Written for the Battlefords Regional Optimist
SaskParty tears up more contracts in wake of 2010 budget
The SaskParty’s 2010 provincial budget resulted in a lot of torn up contracts (and a loss of trust) throughout The Battlefords and across the province.
We already know that the contract with the Chiropractors was torn up. So was the deal with municipalities, and school boards.
Now you need to ask the following organizations if they had a contract with the Brad Wall government and was that contract torn up as a result of the March 24th provincial budget: Living Sky School Division, Battlefords Chamber of Commerce, Light of Christ Catholic School Division, Prairie North Regional Health Authority, City of North Battleford, Battlefords Tribal Council, Sakewew First Nations High School, and NorthWest Regional College.
Each of these local organizations had highly publicized signing ceremonies in the recent past to make them partners in a very successful program known as the Aboriginal Employment Development Program (AEDP). Last week they all received a letter from the Brad Wall government saying: “Current AEDP agreements are no longer valid, anticipated agreements will not be entered into, and funding supports are not available … The Ministry will no longer be supporting Aboriginal employment directly.”
AEDP put almost a million dollars a year into helping young First Nations and Metis people enter the local work force through the co-operation and encouragement of the “partners”. The partnership agreements were never treated lightly and often took some time to negotiate. Local people put a lot of time and effort into developing the partnerships because they have been shown to make a difference in the lives of aboriginal young people and in the community.
In fact if one were to have visited the Government of Saskatchewan website the week before the budget one would have read the following statement: “The AED partnership approach is a proven cost-effective strategy to affect change in today’s modern workplaces and to increase the workplace retention of Aboriginal employees over the long-term.”
In total, as of March 31, 2009 there were 98 such partnerships in place around the province. There were 4.465 aboriginal hires by the partners, 36,676 individuals who received aboriginal awareness training, and 1,996 First Nations and Metis individuals who received work-based skills training.
Those deemed partners have already criticized the termination of the program as “short-sighted”, since it was designed to ultimately prepare both job seekers and employers for the increased role that Saskatchewan’s aboriginal population will play in the province’s future workforce.
The NDP’s First Nations and Metis Critic, Warren McCall (MLA, Regina) in the Legislature said “Scrapping this program is an admission on the part of the Wall government that it has no interest in preparing our young and growing Aboriginal population for employment here in Saskatchewan.”
Here in The Battlefords the partnership agreements were signed with the area’s largest employers, the health region and the school boards, and those who understand the nature of our future workforce, the Chamber of Commerce, the Regional College, and City Hall. They didn’t sign those agreements without some serious thought.
When you talk to major employers in The Battlefords the one common concern they all share is the lack of an available skilled workforce. If there is any real impediment to growth in northwest Saskatchewan, it is first a lack of a skilled workforce, and second a lack of housing to support a growing workforce.
We already know that the Wall government seems to have given up on providing housing support, and now we see they have little interest in furthering the interests of the large number of young First Nations and Metis people about to enter our local workforce.
Canceling programs and tearing up contracts is not a very good way to build trust or confidence. The Wall government needs to be held accountable for these actions.
