Manitoba has an opportunity to define standards for career development in their province, with an eye to the necessary skills for success in the rural and northern First Nation communities. There is an opportunity to network with other government departments, organizations, and provinces, while taking direction from the National Standards group. The government must find a way to provide occupational guidance to ECs in Manitoba, while ensuring success, development, and growth of a stable workforce. Wihak and Price (2006) talked about career development services for Aboriginal clients and the role of the EC. These authors claimed that ECs working with Aboriginal job seekers need the following skills:

Counsellors must have a wide-ranging knowledge of Aboriginal history, as described by Aboriginal writers, have developed familiarity with cultural traditions, both past and present, have an appreciation of Aboriginal collectivistic worldview and be able to integrate “other ways of knowing” into their counselling repertoire to increase cultural empathy and understanding. (p. 5)

Assist with Labour Market Development

Manitoba has a distinct role to play assisting with the development of a labour market in rural and northern Manitoba. The province has already brought many of the key players together in the Northern Development Strategy (Government of Manitoba, n.d.b). and is well placed to dispense information on models and processes supporting economic development in rural and northern communities. The findings indicated repeatedly that there is insufficient funding and collaborations to effectively address training and employment for jobs in rural and northern Manitoba. Hirsch (2005) predicted that “most of the growth in the province will be focused in Winnipeg” (p. 1). This prediction will put even more strain on the rural and northern labour market to find jobs locally or risk the local job seeker sitting on social assistance, unemployment, or migrating to the city. Mendelson (2004) has said, “On almost every indicator, the labour market status of the Aboriginal identity population in Manitoba and Saskatchewan is among the worst in Canada” (p. 40). Further in the report he explained,

Labour market policies are increasingly a joint federal, provincial and territorial responsibility, carried out under agreements between governments. Aboriginal labour market policies and intergovernmental relations will be inextricably intertwined, especially in the Prairies, requiring collaboration among all orders of government, including First Nations governments. (p.40)