Video explains new approach

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The best way to improve the dismal Aboriginal employment numbers in Saskatchewan is to go where the jobs are. That's the message the provincial government and the University of Saskatchewan are sending to young Aboriginal people - and those responsible for educating or training them.

You Do the Math: The Aboriginal Partnership Agreement at the University of Saskatchewan, is the title of a 13-minute video that was shown for the first time on Sept. 29 at the university's college of education. The video explains the spirit and intent of the 1999 partnership agreement in principle involving the university and the provincial government, an agreement that is designed to address the problem of Aboriginal unemployment. Since the partnership agreement is based on a new approach to getting Aboriginal people ready for the workplace, the video should come in handy for many people in the province.

Wayne McKenzie, a Metis consultant to the province's Ministry of Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs, has set up 37 such partnerships involving employers in the province. He told Sage that he believes most Aboriginal training and employment agencies could serve their people better and he's pushing the partnership model to make sure they do.

"Everybody's getting trained, but at the end of the day they end up back on welfare," he said.

Employers who sign on to these agreements commit to make their workplace more accessible to Aboriginal employees and to make sure Aboriginal educators and trainers are aware of the employer's future needs. That way, Aboriginal people can ready themselves to fill those jobs.

The university doesn't have quotas or specific targets for hiring Aboriginal people but Kathy Gray, the director of employee services for the university's human resources division, believes the partnership agreement will help more Aboriginal people to land jobs at the University of Saskatchewan. Less than one per cent of the school's 6,000 employees are Aboriginal. By entering into the partnership, the school is admitting that that's not right, and admitting you have a problem is the first step to correcting it, she said.

McKenzie sees the system as it works now - placing workers by taking advantage of employment equity targets that usually hover around 12 per cent - to be short-sighted. He wants employment training initiatives for Aboriginals to be more aggressive.