Teaching aboriginal students the certified skills of industrial jobs just got $30 million easier.
The provincial government stood shoulder to shoulder with aboriginal leaders in the cold wind and muddy clay at the top of a Prince George mountain, Friday, to announce the financial boost. They were at the teaching site of O'Brien Training's pipeline program, the only such campus in Canada. Most of the students taking the course in how to properly install a pipeline are from First Nations all across northern B.C. The new investment will be of particular benefit to students like these.
"We are very happy at Lheidli (T'enneh First Nation) that everyone is working together for better training opportunities, so our people will be involved and work alongside (all walks of life) as the times change," said local elder Edie Frederick, who gave the opening address in her native Dakelh language.
She was joined by Haisla Nation leader Taylor Cross and Moricetown First Nation chief Barry Nikal, since their communities were already involved in the training opportunities provided by O'Brien Training, in anticipation of the Pacific Trail Pipeline (Chevron) being built through their traditional territories.
Nikal said he was pleased to see the government channel such a large financial commitment to northern B.C., with a focus on youth, since "young people are the biggest demographic group in our nations." He stressed that in his nation, "we had dismal high school graduation rates" until a school was built there that had an aboriginal context to its educational programming. The success rate turned quickly around. So, he said, proper education was a major factor in a positive aboriginal outlook.
Minister of Aboriginal Relations & Reconciliation John Rustad was at the event to stress that important part of the investment.
"We are taking a new approach," said Rustad. "We are sitting down with First Nations, having them come forward with ideas on what training will work best for their communities."
It sounds like an obvious thing to do, said Cross, but the impasse between the provincial government and B.C.'s First Nations has been the bulk of the relationship over time.
"When my parents and grandparents were younger, industry came into our territories and we weren't part of it," Cross said. "We (First Nations) have to stand up and say 'we want to be educated; we want to take part in (economic activities done on our lands). This money is good, but we have to make sure it is a smooth process for aboriginal people to access these opportunities."
"We've seen the booms and busts, so we want to be in the driver's seat, make our own decisions regarding skills training development," Nikal added.
With that, he and Nikal embraced Rustad and Minister of Jobs, Tourism, Skills Training and Labour - not polite corporate hugs, but enveloping bear-hugs of mutual appreciation.
"We want British Columbians to be first in line for the thousands of jobs we know are coming to northern B.C. in the years ahead," said Bond. She underscored the plan to target under-served employment pools, those being women, the so-called disabled, and aboriginals. "The First Nations youth demographic is particularly exciting because they represent the future of British Columbia, led by those particular bands that have an interest in the economic activity going on right in their regions."
She and Rustad said O'Brien Training was a particularly illustrative school for seeing the benefits already in play.
"Ninety-two per cent of the people who've gone through the training here have found employment in their field, and B.C. will need many more," said Rustad.
"Not only are they being trained, but they are moving directly into the workforce, and we need those connections," said Bond.
About 200 students graduated from the program last year, and at least as many are on the schedule for 2015, said owner Dan O'Brien. Plus, his school also teaches heavy equipment operating for the forest industry, commercial tractor-trailer driving, and other courses for in-demand resource industry skills. He said the provincial government's goal was to add 15,000 certified and job-ready aboriginal people to the provincial workforce in the next 10 years.
Spurred to success
Nadleh Whut'en First Nation woman Simone Spurr knows she is an anomaly, but she also notes "that is changing really fast."
She is an aboriginal woman who is well employed in the resources sector, and she is a woman in a job traditionally held by a man. She is an oiler, a ground-worker in the pipeline industry. She is currently wrapping up additional coursework with O'Brien Training in Prince George.
"As an aboriginal woman, it wasn't easy to consider coming here to take a course, it was outside my comfort zone, but Dan (O'Brien, proprietor) made it a caring learning environment," she said. "It is hard to be away from home, but having a welcoming place to learn is part of what they teach here. It was a great experience for me, and I think my whole class."
O'Brien has slowly grown for the past 10 years from a small private school instructing on a few pieces of heavy equipment and other basic career certifications in the forest industry into having the only pipeline-laying course in Canada.
First Nations make up a large part of his student base, these days, with massive graduation numbers, and then still further high numbers of job placement.
"One of the best things we ever did was purchase Core Recruitment, so it is now part of our in-house services," said O'Brien. "It is a human resources division we know have to offer our students. We don't just deliver the training they need for career certifications, we also go out and find the employers for these graduates. A lot of them have jobs waiting for them before their done their courses."
Spurr said she has been gainfully employed and in a profession that sets her on fire to go to work every morning.
"I thought, when I first started, that I'd be told to be the first aid attendant for the crew, but they made me a labourer, and if you like that kind of work it becomes addictive and the crew becomes like your family," she said. "It's either your cup of tea or it's not, and it is definitely my cup of tea."
She said she has always been "one of the guys" so blending into a male-dominated profession wasn't as unnatural for her as it is for many other women, but she still sees the power in what she's done.
"I don't want to sit behind a desk," she said, furrowing her brow at the thought. "I want my daughter to see that it isn't only a man's world anymore."
Due to the high cost of tuition and equipment time in these specialized courses, the student fees are expensive. O'Brien said only about five per cent of students at his school fund their education out of their own bank account. The rest receive some kind of subsidy from a prospective employer tooling up a future employee, or, most often, a First Nation making an investment in their people, young and old.
That is why, said O'Brien, Friday's announcement of $30 million new dollars in nation-directed jobs training was so important. More aboriginal students than ever before will now be channeled into training sites like his, with lucrative jobs waiting immediately on the other end of those courses. It will, he said, transform those students for the rest of their lives and also transform chronically under-resourced communities all across northern B.C.
