they “get their feet on the ground,” thus helping them enter the labour market.

“We need a lot of life-skills. We need to build houses,” she said, later adding we “might have to start thinking differently on how we do things.”

Union representatives have told her the word “jobs” should be replaced with “careers,” and they have suggested getting aboriginal workers into apprenticeship programs, Bradshaw said.

Still Bradshaw says the answer is to address the problem on the basic level: education, which, she said, gives an individual freedom of choice.

But Bradshaw said she must hold more in-depth talks with the Aboriginal communities, because education, although a seemingly simple solution, possesses problems not readily explained. For example, about 30 per cent of the 950 Beaver Brae students registered last year came from a First Nations background and less than half of them were expected to complete the year, according to media reports.

Education’s cure and propeller will not be money, at least not money without vision.

Bradshaw said grassroots organizations are good with money and she hopes to give them more to allay their frustration of seeing solutions but not being able to act.

“They know what to do with it,” she said, noting of the 26 different literacy groups in the region, their total funding is less than $1 million. She said it makes little sense to give money to people when they are not trained to handle it.

“You gave us all this money but none of us are bookkeepers,” she said, imitating what she said she’s heard from aboriginal communities.

Currently, the government gives $85 million towards its Aboriginal Skills and Employment Partnerships, a five-year program to develop skills and promote major economic development projects -- almost 60 such projects have been received since it began in 2003 but only nine implemented.

The government also renewed its $1.6-billion Aboriginal Human Resource Development Strategy which is an all aboriginal inclusive community-based strategy to help aboriginals find, train, obtain and maintain employment. The program is slated to end in 2009.

Since inception, the programs have yielded 92,000 jobs and 27,000 aboriginal youth returning to school while child care spaces doubled to 14,000.

Stepping out of economics and sociology, Bradshaw said there was another big problem: dreams.

“Kids don’t dream they can be a bookkeeper or pilots,” she said, adding communities need to sell children on their potential.
Bradshaw’s next meeting is in Thunder Bay.