Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 2 - Evidence - Meeting of December 4, 2007
OTTAWA, Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 7:11 p.m. to examine and report upon rural poverty in Canada.
Senator Joyce Fairbairn (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators and witnesses, good evening and welcome to all who have tuned in to watch the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry's hearing on rural poverty and rural decline.
This evening's witnesses will talk to us about education — a theme that has resonated in all of the committee's hearings from Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, to Lethbridge, Alberta, and all the way to Prince George, British Columbia.
As the committee discussed in its interim report last December, rural citizens tend to have lower levels of education attainment and tend to be less literate than their urban peers. In a world that increasingly requires basic literacy skills and at least a high school education, rural Canada's poor educational outcomes are a serious problem.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome two organizations that are at the front lines of trying to improve educational outcomes in rural Canada. We have with us Ms. Terry Anne Boyles, Vice-President of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges; and Ms. Anna Sawicki, Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education. We are very glad to have you here tonight.
Ms. Boyles, please proceed.
Terry Anne Boyles, Vice-President, Association of Canadian Community Colleges: Thank you. It is a real pleasure to be here representing the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, ACCC, the national organization that serves the 150 plus colleges, institutes of technology, polytechnics, university-colleges and CEGEPs in all regions of the country. We have campuses or learning centres in at least 1,000 communities and outreach to over 3,000 communities, much of that being in rural, remote and Northern Canada. This topic is near and dear to our hearts. Community economic development, poverty alleviation and sustainability of rural communities in the country are what colleges and institutes are all about.
Later in our discussion, I would be pleased to talk about other areas as well. I bring a perspective that is not simply that of the vice-president of the association because I was also a college president in Saskatoon with a large rural area. Prior to that, I served on the staff at Red Deer College in Central Alberta. I also serve on the board of the Aboriginal Human Resource Council, and I was on Minister Bradshaw's Advisory Committee on Literacy, which looked at the issues of rural literacy and poverty.
Of course, colleges and institutes are firmly rooted, to use a more agricultural cliché, in their communities. In much of rural, remote and Northern Canada they are the primary employers, working together with hospitals, school boards and municipalities accordingly. They are seen as a hub of resource capacity in terms of community economic social development and a way to broker in resources from larger centres into rural, remote and northern parts of the country.
We are experiencing changing demographics with the growth in the Aboriginal youth population in the Prairies, in particular, and with the immigrant settlement through some of the temporary foreign workers program; some in service industries in places such as Whistler, B.C. or in the North. As the immigration strategy changes, some of those people become landed immigrants and some will be in low-paying jobs, placing them in that impoverished rural-remote population. We want to consider that as we move into the future. There has been a movement of people from smaller communities to larger urban communities. We are well aware that urban Canada is not the 80 per cent of the population in 20 large cities. Rather, when we talk about urban, we are talking about communities of about 1,000 people in the country as a whole.
A number of years ago, the ACCC created a task force on serving colleges in rural and remote communities as well as colleges such as Algonquin College, with its main campus in Ottawa, which has campuses in cities such as Pembroke, and others, to serve the Greater Ottawa Area. We look at what can be done throughout the entirety of the system.
The task force worked on inputs into such things as the agriculture policy framework for the country. We worked closely with the rural secretariat, and we were appreciative that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada lent us one of their senior managers for three years. Through Mr. Lynden Johnson, former Special Advisor, Rural and Remote Communities Initiative, Association of Canadian Community Colleges, who is no longer with us, we worked together to co-manage a federal government college approach. It was not a typical executive exchange. During that period, we worked closely with various federal departments, and we continue to do so in serving rural Canada. We also link colleges and institutes to the rural federal, provincial and agency teams across the country to see how we can help to alleviate poverty and build community sustainability in rural Canada.
Ms. Sawicki will speak to the impact of technology in rural and remote colleges, so I will make only a brief comment. We face a number of challenges in this area. Last year, we held a symposium on serving rural and remote Aboriginal communities in Burns Lake, British Columbia, and another one this fall in Timmins, Ontario. We have seen the efforts made to try to piece together funding mechanisms. They might have 20 learners in a potential program, such as a community health worker program, with funding from the band, social assistance or Aboriginal human resources agreements. There is inconsistency in funding mechanisms, so the benefits for learners become a real challenge. Some people call it fly-by funding because often it is categorized as pilot funding; and some call it carousel funding. Either way, it is not long term, sustainable or predictable. It is difficult for communities and their partners to consider what they are able to do to alleviate poverty in a strategic way.
We did some work along the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border, which is not a great farming area, on how to prepare assessments for male farmers ranging in age from 30 to 40 years to receive extra tutoring and mentoring. We needed to assess their skill sets from their work on the farm or in the local communities in a dignified and respectful way. Those skill sets then would be leveraged and built on to tie into other economic development of the communities.
A similar initiative in Nova Scotia worked with some fishers, in particular those who ran boats. We analyzed their skill sets as runners of boats and determined what skill sets were needed for the supply boats that go out to the oil platforms. The college then worked with the company to do the skill gap, including the literacy skills. We are always looking for examples of what can be done, but not only on a pilot program basis.
Working with impoverished people, it has been my experience that often we need extra counselling, tutors and mentors — the types of resources that do not exist for the most part in the capacity of rural colleges or that of their rural partners in the community.
In 2001, through the Rural Secretariat, the association put forward a concept of rural knowledge clusters. The federal government has funded a variety of research projects focused on rural Canada for three years.
