Transfer Payment - March 2005

Transfer payments made under the Aboriginal Human Resources Development Strategy (AHRDS) are predominantly in the form of contributions for Aboriginal organizations. The AHRDS provides support to Aboriginal organizations to design and deliver:

• Labour market development programs to assist Aboriginal people, including Aboriginal persons with disabilities, prepare for, obtain, and maintain meaningful and sustainable employment;
• Special programs to assist Aboriginal Youth make successful transitions from school to work or to support their return to school, and;
• Child care programs.

To support Aboriginal organizations to develop and implement labour market, youth and child care programs that are designed to address the local and regional needs of Aboriginal people. This programming will:

• assist Aboriginal individuals to prepare for, obtain and maintain employment, thereby resulting in savings to income support programs;
• assist Aboriginal youth (a person normally from 15 to 30 years of age) in preparing for, obtaining and maintaining employment and in making a successful transition into the labour market, thereby resulting in increased employment; and
• Increase the supply of quality child care services in First Nations and Inuit communities, thereby raising the availability of distinct and diverse services in these communities to a level comparable to that of the general population.

Assist 50,000 Aboriginal clients, of whom 22,000 are expected to find and keep work or become self employed, and approximately 8,000 will return to school. Approximately, 7,500 child care spaces will continue to be supported and occupied.

The Aboriginal Skills and Employment Partnership (ASEP) initiative is a targeted Aboriginal skills development program designed to promote maximum employment for Aboriginal people on major economic developments through a collaborative partnership approach. It is designed to address a broad spectrum of skills and learning needs and provide access to jobs.

• The overall objective of the ASEP initiative is sustainable employment for Aboriginal people leading to lasting benefits for Aboriginal communities, families and individuals.
• The initiative aims to promote maximum employment for Aboriginal people on major economic developments through a collaborative partnership approach.
• Increased skills level in the Aboriginal workforce
• Increased direct and indirect employment for Aboriginals across Canada
• Decreased Aboriginal unemployment and dependency on social assistance
• Improved education levels (i.e. literacy, numeracy, computer skills, post-secondary certification)
• Increased Aboriginal business opportunities
• A more diversified workforce within communities

Targets for 2005/2006:

• 1750 Aboriginal clients served
• 1000 interventions completed
• 340 clients returned to employment following an ASEP intervention
• $5,000,000 in savings to Social Assistance

The purpose of the Canada Education Savings Grant Program is to encourage Canadians to save for the post-secondary education of children through Registered Education Savings Plans.

Our main Program objective is to increase post-secondary education participation. By reducing financial barriers, the Program helps to increase access to, enrolment in, and completion of post-secondary education. The ultimate outcome for the Program is to have more skilled and knowledgeable Canadians able to participate fully in the workplace and society by having a higher level of education.

The purpose of the Canada Learning Bond is to help low-income families to save money for the post-secondary education of children through Registered Education Savings Plans.

Our main Program objective is to increase post-secondary education participation. By reducing financial barriers, the Program helps to increase access to, enrolment in, and completion of post-secondary education. The ultimate outcome for the Program is to have more skilled and knowledgeable Canadians able to participate fully in the workplace and society by having a higher level of education.

Provide Alternative Payments to non-participating jurisdictions, Interest Relief benefits to borrowers and the value of Loans Forgiven according to prescribed criteria.

To ensure alternative payments, interest relief benefits and the amount of loans forgiven are accurately reflected in financial reports.

To track the benefits and administrative costs related to the risk-shared loan regime.

To ensure interest subsidy, interest relief benefits, Debt Reduction in Repayment benefits, the amount of loans forgiven, risk premium and put-backs are accurately reflected in financial reports.

To track the claims submitted by Financial Institutions related to the Guaranteed Loan Portfolio.

To ensure claim payments are accurately reflected in financial reports.

Providing grants for eligible borrowers to increase access to post-secondary education by reducing financial barriers.

To ensure funding is available for students with permanent disabilities, high-need students with permanent disabilities, high-need part-time students, women in doctoral studies, students with dependents, and students from low income families.

The Enabling Fund provides funding to Official Language Minority Communities (OLMC) designated organizations, the Regroupements de développement économique et d'employabilité (RDÉE) and Community Economic Development and Employability Committees (CEDEC) through contribution agreements.

