By Liam Verster

Recovery Through Retention

More work needed to keep young Albertans in the province: Sen. Black

Apr 5, 2021 | 8:24 AM

Senator Doug Black says there’s growing concern that young Albertans are choosing to leave the province for work opportunities, and more needs to be done to keep the next generation in Alberta.

He came to this realization following several virtual tours he did over the past year where the public voiced their concern about young people leaving Alberta for career opportunities elsewhere.

After hearing this, Black decided to hold an Alberta Youth Opportunities Roundtable in March, where he had a chance to speak with young Albertans from across the province, including a youth from Grande Prairie.

Black says through that discussion, it appears that although there are career paths available in a range of industries in Alberta, it seems a lot of youth are unaware of the opportunities.

“A lot of the opportunities that are developing in the province aren’t widely understood by younger folks, and that’s on us. We’ve got to make sure people understand the opportunities in [agriculture], opportunities in tech, opportunities in health care because people tend to think all the time of oil and gas, oil and gas, oil and gas, and of course our economy is more broad than that,” says Black.

Meaningful Mementos

Remembering Someone You've Lost at Christmas

Dec 03, 2024

Seasonal Sorrow

How Do You Get Through The Holidays When You're Grieving?

Nov 01, 2024

Upcoming Events at Oliver's

Grief & Loss and Estate Planning Seminars

Oct 02, 2024

He adds that in order to get young Albertans more involved and aware of the available opportunities, more should be done to provide every student with a cooperative education experience.

“Whether it’s in high school or Grande Prairie (Regional) College or wherever, they get out of the classroom for a period of time during their studies and get some real hands-on experience in the area that interests them,” says Black.

“The studies seem to show that if you do that, you become more committed to your community, and you see a path forward for yourself.”

Black says creating these co-op programs and opportunities will require work between the Alberta Government, business and industry leaders, not-for-profit organizations and students.

In order to explore this co-op idea further, as well as come up with other ideas to help keep Alberta’s youth in the province, Black says he plans on forming a Provincial Youth Advisory Council.

He says he’s raised the concept of the Youth Advisory Council and is wanting to gather feedback from the potential partner groups before going further with developing the plan.

“It’s a work in progress, we’ve identified the need, we’ve identified what we think the issue is, now we’ve got to figure out the best way to tackle this.”

Currently, there’s no specific timeline for the creation of the Youth Advisory Council.

Another issue Black wants to tackle, which was brought up by the representative for Grande Prairie, was that young Albertans aren’t necessarily leaving the province, but they are leaving their home community.

Black says the Alberta Government does have a branch dedicated to innovation, the Ministry of Jobs, Economy and Innovation, which should be doing more to help expand industries, like those in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), which have traditionally been focused in the bigger cities like Edmonton and Calgary, and bring them to other parts of Alberta.

Black adds that coming up with plans to retain the next generation within the province will help boost Alberta’s economy, and welcomes input from other stakeholders for ideas on how to do this work.