In our partnership, we looked at three communities. We worked with Nova Scotia Community College in the Annapolis Valley on geomatics, Collège Boréal in Northern Ontario on renewable forest products and the changing context of forestry in Canada, and the College of the Rockies in the East Kootenays in British Columbia on tourism clusters.
Those pilot initiatives are nearly finished; significant lessons were learned. As research projects, there is no concept of a next phase. They are to identify lessons learned to see what other programs could be done related to rural economic development, either through other government departments, such as Fisheries and Oceans Canada or Natural Resources Canada or the Rural Secretariat at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada itself. This relates to the colleges together with their municipalities, the economic development people — if they exist in those communities — business, the forestry sector and geomatics. We want to look at what can be changed and how to develop the skill sets of people in the region to work in new ways of development.
The program has been a success. The evaluation process is continuing, but the Rural Secretariat and others have asked us to showcase this in France, Iceland, the United States and across Canada. It has real potential.
The questions for the next phase are: What is next? How can other rural communities in the country look at this approach and learn? How can we build the totality of a community's economic social development piece that looks at the skill sets and assets mapping in their communities and leveraging it further?
Ms. Sawicki will address the use of technology, but one of the issues occurring in rural Canada is lack of broadband access. Even if there were broadband access, for the poor, the question remains of access to or the ability to own a computer. We talked about the computers for the "all initiative'' for children in Africa. We often discuss a computers- for-all approach or a DVD-player-for-all, where we put content appropriate for people to develop skill sets in a technology-enabling way.
In your kits you will find various issues of our College Canada magazine that showcase examples of how colleges and communities work together with poverty alleviation and community sustainability in mind. A model of how the Rural Knowledge Cluster initiative works can also be found.
In terms of core recommendations, we believe there should be a long-term, non-fragmented fund to bring institutions and community partners together. The collaboration piece is key to assist assessment of skill sets, to develop bridging programs and tutor-counsellor initiatives and development of technology-enabled learning appropriate to literacy levels. All of this should be linked to the skill sets in the community.
There needs to be an examination of federal programs looking at fragmentation with the provinces, territories and Aboriginal governments and where collaborative approaches could be implemented. This would be useful so that learners are not disadvantaged and have equitable access; for example, to ensure they do not go on one program and lose health care benefits for their children and themselves. This is a critical aspect.
We believe the Rural Knowledge Cluster initiative has potential for rural-remote communities. Lessons have been learned from the pilot initiative that we recommend be considered for the future within Canada as it has been around the world.
The Chair: The foundation of nearly everything I have done since I became a senator has been literacy in Canada. In our travels, we have seen the difficulties that exist in cities, but this is good news to hear what you are stay saying tonight and thank you for that.
Anna Sawicki, Secretary-Treasurer, Canadian Network for Innovation in Education: I thank the committee for inviting us to address rural poverty and decline.
The Canadian Network for Innovation in Education, CNIE, is a national not-for-profit organization of professionals committed to excellence and the provision of innovation in education in Canada. We were formed from a merger between the Canadian Association for Distance Education and the Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada in May of this year. Our express purpose is to bridge the gap between on-campus and open and distance education cultures and practices. With education at all levels changing rapidly, the CNIE plays an important role in making educational opportunities available when and where they are needed.
We represent individuals from the public and private sectors, kindergarten to Grade 12, post-secondary institutions, educational technology, distance and open education, applied technology, policy and administration, and research. We have members from across Canada and around the world.
In addressing this committee's concerns of the exodus of learners from rural communities to urban centres to pursue their education, our organization sees accessibility to educational opportunities within those localities as one of the key drivers to opportunities in rural Canada.
Our organization would like to concentrate on two issues. We will speak to the gaps in infrastructure and briefly describe how broadband infrastructure has enabled delivery of high quality education in remote and rural areas.
In terms of infrastructure gaps, I refer you to the Report of the National Broadband Task Force that laid out a plan for redressing these gaps. This task force was established by the Minister of Industry six years ago. I will quote from their report:
The principle mandate of the Task Force was to map out a strategy for achieving the Government of Canada's goal of ensuring that broadband services were available to businesses and residents in Canada in every Canadian community by 2004. . . .
The most revolutionary aspect of broadband is its potential to reduce greatly, and even to eliminate, distance and time as cost factors — in economic activity and in providing public services.
The Task Force found compelling evidence that there is a systemic gap between the quality of life enjoyed by Canadians living in or near the urban areas of the country and those living in rural, remote and northern areas. Similarly, there is a significant quality of life gap between Aboriginal peoples and non-Aboriginal Canadians. . . .
The task force is convinced that using broadband to help bridge the economic and social gaps that . . . separate Canadian communities is more than a policy imperative — it is a new, national dream that could bring immense benefits to all Canadians . . . .
This dream was similar to that of the national railway system of the 19th century and has brought immense benefits to all Canadians. We urge the committee to review the following chapters in the task force's report: "Principles,'' "An Action Plan for Achieving Basic Broadband Access by 2004,'' and "Fostering Innovation Use.''
There is a need to develop mechanisms that allow educational institutions to gain access quickly to infrastructure and funding to respond to changing economic situations. Ms. Boyles also referenced this in her presentation.
For example, in Northern Ontario there is a mining boom, but there is also a major cutback in the forestry industry. Education must be responsive to the cyclical nature of these industries and assist in the diversification of communities to reduce the dependence on regional single-industry economies.
