Currently, I hold the position of President and owner, OARS training Inc. OARS specializes in creating systems approaches to workforce skill-development issues. Over the last 15 years, I have had many opportunities to travel into rural and northern regions across Canada, where the work has involved research and capacity building in workplace literacy and employability skills for the many Aboriginal people who live in these sparsely populated and hard-to-reach places. I have witnessed firsthand the many failures of these Northerners to complete programs and succeed in finding employment. There is virtually no new employment available for workers with lower-level entry skills in the north. Mendelson (2004), from the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, told us that unemployment rates in Canada are “far and away highest on reserves” (p. 31).

Throughout 2002 and 2003, OARS developed and delivered Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition training for nearly 200 Manitoba Government employees. These employees primarily work in employment-advisory services. Here I witnessed again the lack of available resources and services in rural and northern regions, including external government-funded service providers. The idea that ECs are able to guide people towards employment that does not exist made me realize that the intake and assessment process are critical factors in leading the job seeker down the right path. I was personally troubled by the lack of progress being made in the development of a labour market and skills training in northern Manitoba. In his article that compared data over a five-year period, Mendelson (2004) confirmed my fears: “This means that we have not made progress in five years in improving the labour market position of Aboriginal peoples relative to the general population” (p. 18).