Looking at the Boom Bust Cycle through the Literacy Lens

What does that mean? The literacy lens? I have been using that term for a few weeks, so perhaps we need to address it. If you use the smallest opening on your literacy lens, for a very narrow view, the literacy you will see will refer to reading and writing skills. Open up the lens a bit and you get numeracy and computer skills, then to the broadest opening, widest view and definition and you can bring in self-esteem, critical thinking, open-mindedness, “agency”: indeed almost everything can be thrown into that pot called literacy. Let’s consider literacy as the basic skills needed to live your life to your full potential. See how that can be everything?

 

So where does the NW stand in terms of folks being able to live their lives to their full potential? If you are living a good life in the NW, heading up to the ski hills, off to the pubs and music festivals and generally enjoying life, you may not realize that there are many marginalized folks on the fringes who are not able to enjoy a day of downhill skiing or even a shopping cart full of groceries. If we use the broadest definition for literacy, lots of people, conservatively 30%, in the NW are lacking the very basic skills they need to move forward and to take part in that “good life”. If we want to think about reaching potential versus managing, the number of folks under-skilled is well over 40%.

 

Now, with the NW on the cusp of a “boom” we are told that we need skilled workers. Yet we have a large unemployed and under-employed population, many of whom are under thirty, who are in need of the basic skills before they can even begin the journey toward a skilled workforce. There is no time to train the folks who live here, even though we have been hearing this loud and clear for three? five? years. We will have to bring in skilled workers from the rest of the province, the country, the world. They will fly, drive, sail in, do their work and, when the boom is over, zip back out with their earnings to the rest of the province, the country, the world. This, to me, is where the boom gets scary.

 

Little bits and pieces of the boom will feed some of the local unskilled workforce. There will be jobs in camps for housekeeping, janitorial, hotel workers and so forth. These are jobs. They are not careers. They are not helping the NW population grow and develop transferable skills. While every job can be a learning experience, we all know that most of these jobs are the harsh version of “take it or leave it”. And unskilled employees are “throw away workers”. (Did you know that employers spend far more money training the highest skilled workers versus the lowest skilled workers?)

 

The point is, when it is all over, when the boom has bust, the people of the NW will be no further ahead of where they are today. The people of the NW will actually be further behind where they are today if you consider the effects on the land and resources. We are all going to be 30 years older, and 30 years smarter, but that fancy new truck is now just a rusty 30 year old pickup, and there we will be waiting for the next boom. And what about the state of the land, rivers, forests and oceans after all this booming?  

 

So to all of you who think the boom will be good for the NW and jobs: think again. Use that literacy lens to consider what a boom might mean for the marginalized population, for the part of the population who really need the jobs and the work, but most importantly, the transferable literacy skills. If we can get governments to realize it is not all quick fix, but real, supported, hands on, individualized learning and work experience, we might have a chance to use this boom for good. We could get folks doing the critical thinking about what training they need in their lives to meet their potential. Might be good… but then again, they might decide they have better things to do and they don’t need this boom that is supposedly going to save us.

 

What about all those other predicted booms for the Northwest of the last 30 years? Hmmm, none have boomed as big as predicted, all have cost more than anticipated and only maybe one in twenty of the predicted projects have even come close to the anticipated magnitude. So really, tell me again, what is there to be excited about?

 

We have seen it all before; we are living it now. Every boom will bust.