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business elite canada
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JANUARY 2016
the contractor time,” Monture explained.
“That relationship is there. They know that
if someone comes from (an ASETS hold-
er), they’re going to be good.”
AABO BUILDING STRONG
PARTNERSHIPS
That’s where AABO comes in, fostering
those connections between employers
and the ASETS holders who deliver ab-
original labour market programs. There are
currently 18 agreement holders across On-
tario, Monture said, that cover every First
Nations, Métis or Inuit person in the prov-
ince.
Learning a trade through apprenticeship
also has a traditional component to it.
“How did we learn to hunt, to fish, to learn
which plants to use as medicine?” Mon-
ture pointed out. “Apprenticeship is tradi-
tional.”
There is an “increased appetite” for hir-
ing aboriginal workers among Ontario in-
dustry, Monture said. The jobs are there
but filling those means eliminating some
of the barriers to education and employ-
ment that aboriginal communities face.
The most common ones include a lack
of education or not meeting a program’s
