Indigenous training programs get $5.5M funding injection

George’s tail wagged like a flag in the wind.

The six-year-old black Labrador mix looked up at his master, Ron Mistafa, excited. At Mistafa’s command, George dashed across the stage sniffing and searching. When he found the “benzene leak” George barked deeply, alerting his master.

Mistafa and George were at a program Friday at the Singhmar Centre for Learning Atrium at NorQuest College to highlight the investments of almost $5.5 million for 11 projects directed at training Indigenous people across Alberta through the Western Diversification Program (WDP).

Mistafa runs Detector Dog Services International, a Calgarybased company that helps clients in the oil and gas sector search out pipeline leaks. He will be working with C-FER Technologies Inc. to train two Indigenous people in the use of dogs to detect leaks in pipelines, part of a pipeline-monitoring program funded by the WDP.

Shauna-Lee Chai, a scientist with InnoTech Alberta who is involved with the training, said 60 Indigenous people will be trained as part of the pipeline leaks program. The first cohort of 20 is already being trained at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary.

“We’re going to train them in pipeline operation, safety and security, inspection techniques and emergency response,” Chai said.

Chai said she is hoping at least 45 to 50 people of the 60 trained will find employment with the oil industry.

Other projects funded through WDP include installing a solar park, implementing a pipeline-monitoring project, developing a data management system, purchasing equipment to expand First Nations business opportunities and supporting skills-development training for the next generation of Indigenous workers.

Courtenay Clark, a scientist with Acden Vertex, will work with Indigenous communities in Fort Chipewyan to set up beehives.

We’re going to train them in pipeline operation, safety and security.

“Some of our goals are to make honey and other medicinal hive products and also to use honeybees in land reclamation initiatives,” she said.

When industry clears land and that land becomes reclaimed, the plants that come back are not necessarily what they were before. “So, we would try and use bees to help bring back a more desirable set of species,” Clark said.

The hives can help people locally produce their own less expensive food and will also help people have a better understanding of where food comes from, she said.