First Nation pipe layers getting ready to work

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About 48 First Nation men are in the middle of a training experience that will take them across the province laying pipe. For many of them, this is the first time they will get an opportunity to work on a pipeline.

The men took part in an intensive four-week heavy equipment training program from April 5 to May 7. The program was designed to make the men employable in the pipeline industry.

Vincent Ironeagle, a member of the Pasqua First Nation, about 60 km northeast of Regina, says this is his first experience with a pipeline.

"Sounds like there is going to be jobs in the pipeline industry for some time," said the former band councillor turned pipelayer. "Not just summer time but it goes through the winter."

Fred Quewezance, a band councillor form the Keesekoose First Nation, said the idea to have First Nation people working in the pipeline industry came from a couple of men. Quewezance said he and the former chief of the Key First Nation, Percy O'Soup, worked together on the pipeline for years. During one of their conversations they asked themselves why First Nations people were never involved in projects that crossed traditional territories.

It's a question that needed answers since the Alliance Pipeline project will run through the southwest corner of the province which is Treaty 4 territory.

A big challenge, according to Quewezance, was trying to get political support from the Indian political machine. But after getting the political clout of power brokers like Roland Crowe and Ted Quewezance, the idea began to gather speed, said Fred Quewezance.

And once the ball got rolling a memorandum of understanding was signed in December 1997 between Saskatchewan First Nations and the companies representing the Alliance Pipeline.

"They're short-time jobs but they're good money," Quewezance said. One person who is expecting to cash large pay cheques in the near future is Murray Delorme from Cowessess First Nation. Delorme says the chance to work in the pipeline industry will give him a better quality of life.

"It means stability and a better income," he said. "But I've got to perform and show them I can do the job."

But in order for Delorme and other First Nation employees to do the job, the project organizers needed to get the trade unions on-side.

"It was very hard to try to get into the union," said Delorme. "First of all, there's a waiting list and there's not too many Native people in the unions."

Delorme says he's been in other unions before and knows the benefits of a union job.

So union leaders like Ed Cowley, of the International Union of Operating Engineers, know there is a large pool of workers to draw from in Saskatchewan's Aboriginal community. But when they heard the plan to hire about 150 First Nation employees, Cowley got a little nervous.

"There was some concern," he said. " But we were able to show [it was] a reasonable number of people we could absorb in our training programs."

He says once some common ground was found, the unions embraced the idea to bring First Nation people aboard.

"The Aboriginal people will be a majority in the not so distant future," he said. "And for sure our unions better reflect what the demographics of our province reflect."