We feel that educational institutions, whether they are universities or community colleges or private institutions or agencies, have a role to play in filling in gaps for re-education of people in need of retraining as well as the assistance in economic development through the creation of value-added niches of workers.
Atlantic Canada has the highest rural population, followed by Saskatchewan. In the time remaining, I would like to present a brief overview of what is being done in Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan and where we see the gaps.
The issue of accessibility is important from kindergarten to grade 12 in Nova Scotia. The post-secondary situation is somewhat ameliorated by the relative geographic compactness of the province and our wealth — some might say glut — of undergraduate institutions.
The Nova Scotia Virtual School is one of several initiatives intended to provide a wider variety of senior high school and professional development courseware in remote and economically depressed areas. There are 440 sites, including schools and administrative offices at the board level, that typically play some part in providing distributed learning wherever it occurs.
The Nova Scotia Department of Education is actively negotiating greater connectivity speed in a wider range of school locations at minimal cost. It is part of a government-wide tender for telecommunications services in the MASH sector, which includes municipalities, municipal organizations, academic institutions, schools and health and social services organizations.
All schools in Nova Scotia have a minimum of 512K connectivity to the Internet. The current standard connection is DSL, which typically uploads slower than it downloads. For those of us who might be in that situation, you know exactly what I am talking about.
The department of education encourages regional boards, wherever possible, to connect schools at the T1 level. In some locations near the fibre optic backbone traversing the province, larger schools have been able to connect to 10 megabytes, or even 100 megabytes. There is quite a difference along the continuum of connectivity.
Of the 440 sites, 91 — or about 21 per cent — have a 512K connection. Most of the slower connections — 76 per cent — are in schools in rural locations. Although there are still a significant number in cities and towns, almost all are elementary, not secondary schools. The rural-urban divide is still evident in that of these sites, 62 are concentrated along the fibre optic backbone that runs from the provincial capital of Halifax to industrial Cape Breton, through the areas of greatest population concentration and industrial activity.
Let us look at Saskatchewan, which is a province in transition. This predominantly rural province is experiencing a population shift from rural to urban. With a large geographical area to cover, Saskatchewan acknowledges the role technology can play to increase learning opportunities for all, support rural education and help to ensure equivalency in courses. The following are some examples of the work being done in the province.
CommunityNet is a broadband, high-speed, provincial telecommunications network that will connect more than 800 schools and regional colleges — including those on First Nation reserves, 310 health facilities, 162 public libraries and 256 government offices — into a private network that is separated from the Internet, yet provides access to it. It is more cost-effective by virtue of having multiple providers.
Let me give you an example. Voice over Internet Protocol, VoIP, allows for greatly reduced long distance rates or none at all, especially in sparsely populated districts. It also provides users in other CommunityNet locations with access to provincial, national and international advanced research networks within a protected, controlled environment.
CommunityNet is comprised of three separate virtual private networks, VPNs, one each for executive health and learning, and each protected by its own firewall.
Saskatchewan's E-Learning Satellite Network uses technology to support and deliver high school classes, post- secondary credit courses and other learning opportunities through a variety of modes such as online, interactive television, audioconferencing, video conferencing and video streaming. This network utilizes the infrastructure of the satellite network, a closed-circuit television system serving over 250 distance learning sites and CommunityNet.
The E-Learning Satellite Network consists primarily of three satellite-based closed-circuit television channels that are used by educational institutions to deliver live televised secondary and post-secondary credit courses to learners in over 200 specially equipped facilities throughout Saskatchewan. Video streaming, whether it is live or archived, is used to complement the broadcast technology. The satellite receiving centres or the distance learning sites are located in schools, post-secondary institutions, regional colleges and community facilities throughout the province, and are identified for programming by the programming organization and their affiliation with a regional college.
I believe Ms. Boyles also mentioned that association between institutions and communities is crucial in rural areas.
In Saskatchewan, the francophone school division uses distance education delivery extensively. They envisioned and put into place a laptop program for every high school student and plan to have every student take at least one distance education course. There is also the French immersion high school, eCOLE, run by the French Education Branch of Saskatchewan Learning.
Rural students have difficulty receiving a mention as these programs are either cut completely at the high school level or only a limited number of courses are offered. In addition, these areas often have difficulty hiring teachers or replacing them in certain instances. To fill this void and to provide access for a larger selection of courses, eCOLE offers French immersion asynchronous high school courses.
As you have heard this evening, there are examples of programs that allow for accessibility to educational opportunities within rural localities. The problem is that there are numerous infrastructure gaps throughout the provinces and territories that do not allow for equal accessibility. To go back to the railway metaphor I mentioned earlier, we need a new and improved railroad for the 21st century and beyond.
In conclusion, strong support for infrastructure and education will be of enormous benefit to rural communities in allowing young, and the not so young, people to stay in their communities and not lose out on a wide range of educational opportunities.
Senator St. Germain: Thank you for your presentation. You know your subject very well, better than most of us — at least in my case.
Both of you are basically in the teaching profession. Ms. Sawicki, in the latter part of your presentation you say, "In addition, these areas often have difficulty hiring teachers or replacing them in certain instances.'' In brackets, in the written version, you noted "teachers not specialized in math.''
I happen to sit with some of my colleagues here on the Aboriginal committee in dealing with First Nations people. One fact that has emerged is that the lack of opportunity often dovetails with the lack of math skills. How successful is all this high technology if you do not have the teachers on the ground dealing with students?
