MyMcMurray Portal

The Chamber of Commerce luncheon yesterday was visited by the Honorable Dave Hancock, Minister of Human Services.

He spoke to the room about the provincial Social Policy Framework.

One of his main messages to business owners was to recognize social agency as a plus to their workforce.

“When people come to work for me they’ll be focused on their work, and know their family is safe, so they don’t have to worry about that, they know there’s a health system, so they don’t have to worry about that, they know that their workforce has the skill level they need.  So investing in social agency is important to business.”

If people are happy outside of their job, they will bring their attitude to the job, and the workplace will see improvements.

He wants businesses to invest in the community and not to dismiss social agency as not important.

“It’s fundamentally the most important thing we have. To build a business you need your roads and facilities and these kind of things…what you really need is people. If we don’t invest in people to ensure that every person has the opportunity to overcome their barriers, because all of us have barriers, it’s just a question of how well we overcome them and achieve success.”

He goes on to say that Fort McMurray is doing a good job.

“Over the last 10-15 years it’s been an amazing pace in Fort McMurray in terms of building community, building social agency, building social infrastructure, building recreation opportunities, building virtually everything and it’s been in Fort McMurray at a massive pace.  Even in the health area, (Fort McMurray has) a very intense focus on ‘what do we need if we’re going to be a community?’”

The Social Policy Framework is a provincial initiative of the Redford government.

Hancock says that businesses can play a fundamental role in improving the quality of life.  It can be done through employment and investing in their community.

For more information there is a ‘discussion kit’ which you can download from www.socialpolicy.alberta.ca

September 26th, 2012