Human Resources Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

What should the government's role be? Some people have called for a national strategy on life-long learning that would address the issues you've talked about, with an interface between different government levels and the councils. How would you see the development of such a strategy?

[Andrew Cardozo]

There are parts in place at the moment. Consider the essential skills strategy, which includes nine different skills: reading text, document use, numeracy, writing, oral communication, working with others, thinking skills, computer use, and continuous learning.

With sector councils, we encourage the industries to put in place—at the factory, office, or mine level—an essential skills strategy that encourages people to learn to do all those things. In a modern workplace you need to be literate, but you also need to be proficient in the other skills I mentioned.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

So going back to those skills you identified, take me through the steps. I'm an employee in a mine, so what's the process, what's the access, what's the encouragement? How does the program work on the ground?

[Andrew Cardozo]

In trucking, for example, the trucking council works with its employers to make sure they have the necessary skills. They may have people driving trucks who are not literate. They certainly have people who don't have the ability to use computers. Today, virtually every occupation requires some level of computer use. So they provide employees with classes to bring them up to speed.

I'll give you another example. The CARS Council, the Canadian Automotive Repair and Service Council , has satellite-delivered courses at places like Canadian Tire or Joe's Garage. Employers can spend perhaps three hours going through a particular training module. I understand Jennifer Steeves of the CARS Council will be here on Thursday. She'll be happy to provide you with a lot more information.

These are just two examples.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

So is that time the employer gives to the employee?

[Andrew Cardozo]

Good point; that's a very key point. By providing the training in the workplace, through satellite delivery or Internet delivery, it becomes a lot easier for the employer to allow the employee to take that training during work hours. For a lot of people, especially people with young kids, it's not easy to do an evening course on top of a day's work.

So yes, part of this whole strategy is to encourage employers to do that training or to allow workers to take that training during work hours, or paid hours.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

You referred earlier to the importance of labour market information being provided to universities, schools, and so on. How would you evaluate the labour market information that exists now, that's provided federally?

[Andrew Cardozo]

It's pretty good, but it's quite general at this point. A number of different surveys are involved if you're talking about the whole package of labour market information.

I hate to say it comes down to money, but in some sense, it does.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

It always does.

[Andrew Cardozo]

If you want to get a sense of how many geologists you need in Victoria, or in Saskatoon, Statistics Canada at the moment can only tell you how many geologists we need in Canada. If you want to get it down to, say, mining in Saskatoon, it becomes a lot harder to get that granularity of information unless you do a much larger survey.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

So that isn't available now.

[Andrew Cardozo]

It's available in a few sectors. In tourism, for example, they have a satellite account with Statistics Canada. For the very big sectors, Statistics Canada is able to deliver, but not for the medium-sized and small.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have for that question. We're going to move to the last questioner of the second round.

Mr. Storseth, five minutes, please.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank these gentlemen for coming forward and putting forth such succinct and intelligent arguments.

In our country, we have, I believe, the best learning institutions in the world. When you look at some of our universities--Acadia, St. Francis Xavier, the University of Alberta--and even some of our technical training schools--NAIT, for example, and SAIT--they are very advanced across the world. But one of the criticisms I've heard of some of these schools is that they have an inability to quickly change their curriculums to adapt to the needs of industry, needs that industry is currently facing, in some senses.

I would actually ask all three of you to take the time to answer this question. What role do you see some of the private colleges, such as the ones represented by the National Association of Career Colleges, playing when it comes to labour shortages in your sectors?

[Andrew Cardozo]

Maybe I can start.

Mr. Storseth, you mentioned that we made “intelligent and succinct” comments. I'm going to ask you to give my teenage kids a call and tell them that.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Andrew Cardozo]

When I talk to them about careers, they tell me I don't make any sense at all.

With regard to colleges, one of the interesting things that sector councils developed with the ACCC, the Association of Community Colleges of Canada, was a series of what are called affinity groups. They developed an affinity group with each one of our sectors. It included deans and instructors and professors and so forth from across the country. For example, there's one dealing with mining, another dealing with high-tech issues, and so forth.

That is a process where teachers and deans and all these folks in colleges from across the country work with the sector council to create a close link between what they're teaching and what the employers are looking for. This has developed over the last few years, and fairly well.

I think this works well with the colleges because they are set up to be more job-oriented. As we mentioned, we also have some of that going on with high schools. The problem we have at the moment is with universities. The problem with universities is that they don't quite see themselves as being that job-oriented. There is still a sense of being involved in higher learning. Some faculties, such as business, are much more job-oriented, but we haven't been able to strike that kind of relationship with the universities.

