DATE:
February 17, 2014, 11:30 a.m.
LOCATION:
PTP ASEP Training Society, Kitselas Community Hall, 1561 Kulspai Crescent, Terrace, British Columbia
SUBJECT:
Minister of Employment and Social Development Jason Kenney holds a news conference to announce Government of Canada support for Aboriginal skills development in British Columbia.
Hon. Jason Kenney: Thank you very much to my friend and former colleague Bob Rae for his kind introduction and for being here. And thank you all. It’s a real honour to be here in the traditional territory of the Tsimshian people and especially here in Kitselas in the Terrace area. And to all of the elders and community leaders, chiefs and council members and the youth who are the future, thank you very much—and to the corporate leaders as well who are making very important investments that will help to improve people’s lives in the future.
Thank you, Bob, again, for those kind words. You know, it’s true, Mr. Rae and I were in different political parties, but both serving the same cause of Canada, and I think we had a good friendship and a lot of mutual respect. And the important thing is that whatever our differences in terms of backgrounds or views, we all work together to help people realize their potential, and especially people who have a special adversity or historical challenges to overcome. And that’s really what today’s announcement is all about.
You know, it’s amazing, I’ve been here in Prince Rupert, in Kitimat and Terrace the last couple of days talking to people about how for a good period of time, 10 or 15 years, the economy here was in the doldrums, and forestry was struggling and the fishery industry was struggling and too many people were unemployed, and a lot of people were moving away. And of course, far too many people were unemployed and not benefiting from opportunities in the Aboriginal communities here. And yet now, things are really changing. Things are turning around. Things are moving in the right direction. Things are moving upward with all of the investments that are coming here, all of the possibilities that they present, tens of billions of dollars of possible or planned investments in this northwest part of British Columbia.
I was in St. John’s, Newfoundland, three days ago and two days from now I’ll be in Yukon, then the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Everywhere I go, from Labrador to northwest B.C. to the northern territories, to southern Saskatchewan, employers and businesses tell me that their number one challenge now and in the future is going to be workers and people with skills who can help them build our prosperity in the future. And that’s for a lot of reasons. Our population we’re not keeping up-to-date. We have less than a replacement birthrate, and a lot of the immigrants who come to Canada go to the cities and not necessarily areas like this where many of the best jobs are available. And so that’s our biggest economic challenge in the future. They call it the skills gap or the skills shortage.
And then the biggest social challenge we have in this country is to ensure the inclusion of our Aboriginal people, historically disadvantaged for reasons that we all know. And here’s the thing: We can find a huge, wonderful solution to both challenges, to the economic exclusion of Aboriginal Canadians and the skills shortage of the future if we focus with Aboriginal communities on bringing in private-sector employers to develop the kind of education and training and support that young Aboriginal Canadians need so that they can fully realize their potential and make good livelihoods, contribute to their communities and enjoy the remarkable prosperity of this country.
And so these are exciting times. Bob intimated this. I think we’re getting to the point where there are some real synergies. We’ve got the private sector realizing they’ve got to go further than they’ve ever gone before, reaching out to First Nations communities and investing in their opportunities. You’ve got a new generation of Aboriginal leadership in many communities who see the same thing. You’ve got governments at all levels who understand the same thing. And so, amazing partnerships are coming together. And I think right here in northwest B.C. we have a remarkable opportunity to make this happen.
One of the industries in which we can help make that happen is that whole area of natural resources, which directly or indirectly employs 1.8 million Canadians, about a fifth of their economy, and is responsible for about half of our exports. A recent report by the National Energy Board found that British Columbia’s natural gas reserves amount to 150 years of supplies, double what we used to think of about a 75-year supply. And your provincial government here estimates that this industry could create as many as 100,000 new jobs in this province, many of them in areas like this.
So the opportunities are almost limitless. But as I say, the only way we won’t realize those opportunities is if we don’t have enough skilled people to take the employment that’s available. And there are various projections, but basically, if we don’t change something, we are projected to be short tens of thousands of workers, particularly in areas like skilled trades that we need to realize this potential wealth to improve our standard of living.
So we’re trying to do a lot to help address those issues and to help encourage young Aboriginal Canadians especially to go into, for example, skilled trades. We’re making a lot of different investments in that in a lot of different programs.
But perhaps the most important thing is that First Nations, the federal government and the provincial government all need to work together to radically improve educational opportunities for First Nations children. And that’s why I was so proud that the Prime Minister signed an agreement with the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Shawn Atleo just 10 days ago to move towards a fundamental reform of First Nations primary and secondary education, a K-12 education system through First Nations control of the First Nations Education Act that will improve on-reserve education by creating a joint council of education professionals to provide advice and support to Canada and to First Nations on the implementation and oversight of the Act; to ensure minimum education standards on reserve consistent with provincial off-reserve standards; to provide stable, predictable and sustainable funding that increases at a reasonable rate of growth and provides investments in the transition and implementation; to recognize the importance of language and culture in First Nations education and to invest, when we’ve got this legislation passed, an additional about $1.5 billion in supporting quality First Nations education.
Now I know the situation in many parts of B.C. is a little bit different, but this all reflects a real, serious commitment to getting this right, to ensuring that we don’t leave any young Aboriginal Canadians behind. And in fact, the opportunity for First Nations people is remarkable. I understand that well over 30,000 Aboriginal Canadians are already employed in the natural resources sector. And we’re making a lot of investments in increasing that number significantly.
So, for example, we have the ASETS program, the Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Strategy, that’s investing well over $200 million—it’s actually $1.6 billion over five years—to help with good organizations like TRICORP, the Tribal Resources Investment Corporation of northwest B.C., to which we provide about $6 million in annual funding, that’s beginning to turn things around by listening to the local communities and providing the training that they say they actually need.
We also have the Skills and Partnership Fund for Aboriginal training where we partner with private companies that are employing people, and that’s one of the announcements that I’ll be making today, but that’s also a very substantial investment. And we have the $240 million that we’ve just set aside in the First Nations Jobs Fund to help young Aboriginal people who are on income assistance and help their communities get them the training that they need so they can move from income assistance to real employment.
And just to give you another example in the northwest area, we have some excellent programming being done by the Aboriginal Mine Training Association through the Skills and Partnership Fund.
But today, I’m here with more good news. It’s a real pleasure for me to announce a federal government investment of over $6.1 million in the Pacific Trail Pipelines Training Society for its Northern Aboriginal Skills and Employment Project. This is going to be matched by over $7 million in private-sector investments from Kitimat LNG and the Pacific Trail Pipelines led by Chevron and Apache and PCL Construction’s West Coast Limited.
The training will help over 780 Aboriginal people get the skills and experience that they need for available jobs in B.C.’s energy sector and will train people for jobs like welders, electricians and pipefitters, heavy equipment operators and others. So thank you to the private-sector partners, to Kitimat LNG, PCL and the Pacific Trail Pipelines for their vision, their leadership, their inclusion and their real investment, because their investment isn’t just in the training, it’s a commitment to employ people who receive the benefit of that training, and that matters for the long term.
So this is good news for the 15 First Nations involved in this announcement. It’s good news if you’re in Kitselas. It’s good news for British Columbia and Canada. And we hope that we can see the success of these investments, of this program, and do the same thing all across Canada to ensure that our first Canadians are fully included in our future prosperity.
Thank you all, and God bless. (applause)
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