I remember back to when I grew up. There was no technology; we just had excellent schoolteachers. If we were lucky enough, they focused on math. I still believe math and sciences are the key subjects in gaining economic opportunities, jobs and to really excel.
Do you feel that the technology approach that you have will fill that gap? I will use one example: When Senator Peterson and I were in Thunder Bay, we had hearings there on economic development. Wasaya Airlines, an airline owned completely by First Nations people in that area, had over 100 pilots. As I happen to be a pilot, I asked the owner how many of the pilots were First Nation. Only one of their pilots was First Nation, and when I asked why, I was told that they simply do not have the mathematic and science skills required to become proficient.
While people can study a good many subjects, if they do not have that basic education in math and science, they will have a real challenge in benefiting fully from economic development and jobs available in the country. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Ms. Sawicki: You are absolutely right. With respect to the gap, no one can be helped if there are no math teachers in a rural area or within a First Nations reserve. If there is technology available to access math or science courses from another location, whether via video streaming or video conferencing to a First Nations reserve, for example, that is better than nothing.
Senator St. Germain: I agree, but do you have statistics that would indicate a route of success from this? Is what we are doing really working, and if it is not, what should we be doing to make it work?
Ms. Sawicki: I believe it is working. In terms of statistics, many more institutions — high schools, post-secondary institutions, colleges, universities or private institutes — are, in fact, using technology to a greater extent. It not only increases accessibility within an urban setting but also within a rural setting.
The problem occurs when the community is not on the backbone of a broadband network. I used the example in Nova Scotia where the community might be close to the backbone from Halifax to Cape Breton, but if not, the types, number or availability of courses or programs will not be accessible. That is why it is so important that the infrastructure get away from that backbone and seep through the "vertebrae'' of the body that is Canada.
Senator St. Germain: Ms. Boyles pointed out that some readjustment is being done in forestry — I believe that was her example. We are experiencing a real boom in the oil industry right now. How can one gain foresight on this, so we can get ahead of the curve instead of behind the curve?
We can see that in the forest industry, such as in British Columbia, the mountain pine beetle infestation will wipe out a vast majority of jobs in the interior of British Columbia. Is it possible to foresee these situations? This oil boom will only last so long. Many people trained to work in that particular sector will have to be retrained if the bottom falls out of that industry.
How does your profession foresee these situations, or is that even possible? Are you reacting, generally, instead of being proactive?
Ms. Boyles: One of our areas of responsibility is figuring out how to go about future planning for institutions. We also look at what the mix will be for full- and part-time programs and what skill sets will be transferable between occupations. At the national level in resource-based industries, we work with the mining sector council and the Mining Industry Association of Canada. We are bringing Avrim Lazar, the head of the Forest Products Association of Canada, to our annual conference next spring in Prince George. We try to get the leaders from the industry who are doing the thinking on the future growth areas. We speak with the people from the oil sands if we want to talk about the impact of a moratorium on the oil sands. What does that vision mean for an institution such as the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology or Keyano College in Fort McMurray; what does it mean if there is a moratorium or a fast- growth burst in that area that creates a quick demand for many skill sets that may not credentialed but are what the industry needs? How can we help those adults learners be continuous learners, so they are constantly looking at how they themselves take the learning they have acquired and transfer it into another work domain.
If one works at the national level with occupational standards, one can look at the apprenticeship system in Canada. However, where are there some common skills needed to give employees the ability to move between and amongst the various professions? Labour market projections are incredibly difficult. Canada is considered a leader, but the people who work in the field still feel it is very complex. Scenario planning is working quite well, particularly in the growth or decline industries and the labour market adjustment programs.
Senator Callbeck: Ms. Boyles, you certainly know your material.
You talked about clusters, and you mentioned Nova Scotia, and then you went on to talk about the Rural Knowledge Cluster initiative. Was this initiative in place at Nova Scotia Community College?
Ms. Boyles: Nova Scotia Community College is one of the three pilot sites for Canada in the Annapolis Valley area. The Annapolis Valley Campus of Nova Scotia Community College has a real expertise, a world leader in geomatics and geographic information systems, GIS, applications, whether it is to fisheries, farming communities, et cetera. They looked at the decline in the fisheries work and how they could help create and evolve small- and medium-sized enterprises within that community using geomatics information technology. Additionally, they wanted to know how to take that knowledge to other communities down the road; how to link those companies, community economic development people and the training programs of Nova Scotia Community College — in this case, the local high schools — together to move a whole community in a strategic manner to enhance skill sets or take skill sets from other fields and apply them in this area.
Senator Callbeck: Will these pilot projects be over shortly?
Ms. Boyles: Yes, they are over at the end of March. One hopes momentum continues in those communities, but certainly that is a concern. Pilot projects are always of that nature. In this case, it was a deliberate pilot intended to focus on the lessons learned about communities working together. Therefore, deliberate tracking mechanisms were put in place. In addition, the community businesses and partners were interviewed about what worked, what did not work, what they would change and their recommendations to other communities as they move forward.
Senator Callbeck: Will you be putting out a document on the results of that?
Ms. Boyles: An in-depth evaluation is currently being performed. We have gathered quite a bit of preliminary information in order to showcase the models across the country as they have evolved. In the Nova Scotia case, it is also part of a pilot initiative under the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, NSERC, around the applied research role of colleges and institutions in the country. We are able to take lessons out of that applied research project where colleges work with companies in commercialization, adoption and transfer of new technologies into rural areas of Nova Scotia to facilitate economic development.
