REGINA — Canada’s looming labour shortage could be met in part by the rapidly rising aboriginal population, but not unless the widening education gap between natives and non-natives is addressed, according to the head of aboriginal banking for one of Canada’s largest banks.
“We’ve got a demographic issue going on here in Canada,’’ said Stephen Fay, national director of the aboriginal banking unit for BMO Financial Group. “We need workers.’’
A potential solution to the labour shortage is readily at hand in the form of First Nations and Metis, whose growth rate of 1.8 per cent is nearly twice the one-per-cent growth rate of the non-aboriginal population.
But it won’t happen if aboriginal education levels continue to lag the rest of the country’s; nearly one in four non-aboriginal Canadians has a university degree, while less than one in 20 aboriginals Canada has one.
“If we can raise the bar relative to education, that will open more doors (to employment),’’ Fay said. “Laying the foundation has got to be education. You can leap into economic development, but it’s really good if you can get that education piece down.’’
For its part, BMO is providing $112,500 for scholarships for deserving aboriginal youth through the Indspire (formerly the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation) and Foundation for the Advancement of Aboriginal Youth (FAAY). Since 2005, BMO has donated $1.6 million to Indspire and FAAY scholarships for 386 aboriginal students through its Equity through Education program.
But Fay said money, while important, is not the only thing needed to pull up the educational bootstraps of Canada’s aboriginal people, who represent 3.4 per cent of working age population, but a much higher percentage of the unemployed.
“It’s one thing to throw money at (the problem), it’s another thing to support scholarships and bursaries, but there’s got to be a lot more little pieces to this puzzle before we fix this,’’ said Fay, who’s responsible for 12 on-reserve BMO bank branches, mainly in Ontario and B.C.
Another group calling for increased funding of aboriginal apprentices is the Saskatchewan Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council, representing unionized construction trades in the province.
In a 24-page brief released Monday called Trades Training: Investing in Saskatchewan’s Economy, the building trades make six recommendations to increase skills training in the province, including increasing funding for aboriginal apprentices through the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission (SATCC).
While there has been “some significant improvement in the number of aboriginal journeypersons’’ in recent years, the report notes “the number remains very small,’’ and the number of aboriginal apprentices entering the program has remained flat for the last three years.
According to SATCC data, about 120 aboriginal journeypersons were certified in 2010, up from about 60 in 2006.
“Unless this changes, aboriginal people will not represent a significant part of the solution to shortages in the skilled trades anytime soon.’’
“We’ve got a demographic issue going on here in Canada,’’ said Stephen Fay, national director of the aboriginal banking unit for BMO Financial Group. “We need workers.’’
A potential solution to the labour shortage is readily at hand in the form of First Nations and Metis, whose growth rate of 1.8 per cent is nearly twice the one-per-cent growth rate of the non-aboriginal population.
But it won’t happen if aboriginal education levels continue to lag the rest of the country’s; nearly one in four non-aboriginal Canadians has a university degree, while less than one in 20 aboriginals Canada has one.
“If we can raise the bar relative to education, that will open more doors (to employment),’’ Fay said. “Laying the foundation has got to be education. You can leap into economic development, but it’s really good if you can get that education piece down.’’
For its part, BMO is providing $112,500 for scholarships for deserving aboriginal youth through the Indspire (formerly the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation) and Foundation for the Advancement of Aboriginal Youth (FAAY). Since 2005, BMO has donated $1.6 million to Indspire and FAAY scholarships for 386 aboriginal students through its Equity through Education program.
But Fay said money, while important, is not the only thing needed to pull up the educational bootstraps of Canada’s aboriginal people, who represent 3.4 per cent of working age population, but a much higher percentage of the unemployed.
“It’s one thing to throw money at (the problem), it’s another thing to support scholarships and bursaries, but there’s got to be a lot more little pieces to this puzzle before we fix this,’’ said Fay, who’s responsible for 12 on-reserve BMO bank branches, mainly in Ontario and B.C.
Another group calling for increased funding of aboriginal apprentices is the Saskatchewan Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council, representing unionized construction trades in the province.
In a 24-page brief released Monday called Trades Training: Investing in Saskatchewan’s Economy, the building trades make six recommendations to increase skills training in the province, including increasing funding for aboriginal apprentices through the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission (SATCC).
While there has been “some significant improvement in the number of aboriginal journeypersons’’ in recent years, the report notes “the number remains very small,’’ and the number of aboriginal apprentices entering the program has remained flat for the last three years.
According to SATCC data, about 120 aboriginal journeypersons were certified in 2010, up from about 60 in 2006.
“Unless this changes, aboriginal people will not represent a significant part of the solution to shortages in the skilled trades anytime soon.’’