I would hope that NAIT and SAIT are moving in the right direction. Certainly they work with a number of our councils.

[Paul Hébert]

The affinity group model is working well. In mining, we're fortunate in that we have a relatively smaller number of institutions to deal with compared to, say, IT. We have nine universities and some seventeen community colleges and institutes of technology. That's a manageable group with which industry can communicate, exchange, and try to make sure they're as responsive as possible.

But there's not only the fact that it's onerous to change curriculum rapidly, there's the technological change and the need to have the equipment in situ for the students to work on. Sometimes we're talking about million-dollar pieces of equipment or more, so there's a need to foster the relationship between employers and individual schools, but also to make sure that those partnerships are happening within the context of the pan-Canadian reality of the industry so that the skills do remain transferable.

And it can happen even before the post-secondary level. One example is a pilot project that's happening in Ontario right now, called the Ontario specialist high skills major. One of the pilots is in Sudbury, for mining, whereby a student gets his or her secondary school diploma, but some of the training takes place at the worksite and is delivered by the employer, and the student is credited for that training. Pending the results of that pilot project, our council will be looking to roll out that kind of initiative. The next logical choice would probably be Quebec in terms of the importance of mining. It's something that we're considering, along with the conseil sectoriel in Quebec. That is a natural lead-in to a more efficient link between the post-secondary system and industry's needs.

[Paul Swinwood]

From the high-tech side of it, our affinity group with ACCC involves 110 colleges across Canada.

Our last meeting in May also included the NACC representatives of the private colleges that are also delivering IT-oriented training. We looked at five different issues at that meeting. It was a very constructive, very interesting day. At the college level, and even at the private college level, we're very pleased with how it's working.

At the university level, we have to work individually with each university. We've had significant success in changing the computer science curriculum at Dalhousie, where they have now introduced a bachelor of informatics—rather than just computer science—in partnership with the commerce department, in partnership with the health department, and in partnership, I believe, with the environment department. This was approved in July by the senate, the course started in September, and 48% of the enrolment is female. So we can have an impact, but systemic change doesn't happen overnight.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you.

I have one more quick question, actually directed more toward the mining industry.

We know there are some severe shortages out there right now. What is the degree of worker mobility within the sector? More importantly, are you able to tap into some of the sectors that have experienced a downturn, like forestry?

[Paul Hébert]

The degree of mobility varies by occupation. Professional occupations tend to be more mobile, with the exception of geoscientists, geophysicists, who are regulated provincially. They need to be licensed within that province to do work. A lot of the times, these contracts are a few days long to conduct their work, so they have to go through a process that costs hundreds of dollars and weeks, only to work for a few days. In other occupations where there are Red Seal trades, there is a greater degree of mobility. For example, engineers are very mobile. In some of the production occupations, it's there to a lesser extent.

We are taking a very close look at the skills inventories of workers in some segments of forestry and in the manufacturing sector, to map out their skills and where the gaps might be in the envelope of skills required in mining. It's under way right now. Intuitively, I would say it looks very good, and we should be able to get a good number of those people into the workplace much more quickly than if they had come from somewhere else.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're now going to move to Mr. Murphy, for five minutes.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I have one issue I want to get a comment on, and that is the issue of the old worker. When I read all the material, there seems to be a very common thread: that there's a looming demographic time bomb facing Canada, not only in your industries, but in every industry. I believe the birth rate is 1.41 now, or two-thirds of replacement.

A lot of the talk about immigration, foreign credentials, and participation rates with disabled people and aboriginal people is really nibbling around the edges. I see we've going to have a major problem here.

One of the issues I see and want to get your comments on, as to government policy and the older workers, is retirement age through government programs. CPP was reduced to 60, and labour benefits were reduced in retirement age. It's been driven down by about four or four and a half years. The average age used to be 65, now it's down around 60, I believe.

This is one issue—and not the only one—the government has to look at, and I want to get your comments. As an example, regarding tax policy, we have a shortage that has been described here by you people and the questioners--restaurants in Alberta and other places. Probably there are retired people getting the guaranteed income supplement who would love to work part-time and make a couple of hundred dollars a week. But if they do, they get a dollar-for-dollar reduction on their government benefit package, and that is causing problems. We are a healthier society.

Do your councils have any specific recommendations to government to deal with the whole issue of participation rates for the 60- to 70-year-old cohort? I know for some of you in the IT sector it's not as relevant, but it is relevant in other industries, such as the tourism industry, which is facing a crisis. It's probably not relevant to the mining industry, but it is relevant to other sector councils, and Mr. Cardozo would know them.