Evidence of meeting #33 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Lynne Yelich Conservative Blackstrap, SK
Yes, she did, and I will go over to Shyla.
I wanted you to expand on the job requirements. You said the job requirements should reflect the demographics more, and you were quite clear that people should get this on merit. However, it should reflect the demographics. I would like you to expand on that, because I think there's something there. Where would you make changes to reflect the demographics with immigration?
9:25 a.m.
Member, Pacific Foundation for Diversity
For instance, if you are providing a service to do an analysis of what sort of people are in that location or market, it varies according to the different regions in this country. It's quite different here compared to Nova Scotia, or Toronto, or Ottawa. If a service is to be delivered, you have a generic job description that applies to one location, not from here...and apply it across the country, across all branches of government, it makes a big difference. So that's one thing.
In my day job, I work in human resources. I help a lot of employers develop what I call diversity competency, because there are a lot of issues. When people deliver programs and services, they don't find the response, they don't find people applying for programs or services from certain segments of the population, and that's because this hasn't been factored into whoever is delivering that service. So when you look at that job, this qualification should be a requirement. Very often it isn't there.
It's very generic in terms of skills. We're still on the old mode. Even though we call them competencies, we still just look at education and at whatever experience they've had in the past, which are things that are required in today's marketplace.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, ASPECT
I want to comment that at the conference I was at yesterday I heard presentations from all across Canada. They were talking about the services available to skilled immigrants in each province. The thing that struck me goes back to the question we talked about earlier: should these services be delivered federally or provincially? The thing that struck me there was the redundancy, the duplication of efforts and energies in every province of Canada, trying to figure out ways to form credential recognition.
It's bad enough that people have to try to figure out how to be a nurse in Nova Scotia. Then if they want to move to Ontario, there's a whole other set of criteria. There's so much duplication. So once again, I reinforce the fact that I feel a lot of the responsibility, and the need for coordination, is a federal government responsibility.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Lynne Yelich Conservative Blackstrap, SK
I couldn't be more in agreement.
Another question I want to add to my previous question is, how do you see language or culture fitting into the requirement? All can answer that.
9:25 a.m.
Member, Pacific Foundation for Diversity
It's a lot better now than it used to be when I started out in human resources, when people just looked around the offices to see who spoke that language. Now front-line service deliverers like police have recognized that, and because of necessity, they've started a trend towards actually having that as a qualification. It made a tremendous difference instantly in the employability of people from those segments of the population. If you needed someone to speak Chinese, then you automatically looked at someone who—
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
We'll catch that on the next round. We're over time there. Seven minutes goes by way too quickly.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
We're going to move over to Mr. Regan again, five minutes this time.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you.
Which question do I ask first? I'll start with this one, and it is actually a question for all three of you.
In your brief you talk about the purpose of ASPECT, and I see the first verbs in each line are to facilitate, promote, and coordinate. It strikes me that I've had the sense, particularly with literacy, that some members of the government have a concern that there are groups that are engaging in lobbying and advocacy and don't feel that's directly benefiting the need of improvement in terms of literacy, in terms of actual literacy training.
The question I have for each of you is this. Tell me how would you argue to the government that it's important to have organizations that do advocacy, facilitation, promoting, and coordinating of the kinds of groups that are actually delivering training and other services directly to people?
Why don't we start with Ms. Dutt.
9:30 a.m.
Member, Pacific Foundation for Diversity
That's actually what our foundation does, because the service deliverers are so busy focusing on delivering their services. The reason we founded this foundation was to actually support them in marketing their own programs within the community.
By the way, I want to use this opportunity to say that the fact that you've set up a coordinating agency to look at equivalencies is a great step in the right direction. One of the incredible pitfalls in foreign credential recognition is the fact that there are so many different agencies and such unevenness about the standards of those recognitions, so just that coordination role is a fantastic first step that this government has taken.
Having announced that, we haven't seen where that's gone. On the ground here we don't see the application of it. So yes, there needs to be agencies that can articulate it, because, coming back to your question, the front-line service providers don't have the time to deliver that.
I just want to come back and take the opportunity to also talk about skilled immigrants. I think one of the areas where the federal government could really make a big difference is funding ESL for skilled immigrants. What happens now is that there's much more of generic ESL provided and not ESL for professionals. At their initiative, certain colleges have tried to do that, but they have really struggled for lack of funding. That's a big support that could happen, and the coordination of the foreign credentials.
But I think the number one issue I had hoped to make was that the federal government would actually fund Canadian workplace training. A StatsCan survey has shown that the number one issue is not so much language, as we would have thought, as it is the lack of Canadian workplace practice experience. You get engineers, doctors, architects, and construction workers who have all the skills and a lot of experience, but what they miss is that little link that doesn't give them the Canadian registration because they haven't had Canadian workplace practice. I think my colleague was absolutely right in saying that much of what they need is that lexicon, that currency of practice, the way people talk in a workplace in Canada. You only get that from being in a Canadian workplace.
