Shellbrook www.shellbrookchronicle.com VOLUME 101
Chronicle
The Voice Of The Parkland Since 1912 SHELLBROOK, SASKATCHEWAN
FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012
PMR #40007604 No. 9
Aboriginals Sask’s untapped labour market
Saskatchewan business owners will need to harness the power of the provinces’ fastest growing demographic if they want to continue to prosper according to Aboriginal Consulting Services (ACS) President and Owner John Lagimodiere. The aboriginal awareness facilitator gave an abbreviated version of his typical presentation for the Shellbrook and District Chamber of Commerce February 28 at the Shellbrook Seniors’ Centre. Lagimodiere said that First Nations and Metis people make up roughly 180,000 of Saskatchewan’s 1,0670,000 population, a demographic that is growing faster than any other in the province. With the province’s growth and prosperity many employers are looking to other countries like the Philippines to fill their job vacancies but they are missing a large under utilized source of labour. “We have a home grown solution here in Saskatchewan and it is the untapped, or undertapped, aboriginal community,” said Lagimodiere. Through the presentation, sponsored by the North Central Enterprise Region, he explained some of the challenges some employers face in hiring, recruiting and retaining aboriginal workers. He used the example of a concrete contractor he knew in the Lloydminster area that was having a difficult time competing with the oilfield companies for quality employees. He hired an aboriginal man from the Onion Lake First Nation with some concrete experience who kept bringing more and more young workers from the First Nation onto the crew. To keep these employees he asked them what they wanted and he truly listened. Because employee cashflow was often a concern he moved payday to every Thursday from a traditional two week structure and when these workers needed time off they often arranged replacements to come from the reserve. He noted that with the growth of aboriginal populations so do their enrollment in post secondary education. In all, he said there are about 7-8000 Aboriginal people enrolled at post secondary institutions across the province -- which is tops in the country. Continued on page 3
OLD FOLKS -- Bessie (Pat Grayston) pulls out her best moves to try to seduce Leonard (Doug Schmirler) during a rehearsal of the Golden Hosts’ production of Old Folks. Shellbrook’s senior drama troupe is set to stage a pair of plays March 17 and 18 at the Shellbrook Theatre along with musical guests with $5 from each ticket sold going to the Shellbrook and Area Ministerial Food Bank. Story on page 8
Town of Shellbrook supports daycare group A group seeking licensed daycare spaces in Shellbrook attended the regular meeting of Shellbrook Town Council Monday in search of support for a daycare project in town. Committee members of what has been dubbed Happy Hearts Daycare delivered their pitch for support for a 50 space licensed non-profit day care centre. Committee member Karisa Klaassen outlined the current state of childcare in Shellbrook for council -- that there are currently five day home operators in the community and by the end of the year two of those will be ceasing operations. She noted that the dayhome operators guidelines state that each individual caregiver has 15 spots with children of varying ages weighted heavier based on how young they are. Under this formula an infant takes up 5 spots, a toddler 1.5 spots and a school aged child 1 spot. She noted that two families each with a child in each category would consume all of a care giver’s spaces. What the committee was looking for was a letter of support for the venture to include in with the group’s letter of intent
to the provincial government. The group also asked that consideration be given to providing some land within town where the facility could be built, which they stated may help move them further up the government’s list of projects. Because of building codes and standards that must be met for a government licensed daycare, the committee found through their contact with people involved with existing and up and coming projects in Leask, Spiritwood and Birch Hills, it would probably be best to build a facility rather than retrofit an older building. Mayor George Tomporowski congratulated the committee for taking the initiative to get the process moving forward in hopes of making this project a reality. “We are excited about young folks coming back to the community and if we want to continue to attract young folks we need something like this,” said Tomporowski. Council later passed a resolution to draft a letter of support for the project and that the Town would give consideration to providing land for a building to be built to house a daycare centre.
The committee members outlined the results from a recent survey conducted with a participation rate of 50 families with children. Of those 50 families 35 currently need child care services in Shellbrook and 30 currently have child care arrangements while the remaining 20 did not. Of those 50, 27 (54%) said they would definitely use a nonprofit daycare centre while 9 (18%) answered that they would not while 14 (28) per cent stated that they would maybe use the service. Of the 41 that continued the survey, 21 (51%)indicated that they would be interested in full time survices while 14 (34%) and 6 (15%) stated they would use the service occasionally. Most respondents were looking for care during traditional work hours as 23 (50%) were looking for weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 17 were looking for weekdays 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The two largest demographics of children were 5 years and older at 29 (41%) and 0-18 months at 18 (25%) followed by 3-4 years at 17 (24%) and 18 months to 3 years at 7 (10%).