Committee works to improve northern opportunities

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Whoever said that the best way to doom a project was to delegate it to a committee had obviously never heard of the Northern Labour Market Committee (NLMC).

Since its inception in 1983 as an idea-sharing forum for agencies involved in funding training programs in northern Saskatchewan, the committee has grown to become one of the backbones of employment equity and training for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in the province's North.

Although the group's name may not be well-known, its achievements are, most notably the multiple award-winning, internationally-recognized Multi-Party Training Plans which, over ita 10-year history, have created hundreds of jobs for northerners in the uranium mining sector.

The NLMC began informally, when agencies that funded training programs in the North began to meet regularly to discuss emerging labour market issues and ways to jointly fund training programs. These meetings were seen as a way of addressing three key challenges: a small but growing population widely distributed over a huge, often isolated region; an under-skilled labour force; and expanding mining and service industries that somehow managed to ignore the possibilities for hiring locally.

"People (in the North) would see the opportunities going by and wonder why there wasn't more benefit for northerners ... It was felt that ... the opportunities for northerners were not capitalized on or in some cases outright lost," said Peter Mayotte, regional director (central and Athabasca) for Northlands College, one of the first agencies to join the NLMC. Mayotte is also responsible for co-ordinating the implementation of the NLMC's Multi-Party Training Plans.

Within the year, the group had officially established itself as the Northern Labour Market Committee, formalized its terms of reference and made itself known on the provincial level as a new player in the field of labour market analysis and planning. The committee's mandate was established right from the beginning: "To identify and assess emerging labour market issues in northern Saskatchewan and to develop recommendations and initiate actions toward the resolution of such issues."

In other words, the NLMC's goal was to spot problems and fix them-and that's what the committee has done. In fact, said Mayotte, "the committee has done so well at developing opportunities in so many different sectors that the work can no longer be done by a single committee. That in itself speaks to the success."

Where originally the whole NLMC would be involved in solving an identified problem, their endeavours have grown so large that the actual implementation of an idea is now delegated to a variety of sub-committees. New and ongoing projects are discussed at the committee's quarterly meetings, and new issues are tabled. Then, throughout the year, the sub-committees (such as forestry and health) tackle initiatives dreamed up at the collective table.

The NLMC, which started with 10 players, now include decision-makers from more than 80 different agencies, including training, funding and economic development bodies, governments, Aboriginal agencies and industry sectors all operating in northern Saskatchewan.

"Everybody's at the table, and generally speaking, the decisions are made by consensus," said Mayotte. "You have the buy-in of all those stakeholders, and reduce the likelihood that a decision is going to be tripped up down the road."

The NLMC structure has other strengths as well. For example, in the past, if an agency started a project on its own, there was always the risk that the initiative could die if a key organizer (or the agency itself) decided to pull out. With a multi-faceted organization like the NLMC, "the energy, the burden and the responsibility is shared," said Mayotte.

Sometimes just sharing information is important. The North faces so many challenges that several different agencies may feel the pressure to solve a specific problem, and the open ialogue at the NLMC table allows those agencies to discover they have common goals. They can then work collaboratively instead of at cross-purposes.

Even competitors can find themselves working hand-in-hand. For example, the mineral sector sub-committee has representatives from rival uranium mining companies Cameco and Cogema, who through the NLMC actually train one another's mill workers.

As well, sectors such as forestry have both large and small players (such as Weyerhaeuser and the La Ronge sawmill). On their own, one company's training needs may not be sufficient to warrant a training program, but with several companies-and funding agencies, governments and schools-involved, "you come up with the critical mass," said Mayotte.

The fact that companies like Cameco and Weyerhaeuser are key players in these agreements is yet another indication of the NLMC's success. Where once the northern labour market was virtually ignored, now companies are actively involved in training and recruiting northerners. This involvement may have been initiated because of the provincial government's demands that the companies do community consultations before proceeding with major forestry or mining projects, but now, said Peter Mayotte, the companies know that "what benefits the northerners benefits industry."