Feds give $2M for apprentice and blaster training, adult literacy

The federal government has announced over $2 million in funding for Northern programs aimed at helping indigenous people, youth, and people with disabilities get jobs.

Last week MaryAnn Mihychuk, federal minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, announced money for the N.W.T.'s Mine Training Society, the Nunavut Literacy Council and Yukon College among 198 projects nationwide.

"These projects will certainly help individual Canadians gain the skills, abilities and work experience they need to find and maintain good employment, and they will also help strengthen and grow Canada's middle class," said Mihychuk. 

The Mine Training Society is receiving $293,000 that, paired with $720,000 from McCaw North Drilling and Blasting, is being used to train 12 people as drillers and blasters. McCaw is a contractor at the N.W.T.'s Ekati diamond mine, where the work experience portion of the training will take place.

"This is [targeted toward] youth at risk — youth who haven't finished high school or may not have had long-term attachment to the workplace," said Hilary Jones, the society's general manager.

"Drilling and blasting is required at all mine sites as well as road construction and, around here of course, building construction, because lots of folks have to flatten their sites in order to be able to build. So [the program] has quite a wide [application]."

Unlike some previous offerings from the society, this program is open to both aboriginal and non-aboriginal candidates.

The Nunavut Literacy Council received $790,516 for its Adult Learning, Literacy and Essential Skills Program, while Yukon College received $1,114,707 for a pilot project called "Flexibility and Innovation in Apprenticeship Technical Training."

The federal government says the latter program is aimed at "apprentices [who] face challenges when they have to alternate between technical training and on-the-job training."