Contributions can be made under the Enabling Fund for the OLMC to support the following activities:

• human resources planning, research, preparing and adopting community development plans;
• creating, implementing and consolidating partnerships;
• mobilizing community stakeholders;
• developing and coordinating projects that foster the development and enhance the vitality and economic growth of those communities;
• developing human resources and strengthening local and national structures to improve their capabilities in terms of governance, policy and support program development, the expansion of services to the community for community capacity building, and organizational administration and management.

• The Enabling Fund for OLMC is delivered under the authority of Section 6 of the Department of Human Resources Development Act, which provides the Minister with authority relating to the development of Canada's human resources to enhance employment, encourage equality and promote social inclusion.
• The objective of the Enabling Fund is to ensure continuity of activities and funding for the organizations that foster the development of human resources, economic growth, and job creation and retention in OLMCs.

Short Term

• Continued viability of the infrastructures and networks as mechanisms for government supporting OLMCs.
• Improved knowledge of official language minority communities from community profiles; the information will be used to guide funding decisions, benchmarking and assessing progress and future evaluation.
• Increased OLMC capacity, at the organization and network levels, to produce community development plans and projects.
• Through networking, promotion and communication, increased awareness and understanding among the national committee and the federal government departments that have signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the national committee about the issues of official language minority community development and approaches to strengthen the communities.
• Increased capacity of the Secretariat and regional coordinators with section 41 of the Official Languages Act responsibilities to advise and support the funded committees.

Medium Term

• Increased leverage, within federal government departments and agencies that have signed the Memorandum of Understanding and from external bodies, of financial and other support for official language minority communities for community development projects.
• Federal departments and agencies taking into account the needs of OLMCs during the development and delivery of their policies and programs, particularly those of human resources and economic development.

Long Term

• Critical mass of local human resources in official language minority communities capable of promoting and implementing their own development.
• Increased diversity of funding bases for the national committees, the Regroupements de développement économique et d'employabilité and Community Economic Development and Employability Committees.
• Increased economic and job growth in OLMC.

The Foreign Credential Recognition (FCR) Program provides financial and strategic support to partners, including Sector Councils, industries, regulatory bodies, provinces/territories, immigrant serving organizations and educational institutions, to develop a pan-Canadian approach to assessing and recognizing the foreign credentials of individuals within targeted occupations and sectors of the economy to facilitate entry into, and mobility within, the Canadian labour market.

The FCR Program supports the research and project-based activities of partners to develop tools and processes to assess and recognize foreign credentials in targeted occupations and sectors. The goal of the Program is to deliver on its mandate of improving the labour market outcomes of foreign trained individuals in targeted occupations and sectors.

As the actual implementation of FCR rests with partners, the Program primarily plays a support role in the development of tools and processes to assess and recognize foreign credentials. Efforts focus on achieving the following short, medium and long-term outcomes in support of the Program's overarching ultimate objective.

In the short-term, the Program will work with in partnership to:

• increase the understanding, consensus and commitment on issues and potential solutions related to foreign credential recognition;
• increase the knowledge of what works in developing a pan-Canadian process for foreign credential recognition;
• identify sectors and occupations facing current and emerging critical shortages that could be addressed by interventions from the Program; and
• enhance national coordination of partnership activities with regards to foreign credential recognition.

In the medium and long-term, the Program will work in partnership to:

• increase the awareness, availability and use of tools and processes for employers and regulators to assess and recognize foreign credentials;
• standardize pan-Canadian FCR processes in targeted occupations and sectors;
• improve the ability of sectors, employers and regulators to assess and recognize foreign-trained individuals; and
• reduce the barriers to entering the labour market for foreign trained individuals.

The Program will work with partners to achieve these short, medium and long-term outcomes in order to meet its ultimate objective of improving labour market outcomes in targeted occupations and sectors of foreign trained individuals.

With our partners, we support activities to improve literacy skills in Canada.

• Enhanced literacy research in identified priority areas;
• Improved dissemination and sharing of information among literacy stakeholders;
• Increased availability of adult literacy materials and tools by learners and practitioners;
• Greater awareness of literacy programs, services and issues among targeted sectors;
• Improved access to literacy skills by Canadians with low literacy skills; and
• Improved strategic partnerships on literacy issues.

Grants to not-for-profit organizations, individuals, municipal governments, Band/tribal councils and other Aboriginal organizations, public health and educational institutions, Régies régionales, for-profit enterprises, research organizations and research institutes to carry out research on homelessness to help communities better understand and more effectively address homelessness issues.