Senator Callbeck: Ms. Sawicki, you talked about many initiatives in Nova Scotia and parts of Saskatchewan. Are those initiatives provincial or federal or a combination of both?
Ms. Sawicki: The ones that I spoke to were provincial initiatives.
Senator Callbeck: What is the federal government currently doing with regard to distance learning? Have there been any new initiatives?
Ms. Sawicki: No, not really.
Ms. Boyles: One that is quite important is the role of CANARIE Inc. in the broadband network and hub for the country. It is really quite critical. The community access centres that Industry Canada placed on SchoolNet has had a real effect in much of rural Canada and has helped to drive some of the partnerships. The extension of the CANARIE Inc. funding is a relatively new announcement. An announcement and actually getting the contract and funding are quite different, of course.
Ms. Sawicki: CANARIE Inc. has been around for a long time. In fact, that was really the impetus for many of the broadband initiatives that took place across Canada. For example, Prince Edward Island benefited from involvement with CANARIE Inc. More could be done in terms of technology. The infrastructure we refer to — to use that national railway metaphor — would go right across Canada, so only one group of individuals or agencies will not be able to afford something of that size. The National Broadband Task Force cost billions of dollars, and that was in the early part of this century. You can imagine how those costs will go even higher because there is an interest in increasing that broadband capacity as much as possible.
If we are talking about equality of accessibility for urban and rural areas, the money it will cost will not come from one form of government only.
Senator Callbeck: I agree with you.
Senator Peterson: Your programs are very flexible, you said, to meet the needs of your clients — the students. How autonomous are you, and how much flexibility do you have? For example, you mentioned addressing the needed skill sets for work with the oil rigs off the East Coast.
Ms. Boyles: Many colleges and institutes were created through the support of the federal government and the Technical and Vocational Training Assistance Act in the 1960s. They have mandates under the legislative frameworks to be vehicles of socio-economic and community development. Therefore, depending where you are in the country, you have more or less resources for such flexibility to meet the needs.
Most of the funding for post-secondary education, including the transfers — and the transfers buried in the Canada Social Transfer, which is another issue for us — goes to full-time credit programs within a certain parameter and envelope for funding. The programs for rural and remote communities, in particular for disadvantaged adults in those areas, are funded through multiple mechanisms, so the institution is quite flexible to deliver the programs. The challenge is in finding the funding mechanisms to be able to achieve them.
There is more flexibility when one works directly with industry, such as the oil sands, that has the resources to pay for training, some of the applied research, transportation and child care supports. For example, industry paid for the access road from La Loche, Saskatchewan, into Alberta so that Aboriginal peoples could work in the Alberta oil sands. Flexibility is an attitude and a kind of moral imperative considered by the colleges and boards of governors when determining collaboration with industry. Flexibility is one of the operating principles in the institutions. Full- time credit programs are limited by the amount of post-secondary dollars available.
Ms. Sawicki: When funding is received for a program that has a finite term, the problem then becomes how sustainable it can be after the pilot project phase or two- or three-year phase.
At the end of the three years, many of these projects or programs go by the wayside because they have not been able to sustain themselves. Thus, excellent programs that are flexible and address the needs of industry and/or individuals have been lost.
Senator Peterson: You work with both the provincial and the federal governments, and education is a provincial responsibility. Do you combine the two in some way?
Ms. Boyles: Education is a provincial responsibility, but some programs have been moved back and forth between the federal and provincial governments. I have seen this throughout my entire career with the colleges. I can remember running gold panning courses to make a profit to run literacy programs in Alberta because there was no decision on who would look after literacy in that period of time.
It is also important to remember that many domains come under federal responsibility. For example, aviation, anything under international law of the sea, communications, et cetera, are federal responsibilities, or international responsibilities, to ensure that the occupational standards for those areas are met. There are programs, training and updating of the rural and remote workforce in National Defence, the RCMP and the federal public service, including some of the research laboratories, such as the one in Lethbridge, Alberta. For Aboriginal peoples, the responsibility rests with the federal government, as senators would know. We have wait lists of Aboriginal peoples trying to get into post-secondary education that cannot access the resources to do so, even though they have their math sciences and high school completion. As well, we have the federal Metis and Inuit programs.
There is work at the federal, territorial and provincial levels and through the Aboriginal governments' own funding.
Senator Peterson: You mentioned the gaps in infrastructure. What would be the percentage of the broadband access in Saskatchewan, for example?
Ms. Sawicki: I could not give you the exact figure for that, but, obviously, in the northern areas there would be less capability than in the southern areas.
Senator St. Germain: If I may, I have a question for clarification.
Ms. Boyles, did you say that some First Nations people have finished their high school education but cannot continue their education because of lack of funding?
Ms. Boyles: Yes. The Assembly of First Nations identified, in data from 2001 to 2006, over 10,000 eligible post- secondary students were denied access. We looked at that and did sampling to see how it varies across Canada. They now have added close to 3,000 more to that list of people denied access to post-secondary education.
Another issue with respect to Aboriginal peoples is the role and support, or lack thereof, for the Aboriginal post- secondary institutions. We encourage support to those Aboriginal institutions, in particular those in the rural and remote areas, because they are a bridge to the mainstream institutions that can partner with them to help ensure success in the future.