The B.C. government, which has taken a bit of drubbing on this thing...I'd like to say that the one thing the B.C. government has done that I wish the federal government would do is actually subsidize. It has a program called Skills Connect, which you are probably aware of. I helped to market one organization that has a Skills Connect grant. They've been very successful using that to place. They've had amazing success in placing people within three to six months in a job in their own field.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
The $20 million enhanced language training initiative, which was to help immigrants acquire the language skills necessary to obtain and retain jobs suited to their skills and experience, announced in 2005 by the previous government, was left out of the budget in 2006 by the new government.
It seems to me you're saying that kind of initiative is very important.
9:35 a.m.
Member, Pacific Foundation for Diversity
Absolutely, because it's an important link in terms of Canadian workplace practice.
A lot of skilled immigrant workers tend to have language skills, especially if they have a university education. A lot of focus goes toward the others who aren't at that level of skill, who may not have the language.
Remember, we've also shifted from an emphasis on family reunification to the skilled immigrant category. That has now dramatically changed.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
That's all the time we have for Mr. Regan.
We're going to Ms. Savoie, for five minutes, please.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Denise Savoie NDP Victoria, BC
Thank you.
I guess I'm trying to understand whether there are actual gaps in programming to support immigrants, new Canadians, or people with low literacy skills, or whether it's just a lack of coordination between the various levels of government. So let me just put that out there.
Years ago, in a past life, I worked with new Canadians. I'd pave the way with employers to help people get jobs. Then I'd work with them in terms of getting settled in the country.
Is that piece missing now, clearly missing? Has the government shifted it to non-profit groups, community groups, and now those are being cut? Is it an absence of programs or is it a lack of coordination--or both?
9:35 a.m.
Member, Pacific Foundation for Diversity
The short answer is that it's both. Certainly there's a lack of coordination when it comes to foreign credential recognition. There's a lack of coordination when it comes to the whole Canadian workplace practice, where experience is required. But really, it's not having the program in terms of ESL for professionals.
9:35 a.m.
Member, Community Social Planning Council of Greater Victoria
Additionally, there are people who, in falling through the cracks, are now not even on the radar screen for service provision. These are people who are completely out of the system, who are engaged in sex trade work, or who often are without phones. And because they don't have phone access, they're not necessarily being counted among the numbers of unemployed.
In Victoria, for instance, all kinds of people have left social assistance, and yet their numbers aren't being reflected in the workforce. We know they're there, but they're not being counted in any way.
It's not just that the federal or provincial governments aren't directly providing services for these people; no non-profit is funded to provide services for them. There are gaps in service provision because nobody has the dollars to do it. Off the side of your desk, you can help only one or two people individually.
I would say that there's a similar gap in service provision for people who have just made it into employment. There's this idea that you take a job, any job, and once you get that job you just sort yourself out. But there's no support to move up, which is why we see this growing number of people who are working poor.
In Victoria, when we look at the numbers of people who are living below the poverty line, 18,000 of them worked at some point in the past year. Half of the people who are of working age and living below the poverty line actually have work, but they're not able to retain that work.
So there's a huge amount of skill and service delivery that needs to be provided for people, right across the country. I'm familiar with the Victoria numbers, but it's a national issue.
9:35 a.m.
Member, Pacific Foundation for Diversity
I would like to add here that the self-employed segment is not at all within the whole circumference of social programs. It just totally isn't in there.
9:35 a.m.
Member, Pacific Foundation for Diversity
There are many self-employed, among immigrants especially.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Denise Savoie NDP Victoria, BC
Right.
At the risk of repeating earlier comments, the importance of the urban development agreement, which was in process, was that it was identifying gaps on the ground and relaying that to other levels of government. That process has stopped.
I'd like to come back to literacy cuts. Really, of all the cuts, I found those the most egregious and the most difficult to understand, even in conservative terms of productivity. There were different reasons given--i.e., we don't want to fund advocacy, or we don't want to fund programs that don't reflect the federal or that are beyond the federal jurisdiction.
That said, one type of project that was beginning in different parts of the country was the development of what was called the “learning community”. The idea was to join up different agencies and different groups and different educational service providers and social providers and link them up in order to better deliver services. This is an initiative that was getting off the ground in Victoria, and it's one that I was really excited about. It looks like the national secretariat of learning is not one of the programs that is going to continue. However, we don't know what the cuts will be.
Do you think that kind of learning community, providing support and bringing people together, would be useful to address some of the issues? Perhaps you would comment on that.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative