The pandemic possibility parade is getting longer as the virus-enforced Great Rethink continues to close shopworn views and open new windows of opportunity.
The human resources window is at the heart of the COVID-19 disruption. There is a lot of bad news in the workplace, but as in any radical overhaul of work as we know it, a lot of the unexpected change and churn is overdue. In B.C. and elsewhere across Canada, the need to retrain and retool the workplace from its traditional reliance on resource extraction into a technology and innovation-driven economy has been accelerated. The need to involve more of the country’s Indigenous population in both traditional and new Canadian economies has also been underscored. It is a largely untapped talent pool whose development will yield enormous social and economic benefits for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike. As the Conference Board of Canada and the Future Skills Centre point out in a recent study, seeding success for Indigenous people in the new science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) economy needs to start early in Canada’s education system. But that system is falling short in that regard. The conference board notes, for example, that high schools in northern and remote areas of the country are not adequately preparing Indigenous students to continue in post-secondary STEM studies nor are they providing them with the basic tools to succeed in STEM career pursuits. The result is that while Indigenous people make up 4% of adults in Canada, they account for less than 2% of STEM sector workers. First Nations are seizing opportunities in Canada’s rich oil and gas sector to the point that it has become what the Macdonald-Laurier Institute calls one of the “front lines of reconciliation.” STEM needs to become another reconciliation front line. That will require co-operation, co-ordination and concerted effort from both sides of that line.
