Finance Committee on April 3rd, 2014

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Dianne Woloschuk]

—a part of that could be identifying areas of the economy where there is a need that's not fulfilled, and—

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

The difficulty with that, of course, becomes jurisdictional. Education is a provincial responsibility, and somehow the province has to recognize the need within their own province. In the case of Nova Scotia, we recognized the need, but we just didn't do anything about it. That was the example I was using.

In Germany, Christopher, when you were there, how did they manage to have.... I'm coming in as an employer and I need architects, or I need pipefitters, or I need engineers....

[Christopher Smillie]

It's all coordinated through the local chamber of commerce. They represent all of the local businesses in that local market.

I'll just address this really quickly. At the school level they would have a local employer council, which would sit in conjunction with the school—

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

At the school level? Wow.

[Christopher Smillie]

Yes, at the school level. It would meet with the school on a regular basis. Also in Germany, the ministry of education sits on that board as well, from the state. That council operates very locally with local businesses to determine local economic needs.

For example, the Stihl factory in Stuttgart sits on a local education council with the high schools in Stuttgart. They know that they need CNC operators, so they can pick and grab out of the high schools people who are suited to that or who are interested in it at that time. It's all done when the students are 12 or 13 years old, and then they have a number of re-evaluations along the way, based on the local economic conditions. It's about partnerships from very early on, and it's very effective. They have a 4% youth unemployment rate.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Keddy.

Mr. Rankin, please, for your round....

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all of our presenters. This is very interesting indeed.

I'm going to start with Mr. Smillie, if I may.

I want to ask you to elaborate on behalf of the building and construction trades about your experience in Germany, continuing on Mr. Keddy's point. You mentioned that everything is linked to an employer, so what happens if you change employers? If they don't like you as a worker or you don't like them, what happens then? Is there a substitute somehow created?

[Christopher Smillie]

Well, I was talking about the link to training. Let's take HVAC, for instance, the heating, ventilation, and air cooling industry. There would be a pool of 50 or 60 companies in the local market, in the Stuttgart area, say, and they would work with the community colleges, which would deliver this training, paid for by the state, by Germany. They are paid to deliver and to train employees for that industry. This is in high school. The students would go to the high school three days a week, and two days a week they would go to work.

It's not sitting in a classroom. It's actual practical stuff. It's what our members who are apprentices do in their late twenties or early thirties. These students are doing it in the local market when they're 16 or 17 years old. They actually go to work. The HVAC companies take them on at the high school level and then work with the various councils.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Okay.

You talked about the need to incent people by the apprentice incentive grant. What is your organization's view of the government's proposed apprenticeship loan program?

[Christopher Smillie]

For a long time, apprentices in construction were not eligible for the Canada student loan program because of the short duration of the training. Generally to get a Canada student loan you had to have a 16- or 18-week training program to qualify.

Now there's no length of time, so you could be on a four-, six-, or eight-week training stint for your B-ticket welding, and you're eligible to write off that community college cost or apply for a Canada student loan. It's bang on. It's what needed to be done.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I know your organization has done a great deal of work on the temporary foreign worker program. Many voices have expressed concern that allowing lower wages for foreign workers would perhaps hurt Canadian workers. I would have thought that would be particularly true with respect to young workers.

I wonder if you have any concerns regarding the temporary foreign worker program from your perspective?

[Christopher Smillie]

One thing we've been pitching for, which we think is really important, is if companies are going to use the temporary foreign worker program, which is a legitimate HR tool, it should be linked back to training.

So if construction company A is bringing in 500 welders from Ireland, the next time they go to use the TFW program, have they shown the government that they've done something to train Canadians to fill those gaps? It should be linked back.

We've been pushing pretty hard on Minister Kenney's office to do something. So if companies are going to use the program, that's fine. It's legitimate. But what are they doing, what's their training plan in terms of finding Canadians? It can't be used as a full-time HR strategy.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Right, thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Woloschuk of the Canadian Teachers' Federation. You have three recommendations in your really excellent brief and the second one, I just need you to elaborate on it a little bit more. It deals with Statistics Canada and depicting more accurately the true nature of unemployment and underemployment based on international standards. That would seem to suggest that you think the current Statistics Canada approach is inadequate. What would you do to change it, if I'm right?

[Dianne Woloschuk]

What I would suggest is that Stats Canada use the internationally recognized standards of measure for those two items, particularly underemployment. The current statistics that they're developing don't use those measures so it would aid in terms of comparability.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Okay, thank you.

The next question is to Mr. Moist of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Sir, before I ask my question, I just want to salute your personal leadership on the issue of pensions. It's been really superb and really quite inspirational. So thank you.

The thing I wanted to ask you about.... You gave a number of recommendations in your remarks. The second one was I think you suggested we needed to avoid a two-tier federal public service, if I wrote that down correctly. Could you elaborate on what you meant by that?

[Paul Moist]

Throughout the public sector and including.... We don't represent employed federal employees directly, but I'll speak to more of Parks Canada employees. There's been an offensive launched by the minister responsible for Treasury that sick leave needs to be changed and any number of things need to be changed in collective agreements.

Typically what's happening in the public sector—like the private sector—is that those of you who had this system and were hired before 2013, you're okay. There will be some inferior level of benefit later on. To us as a trade union, that's selling out the future workforce.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Your comment on the youth guarantee in Europe was fascinating. I think you indicated you didn't, at this point, have a lot of information. If you do happen to get some, would you be willing to share that with the committee? I think that could be very helpful.

[Paul Moist]

We'll absolutely send that to you.

Like my colleague from the building trades, we're fascinated with some of the European experiences. There is a tripartite approach to labour force development. Canada doesn't have anything remotely like it. I do think we can use the tax system in ways to incent people to make rational decisions.

The current premier of Manitoba, Greg Selinger, spent 10 years as minister of finance. He created a budget in 2002 that my son benefited from. If you graduate from an apprenticeship and if you file a tax return in Manitoba after graduating from an apprenticeship, over the next four to ten years, you can receive back 75% of your tuition and your books. So there's an incentive to complete your apprenticeship, number one. There's an incentive to stay in Manitoba, which thankfully my son has decided to do.

Lastly, on the question earlier about completion rates, a friend he graduated with never completed his apprenticeship. He works in the oil sands. He makes $12 an hour more than my son. They're both heavy duty mechanics. My son is in Winnipeg.

Employers in Alberta, where we have the lowest graduation rate of apprenticeships, incent their workers to stay working. They don't want them going down for education for eight or ten weeks. That's a crime. If the economy takes a downturn my son's friend who is a good hard worker with no credentials—

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

What should be done about that?

[Paul Moist]

Number one, I think more employers in Canada should opt for what some employers are opting for and that is, don't rely on the EI system, pay people through their apprenticeships. Many workers can not afford to wait for their EI cheques. My son could. He lived at home and no problem.

But many young workers, if the boss says I'll pay you the trades rate, don't go down there for eight weeks and wait for your EI.... If you're not a well-resourced young person with supports, you're going to make the rational decision to stay working. Hence, Alberta has great workers and the lowest rate of apprenticeship graduation.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I have 10 seconds?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have 10 seconds.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you to the Royal Bank, Ms. Uchida, for the work you're doing. I wonder if anybody else is following in your footsteps with the program you've discussed today, or do you know?

[Susan Uchida]

We are beginning to share the program design. Since it's just started, we wanted to get our feet under us, but absolutely we're sharing with partner organizations and seeing how we can help support and have a roll-on effect from the 100 that we're starting with ourselves.