Canada's roughly 1.2 million aboriginal people are ill-equipped for the future, says Merv Dewasha, president of the Canadian Aboriginal Science and Engineering Association, which is affiliated to Canada's National Research Council. In Canada, aboriginal people are 90 per cent under-represented in science and engineering professions.

Although the country is struggling with a skills shortage as it shifts from a commodity-based export economy to one based on technology, its aboriginal population is mostly overlooked. Seeing a long cycle of development ahead, Dewasha has focused on delivering this message to the Canadian government and to the tribal chiefs. The shortage of good maths and science teachers and the dispersion of tribal communities across the country's vast reaches present unusual difficulties, which distance learning, facilitated by CANARIE, Canada's high-speed Internet network, may mitigate.