When looking at literacy, people may have their high school completion — math, sciences and communications skills — and are not using those skills, which results in "de-skilling,'' and then they have to be "up-skilled'' again before continuing on to the skill program areas.
Senator Peterson: Many FM stations service the communities in Northern Saskatchewan. Could this be utilized to accomplish what we are talking about here?
Ms. Sawicki: Absolutely.
Senator Peterson: It is there. What would be required to make that happen?
Ms. Boyles: Ron Faris from Saskatchewan wrote a book about the learning impact of the old farm radio forum approach and the value of being able to use radio within the country. We have done work in the Philippines using a radio broadcast system to reach communities. There is some work, but I am not presently familiar with it.
Ms. Sawicki: In the 1960s, courses were offered in Prince Edward Island through the radio. The number of people who were involved in listening to and taking these courses was phenomenal. There is no reason why that could not also be used.
However, radio may be perceived by people as being low on the totem pole of technology.
Senator Peterson: When we have nothing though, it could be put to use.
Ms. Sawicki: You are right. Something is better than nothing.
Senator Mahovlich: Serious shortages of health professionals exist in rural Canada, including many who receive training at the college level — for example, imaging and X-ray technicians, laboratory technologist and nursing assistants. What can be done at the community college level to increase the odds that the graduates of these programs settle and work in rural areas? Are there any mechanisms in place to encourage them to settle and work in rural Canada?
Ms. Boyles: I used an example from Burns Lake, British Columbia where they put together different funding mechanisms specifically around a community health workers program. It focused on finding individuals, primarily of Aboriginal descent, from those communities to train to be health care and home care workers, et cetera.
Red River Community College has an Aboriginal practical nursing assistant program. Langara College, although not rural — it is in the Greater Vancouver area — has credited its first group of foreign-trained dieticians and nutritionists. There is an incentive program for those graduates to work in rural and remote communities.
The problem in rural and remote communities is the closure of hospitals and health care facilities, employment strategies are a particular challenge because of lessening practicum placements. In the health care sector, 37 of the 52 health professions are trained in the colleges and institutes. They are trying to create those bridges as well as encourage foreign-trained professionals to move into the communities.
Senator Mahovlich: I am from a rural community of Timmins. In the 1940s, when I was a boy, we had excellent teachers, doctors and hospitals. What was the incentive for those people to work that far north?
Ms. Boyles: I was offered a position in Buffalo Narrows, Saskatchewan as a social worker, and there was an incentive on the pay at that point in time — although, I did not go. I do not know more specifically.
There are challenges and incentives. Places such as Fort McMurray or any of the communities in Northern Alberta or Northern Saskatchewan have great difficulty getting people into the resource industries.
Industry is hiring faculty and deans at much higher salaries than the colleges. The critical issue is how to maintain that skill set if our people and the school boards do not have the appropriate people to train the communities. We face a major economic problem in the future.
Burns Lake was an excellent example of the challenges faced. They have the people who want to work and stay in those communities.
There are other programs in universities around the country such as the Northern Teacher Education Program, NORTEP. The University of Manitoba runs one in partnership with some of the colleges in Northern Manitoba and into the Territories. I believe Dalhousie University and the University of Saskatchewan also have programs.
They try to find people from the communities and get them into the post-secondary programs as much as possible in their local communities. Then they create bridges into the university or college programs away from their home communities, hoping that graduates will go back based on the value system of rural Canada.
Ms. Sawicki: They will be giving courses by distance education, too.
Senator Mahovlich: Can one province be singled out as a leader on this issue, such as Burns Lake in British Columbia?
Ms. Boyles: I have not checked the provinces. The place with the most money is Alberta. There are some progressive programs in the trades where the bridging of trades programs is done from the high school system to engage youth earlier in the trades. The Aboriginal youth trades program has come out of Alberta and is being replicated across the country.
Certainly larger budgets for post-secondary education, literacy, pre-trades and pre-technologies make a difference in what can be done to serve rural and remote areas.
Ms. Sawicki: Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as British Columbia and Alberta, has been well known for offering distance education courses for the past 20 or 30 years. If you wanted to zero in on one province, it would be Newfoundland and Labrador. For example, they have tele-medicine. Because of the remoteness of much of the areas within the province, they have had to go into those areas through the university and through community colleges. In many provinces, we see more associations between post-secondary institutions because in many instances they cannot go it alone.
Senator Callbeck: A number of witnesses during this study that have talked about the fact that in the last 20 to 30 years, the emphasis on education has been to prepare students for university, rather than college. We have now ended up with a shortage of skilled workers in the trades and other non-university-type occupations.
Do you see any change in that? Is society starting to put more value on college than we have in the past?
Ms. Boyles: Absolutely, and it follows patterns. For example, when there was a downturn in the oil economy, people did not want to be in the petro-chemical industry as much as they do now. As they see where the wealth creation is in the country, much of that is tied to skill sets that come out of a college or trades education background. Also, people see that college graduates get jobs; some of the promotional statements in magazines, such as Maclean's, are make a huge difference in that regard.
Also, industry is looking for those skill sets. The construction industry association came out a week ago saying that they need 250,000 workers in the next seven years. That helps to drive some of the thinking about programs.
The other factor is that for several of the institutions — this is probably more urban than rural — the largest growth in the student population base in the colleges and institutes are those with a university degree who are combining that. For example, they might have more general liberal arts degrees and combine them with an applied program — or the reverse as well. That makes a major difference in terms of the applications.
