Demand for Indigenous potash workers leads to tailor-made training program at Cowessess
CBC
A training program tailor-made for the potash industry and the Indigenous population has celebrated its first graduating class.
The course, called Digital Transformation in Potash Mining: Cowessess Edition, was designed after potash companies said they were having trouble recruiting Indigenous employees.
The students are considered employment-ready after eight weeks of classroom instruction in Cowessess followed by a two-week practicum at Mosaic's K3 mine near Esterhazy.
In addition to basic mining and safety training, the students learned digital automation skills using high-end gaming computers.
Twelve students were chosen for the program from among 60 applicants across the Prairies from the Treaty 4, 5 and 6 territories.
The course is a partnership of the Cowessess First Nation, the Zagime Anishinabek First Nation, the Ochapowace Nation, the Kahkewistahaw First Nation, Mosaic, Morris Interactive and the International Minerals Innovation Institute.
Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme is excited about the program's potential to develop long-term, treaty-based partnerships.
"Cowessess saw this as an opportunity for our generations now and our future generations to enter the potash mining industry," he said. "Not just as shovel-holders, but as potential management and senior management, as well."
Delorme has a vision of how this training program could result in economic reconciliation, specifically addressing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls related to economic participation and professional development and skills training on the history of Indigenous peoples.
"These companies have to learn the truth," he said. "They have to make sure their policies, their frameworks, their mandates all reflect on what we all truly inherited.
"Once you combine [TRC Calls] 57 and 92 in this business of potash, you would see a huge impact in the First Nations and surrounding area."
The program produced nine graduates after three students needed to drop out.
Delorme said course developers have learned in this first offering the support students need and how to address those needs.
He said they molded the program with the end goal of students being job-ready, but also identified that sometimes personal challenges might come up.
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