Aboriginal Women and the Workplace
Keyano College
Fort McMurray, Alberta

Keyano College is located in Alberta's northeast corner. With a current population of 35,000, Fort McMurray experienced a population boom in the 1970s when the oil sands went into production. The economic base for the white community has always been oil, beginning in the 1920s. Before the oil development, Fort McMurray was a small Native community. The aboriginal population in and around Fort McMurray is primarily Métis, Chipewyan and Cree. They live in the city and in small communities and reserves in the region. Traditionally, aboriginal women have worked at minimum wage jobs, without access to the better-paying oil sands jobs.

Keyano College provides residence services for its student population, a population that clusters in age around 25 to 35. There are three campuses. Fort Chippeweyan provides services for an almost exclusively Native population. There is a campus on the outskirts of Fort McMurray that focuses on heavy industrial equipment training and is almost exclusively male. The central city campus includes courses in nursing, business, adult basic education, trades, college preparation and university transfer, the visual and performing arts, and community education.

The board has given the college a strong mandate to focus on literacy and Native education. Aboriginal Women and the Workplace is a 24-week program that began in October 1991, and ran until March 27, 1992. The program, funded by the Canada Employment Commission (CEC), aims to enhance the employability skills of aboriginal women by providing life skills and academic upgrading that will lead to the successful completion of the GED. Women must participate in a personal interview and pass an entrance test before they are accepted into the program.

Both major oil sands plants and many smaller employers require a GED from all job applicants. It is necessary, therefore, that women who want to be employed obtain that certification. However, most will not apply for positions at the plants because they are unable to make the kind of childcare arrangements that would accommodate the shift schedules at Syncrude and Suncor.