The most current labour force data shows that around 33 per cent of people have a college education; apprenticeship is another 10 per cent, and university education is around 21 to 24 per cent at this point in time.
We have done postal code searches of where the learning centres and campuses are, and many of the colleges are based in rural and remote Canada. That is where people will turn for their educational opportunity.
Ms. Sawicki: Many more colleges and universities are signing articulation agreements. If you go to a community college for two years, you will be given credit for that and then be able to take courses at a university and be credited with that. Many universities are making those decisions, not only within their own province but between provinces as well. A series of universities will have articulation agreements with a series of colleges for the very reason that Ms. Boyles has mentioned.
Senator Callbeck: That has happened between the University of Prince Edward Island and Holland College.
Ms. Sawicki: Yes, absolutely.
Senator Callbeck: I am wondering about the cost of education for rural students. Has the Association of Canadian Community Colleges made any recommendations in regard to the student loan program as to how it could better accommodate rural students?
Ms. Boyles: Yes, we have. We talk about tuition being the lowest cost for someone pursuing a post-secondary education. Living costs and transportation costs are by far the greatest. In a rural or remote area of the country with no access to transportation, even if the college is within the immediate region, costs are substantially higher.
Our belief, which is reflected in our presentation, is that the Canada Student Loans Program is still based on the 1960s design. It certainly does not meet the current needs of the student population based on our institutions. For rural and remote learners, that is just compounded.
A number of factors and costs are not covered, but it is better than it was. This links back to part of the poverty issue in rural and remote Canada.
About 30 years ago, if people owned a fishing boat or had farm property, they had equity that meant they were ineligible for some of the loan programs. At least there has been that improvement. However, access for rural and remote people may preclude them pursuing a career option of their choice because it is not available in their area; even with some of the distance education and technology-enabled learning. That is also a barrier for the resource industry needs in the country.
Senator Callbeck: You have a list of recommendations for the student loans program that is available, is that correct?
Ms. Boyles: Yes; we had a national task force calling for a new learners' support system for Canada. It picks up on some of the principles I talked about earlier. It talks about universality of programs and equity. There is a series of guiding principles that we believe belong to any financial assistance program — whether it is the student loan program, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, the grants program, employment insurance programs or the Aboriginal programs — so that we have common approaches, equity of access and supplemental options for funding for people such as those from rural and remote areas.
Senator Peterson: You indicated at the outset that you are doing many pilot projects. Obviously, you are trying to develop new things. Is this all to eventually get a template that you can say, "Here is where we are going,'' or is this just part of your mandate that you will continue with? Where would you like to be five years from now?
Ms. Boyles: Pilot projects obviously serve a purpose. They let us test out a new idea and see whether or not there is applicability. Some we do want to move forward with and some provide lessons for what does not work. That has a value too.
We might want to try a different approach with an industry partner or community group. The pilot money might be the only source available to achieve some objectives that the business community, labour partners, Aboriginal groups or whoever the partners are want to move forward on.
However, whether it is in the college institute system or with partners in the voluntary sector, such as the YMCA- YWCAs or other providers, pilots are not always the way we prefer to go. It is better to have predictable long-term program funding. With accountability and transparency parameters — the talk about the outcomes that are being delivered with those monies — there is a review process periodically, so they are adapted, changed or dropped if they are no longer applicable.
When training for industry and developing programs, programs or courses are constantly being dropped because they are no longer relevant to the economy or where the Canadian populous as a whole is moving. We need both, but pilots are frustrating.
Senator Peterson: On the distant learning approach, you pretty well have that in hand and know what has to be done. Is it just money now?
Ms. Sawicki: No, I do not believe so. In terms of institutions, there must be a will among the people at those institutions to offer these programs that are not face to face. In many of these institutions, there is no will. Part of it is due to money, but part of it is due to what type of resources they have.
It really is up to a community to determine, in many ways, what it is that they want. We cannot impose upon a community that this is what they will have. There must be that association and communication between the community and a provider in terms of distance education. If it is not there, it absolutely will not work.
Senator Peterson: Therefore, you are trying to help develop this in order to get that desire going.
Ms. Sawicki: That is right. With any kind of program within a rural area, we have to be able to speak to the people and find out what they want. We can make suggestions, but if that will or the interest is not there on both sides, then it will never work. We probably have many examples of that within our own communities.
The Chair: I was nodding in approval; you have struck a chord.
I will share with you something that arose many years ago at the federal level and from working with both Houses of Parliament in the early days of literacy. It was really an issue that was thought of as being in an area for which the provinces were responsible. It was not consider something we were supposed to do. Well, I would say that it is very much what we are supposed to do.
I remember in the late 1980s or early 1990s when we knew what was in the hills and valleys of Northern Alberta. It was manual labour — giant trucks, shovelling, et cetera — that was responsible for extracting the product. It did provide jobs for a great many people, including Aboriginal people, but one of the problems was that the product was not saleable. All of a sudden, the situation changed with new technology.
Eric Newell, the head of Syncrude Canada Ltd. back then, looked at how the new technology could help to make it a viable industry. Rather than get people from other countries who had been faced with this and had been working on it in different ways, he persuaded the conglomerate that was Syncrude Canada. He decided that he would set a literacy program right on the floor, as it were, of the industry. This was to benefit the people who were there and understood the process to a point, but for whom everything had changed with the new technology.
