Where’s the training for mine jobs?

Thanks to the governments of Canada and Nunavut, and to the work put into it by the Baffin Fisheries Coalition, Inuit in Nunavut may now gain access to an organized $5.1 million program aimed at helping them get better jobs in the fishing industry.

This is long overdue. Nunavut’s offshore fishery generates, roughly, beween $80 and $100 million a year. It’s estimated that only about $9 million of that makes its way back to Nunavut. There are many reasons for this, including the inexperience and gullibility of Nunavut’s early shrimp and turbot licence holders. But another reason is the absence of a sustained training program for aimed at helping Inuit rise out of lower-wage deckhand and factory jobs and into higher-paying technical and professional jobs, the kind of jobs you can make a career out of.

If the Nunavut fisheries training scheme has a flaw, it’s that the funding for it is guaranteed for three years only. Training takes a long time. If this program turns out to be successful, its backers may discover that the money may run out at the same time as dozens of trainees are still applying to get in.

But it’s a good start, and we wish them the best of luck.

There is however, another looming industry in Nunavut that promises to dwarf the fishery in size and wealth: mining. Many southern firms, most of them small, junior exploration companies, are already spending about $100 million a year in Nunavut looking for commercially viable deposits of gold, diamonds and base metals, creating seasonal jobs in the spring and summer months for people in nearby communities.

But all that is small potatoes when compared with the money that will flow in and out of Nunavut after the more promising exploration projects are transformed into working mines. When that happens, the potential jobs will number in the hundreds, and the dollars invested will measure in the hundreds of millions.

But the best paid jobs in the mining industries go to skilled, experienced trades people and technicians: heavy equipment operators and so on. Without access to training, the best jobs that many Inuit can hope to get are in the minimum-wage ghetto: low-paid cafeteria work and other forms of menial labour on behalf of sub-contractors hired to supply basic services to mine operators. Meanwhile, the big money will be earned by seasoned professionals from the south.

So where is Nunavut’s mine training program?

The Government of Nunavut has not been entirely inactive on the issue. Arctic College runs some modest 14-week introductory programs that are supposed to be available at all three of its regional campuses.

And in 2003, the GN formed an internal committee called the “Nunavut mine training focus group.” They’re supposed to produce an education and training strategy within about three years. But there’s no sign of any money on the horizon to pay for the things that such a strategy would likely call for, such as trades training and upgrading in math skills.

In short, the Iqaluit-based Nunavut government just isn’t moving fast enough on mine training.

Right now, there are promising exploration projects underway in all three Nunavut regions. But the ones most likely to become producing mines in the near future are located in the Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions. Unless the GN quickens its pace on this issue, alienation among residents of Nunavut’s westernmost region, the Kitikmeot, is likely to deepen, threatening the unity of the territory. And, no matter where they’re located, new mines will bring disillusionment and anger instead of hope and prosperity. JB