• To develop a comprehensive continuum of supports to help homeless Canadians move out of the cycle of homelessness and prevent those at-risk from falling into homelessness. This will be done by providing communities with the tools to develop a range of interventions to: stabilize the living arrangements of homeless individuals and families - encouraging self-sufficiency where possible; and prevent those at-risk from falling into homelessness.
• To ensure sustainable capacity of communities to address homelessness by enhancing community leadership and broadening ownership - by the public, non-profit and private sectors - on the issue of homelessness in Canada.

By March 31, 2006, the National Homelessness Initiative aims to achieve the following outcomes:

• Enhanced supports and services available to meet the needs of homeless individuals and families and those at-risk of homelessness by facilitating integrated community responses to: help improve their living conditions; and help them access and maintain secure accommodation.
• Increased knowledge and understanding of homelessness at the local, regional and national levels through: data collection; research; the review and assessment of the effectiveness of interventions; and support for the dissemination and sharing of this information.
• Broader engagement of partners to address homelessness by strengthening partnerships and collaboration with: other federal departments; all orders of government; and the private and not-for-profit sectors.

The Sector Council Program supports research and project-based activities proposed by Sector Councils, as well as ad-hoc national sector like organizations working on skills and learning issues.

SCP supports sector council activities that include:

• sector human resources studies that identify current and emerging trends and skill needs;
• occupational/skills standards that describe skills and knowledge needed to perform competently in the workplace;
• building strong business-education linkages and relationships that result in core curriculum tailored to industry requirements;
• projects that assist Councils and other sector groups to ensure that workers can get the skills required for the workplace; and,
• programs to build the infrastructure and institutional capacity needed to implement human resources strategies.

While the specific goals of the industry-sponsored Sector Councils may vary, depending on the particular needs of the sector, some interests and objectives are common.

In the short-term, the Program and Sector Councils will continue to work in partnership to:

• develop new and innovative solutions to human resources and skills issues; by
  • increasing consensus and understanding of skills, occupational needs and labour market issues;
  • increasing availability and use of products and services to help industry address their HR issues;
  • enhancing labour market transition (facilitating labour market entry and career progression); and
  • enhancing collaboration, action, and investment by industry.
• address current and emerging skills and HR issues by:
  • increasing sectoral capacity — by sharing best practices and innovative ideas between councils and across sectors and industries;
  • encouraging learning systems to be more responsive to the labour market — by developing educational curricula that develops and refine skills needed by industries and employers in Canada's labour market; and,
  • promoting the workplace as a learning place — by encouraging employers and industry to increase training investment in their employees.

The overall strategic objective of this three-year pilot project is to test whether federal funding can leverage increased investment by unions and employers in purchasing up-to-date training equipment for union-employer training centres.

In pursuing the core objective Training Centre Infrastructure Fund (TCIF) will institute a range of core activities in support of its overarching mission to increase the use of up-to-date training equipment at union training centres:

• Negotiate contributions with union training centres towards investments in training equipment
• Assess proposals and administer Contribution Agreements

Immediate outcomes as a result of these activities include:

• Increased partnerships among unions and employers
• Increased funding leveraged from unions and employers for upgraded union training centre equipment

Medium, long-term in ultimate outcomes are:

• Enhanced capacity of union training centres to develop workplace skills reflecting changing technological needs
• Increased technical skills levels in the skilled trades, closing skills gaps and increasing employment opportunities
• Enhanced competitiveness and productivity of Canadian workplaces

Transfer payments made under the Youth Employment Strategy (YES)^a are predominantly in the form of contributions from participating departments for wage subsidies for participant youth or for the development and delivery of youth support services. Such support services include client assessment and case management services and employability tools so as to help participants acquire needed skills. Transfer payments contribute directly to the program objectives by encouraging organizations to create meaningful skills-enhancement opportunities for youth, providing the supporting services approach or providing all youth with employment and career related tools and information.

• The Strategy will continue to be delivered in partnership with the private sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) through the collective efforts of 14 Government of Canada departments, agencies and corporations, with HRSDC in the lead role. The YES will continue to create employment and service initiatives for youth through partnerships with business, labour, industry, not-for-profit and voluntary organizations, Aboriginal and rural remote communities, and other levels of government.
• The common key results commitments for all initiatives receiving funding under the YES over the period 2003-2008 are:
  • Participants will gain or enhance employability skills from work experience or tailored interventions; and
  • A portion of youth participants will return to school to further their education/skills development and/or become employed or self-employed.
• Assist 10,000 Youth clients, of whom 8,000 are expected to find and keep work or become self-employed, and approximately 2,000 will return to school.