He found a person in Northern Ontario who had been doing this kind of work in the mining industry for a similar reason. He set up a program and, without question, it brought literacy to the oil sands. People came, and they did learn. You can imagine exactly how important that was and still is today. In fact, Mr. Newell was the first corporate person to receive a Canada Post Literacy Award.
I look back on that as one of those occasions where someone has the notion to go ahead, and it works. Given how swiftly things can change, I am wondering today how we can promote more of that kind of initiative happening in the country. Distance learning and such is very helpful. You were talking about how colleges and universities are working on this; and in my hometown of Lethbridge, it has worked very well.
In the work that you do, are there innovations in the resource area that can be likened to what happened with Mr. Newell? Is today's technology — which is probably even easier — being used to expand skill sets instead of looking elsewhere for people who might be better able to do what is required? Are people ensuring that they have some kind of resource in their company that will allow Canadians and every part of Canada to have a fair chance of being able to get into the learning and literacy area to the point that they can be part of this exciting future?
Ms. Sawicki: I would say that, over the last 20 or 30 years, we have developed an expertise here in Canada. There are people throughout Canada at various stages of the educational sector who are doing research. We have actual practitioners working in areas that could help individuals "go out there'' and assist in not only the advocacy of increased learning and literacy opportunities for people but also involving people within the communities to help out.
I do not know whether that answers your question, but I feel we have learned much over the last 20 to 25 years about what technology can and cannot do. If we want to include more people, as the president from Syncrude Canada did, and make learning opportunities available to individuals within remote areas, we have individuals and institutions throughout Canada doing exactly that.
Perhaps the problem lies within technologies. I feel technology is not the be-all and end-all; it is not everything to everybody, and it can never be everything for everybody.
The Chair: Agreed.
Ms. Sawicki: However, we can offer more opportunities for education through technology. As I said before, if people do not have educational opportunities at all, then, with the help of technologies, we can provide some of those opportunities to those people.
The Chair: I certainly agree you and hope that these opportunities expand even faster and further than they do today.
With this new way of being able to offer opportunities, and as people move toward them, how different are the skills of the people of urban areas versus rural areas? If possible, even in a broad way, can you tell me what level of difference exists? When you have the opportunity to do some teaching in whatever way that might be, is there a great divide between the people seeking those types of opportunities?
Ms. Sawicki: Probably, there still is such a divide. As I mentioned in my presentation, there is equitable access to education. However, some high schools in rural areas cannot offer certain courses because there are not enough people to teach the courses, and, in some instances, there might not be an instructor. With video conferencing facilities, the school can offer the course to any number of students even if the instructor is 50 kilometres or 100 kilometres away; as it should be. Again, long distance charges are minimal depending on the service provider; in some cases, there are no long distance charges. In that case, if an instructor can be found, then the students can have the opportunity, whether at the high school, college or university level. I would like to believe that will happen more and more.
The Chair: I agree. Ms. Boyles, do you have a comment?
Ms. Boyles: I want to pick up on the ripple effect of the leadership role of Eric Newell that led to the creation of small- and medium-sized enterprises and his work around the Aboriginal Human Resource Council and companies of Aboriginal inclusion. That now includes RBC Royal Bank across the country, Weyerhaeuser, the Irving Group and Aliant in Atlantic Canada. We convinced the gas pipeline operations run by Joffrey to set up a learning laboratory outside Red Deer, Alberta that would be open to people in the community as well as employees of the plant. The large Aboriginal employment strategy programs, such as those at Voisey's Bay, the Diavik mine, the gas pipeline and the James Bay hydro initiatives, use some of the most innovative strategies to bring together the partners and the tools because they have the resources to do so. In this way, they make a huge difference in alleviating poverty and creating economic development, at least in those parts of the country where they have resource industry and Aboriginal funding to drive it. It would be nice to include in those learning endeavours some of the non-Aboriginal peoples from those impoverished areas.
The Chair: I was reminded of another magic moment when I was visiting my friend and colleague Senator Callbeck, when she was the Premier of Prince Edward Island. She was in the process of an initiative to develop an important foundation for literacy. We worked together on that. I went back at a later date and went on a tour of the island. A young man took me through one of the literacy programs of which they were very proud. He said he was part of the program. When I asked him what he was doing now, he replied that he was working on his degree. I remained silent because I did not quite understand. He took me up the stairs of the rickety old building to a room that had been set up with high-tech equipment. Indeed, he was at university when he was in that room and connected to one of the colleges in either Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. He was very close to getting his degree.
This was happening in a tiny fishing village on Prince Edward Island. I suppose this is a common occurrence today, but back then, it was a new and unusual. I left the place virtually speechless, which is unusual for me. At the same time, I was tremendously moved that this was not happening in Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver or any other larger centre but rather in a little town on Prince Edward Island. They were using the resources available, and it was working.
I have great confidence in such programs, in particular through our colleges and universities. It is a question of persuading people to take the leap when they have never had such an opportunity. You are engaged in a great initiative, and I am sure that everyone here would agree that it is extremely important to that your efforts succeed.
Are there further questions from senators?
Hearing none, I thank the witnesses for appearing this evening.
Senator St. Germain: You have travelled right across the country. You have a working knowledge of the colleges and places where I travelled with the Canadian Armed Forces and as a politician. If your political ambitions rise to the surface, we will be there, Ms. Boyles.
The Chair: Speaking for all senators on the committee, I feel this has been a different meeting than usual and a very important one. I have the sense that plans and improvements are slowly but surely working, and I wish you all the best.
The committee adjourned.