Human Resources Committee on Dec. 6th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Leitch, you have had your full five minutes, remarkably.

With that, we'd like to thank each of the presenters for their interesting presentations and for some of their more provocative kinds of approaches they'd like to see governments take. We appreciate that, and your recommendations. Thank you once again for coming before us and presenting.

With that, we'll suspend for a few moments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

We will get started.

For the information of committee members, the budget for this particular study was distributed. You may want to have a look at that. We will break about ten minutes before we adjourn, to go over that and any other matters we may have, so you may want to be looking at that.

We will now commence with our second panel. I gather we have two presenters, ABC Life Literacy Canada, and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. We would like you to present for about seven minutes, and then we'll have five-minute rounds of questions.

I'm not sure who is going to present first. Is it Ms. Eaton?

Okay, go ahead, Ms. Eaton.

[Margaret Eaton, President, ABC Life Literacy Canada]

Thank you very much.

I am delighted to be here.

My name is Margaret Eaton. I am president of ABC Life Literacy Canada.

We're a national literacy organization, and our vision is that every Canadian have the literacy skills they need to live a fully engaged life at home, at work, and in their community. We're delighted to be speaking on this topic today.

As you know, a report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, “The Business Case for Investing in Canada’s Remote Communities”, explains that improving the skills and training of Canadians is absolutely essential to helping business make the case for investing in remote and rural communities. We really couldn't agree more with that statement.

Poor and low-level literacy and essential skills are a reality throughout Canada. According to international assessments, 42% of Canadians are at low levels of literacy, meaning they have below a grade 12 level of literacy skills.

We're also witnessing dramatic changes in the labour market, with the mismatch between the skills that Canadians have and the skills they need to succeed in the workplace. In its report, “Menial No More”, the Ontario Literacy Coalition explains that skill-level requirements for jobs that were assumed to be entry level or low-skilled have increased. This change has been driven largely by technology, by the pressures of productivity, and by legislative changes to health and safety standards. We require higher digital and technical skills for almost every job.

I'm sure you've seen this. In hospitals orderlies now carry with them PDAs--personal digital assistant devices. We're seeing this in hotel chains, where the cleaning staff are now carrying PDAs with them. Even a Starbucks barista is now charged with being the person who fixes the Wi-Fi when it goes down. So we're seeing that all sorts of jobs have different kinds of technical skill requirements.

We're also entering into a time of labour shortage. It's estimated that the Ring of Fire in the James Bay lowlands of northern Ontario will require 90,000 new workers. Those workers will need a higher level of skill than many Canadians currently have. HRSDC estimates that by 2031, 77% of all jobs will need some form of post-secondary education or training.

So how do we address these new training needs, especially for remote communities? The Chamber of Commerce suggests that training needs to be more closely aligned with the unique needs of individual communities. Better aligning skills training to the economic and business opportunities in communities really means engaging business. Our best solution to this is through partnerships between government, business, and employees through workplace literacy and essential skills training. We've already heard a bit about some of the successes of that model today.

We see this happening in the diamond mines in the Northwest Territories. Both Diavik and Ekati diamond mines have successful workplace literacy and essential skills training programs that serve their largely aboriginal workforce. Their training programs include literacy and basic skills, the opportunity to attain a GED diploma, and job-specific training on equipment and systems. The program has become a model. In fact the HR director at Diavik told me that they get recruiters from Fort McMurray coming to Yellowknife to pinch some of their staff. It's that successful.

This program was funded partially by the territorial government and partially by the employer, but it also included a contribution of time from the employees. We find that this kind of partnership, with each player contributing, creates a successful, sustainable model for long-term training programs. The employee is acquiring the job-specific skills they need for their current role, but also the literacy and essential skills foundation that they can then take to any employer.

These programs also provide a great win for the employer. Our research shows that those employers who invest in workplace literacy and essential skills training experience many benefits, including lower absenteeism, higher retention of employees, better communication skills in employees, higher productivity, lower costs, lower error rates, and better health and safety standards.

In remote communities, especially those that are dependent on one large employer, the employer can truly be a fantastic provider of skills training. The workplace is an astounding place for training, because the people are already there. You've overcome some of those barriers. The person doesn't have to go home, get dinner on, find a babysitter, and then do their training. They can actually do their training where they are. The learning can be immediately attached and applied to the job they're doing, which makes for a better learning experience.

Even for small and medium-sized enterprises, we've seen models where companies join together to provide training opportunities for employees and share the costs. As we experience labour shortage, especially in remote and northern communities, employers are increasingly going to have to train the people they have. They're going to have to work with the people who are there, as we saw in the northern Saskatchewan case.

In a 2009 Ipsos Reid study, ABC Life Literacy Canada posed the question: who is responsible for improving the literacy and essential skills of Canadians? What we found was that most Canadians believe that it's up to the individual to improve their own skills, but it appears that they aren't expected to do it on their own. Four in ten Canadians believe that an individual's place of work has a role to play, but seven out of ten also believe that the government should contribute to improving adult literacy.

So what role can the federal government play? We believe that the government can play a strong role in providing leadership in incenting employers to invest in workplace literacy and essential skills. We know that employers in Canada have a poor record of training of employees. The OECD ranks Canada 13th among western nations in investment in training. We're far below the U.S. and the United Kingdom. And we know that any training dollars that are spent tend to be spent on the manager class, not on front-line workers. In those regions where there are government programs providing an incentive to employers, then employers are far more likely to provide training to that front-line worker. And we see this in highly successful programs in Manitoba, in Nova Scotia, and in Quebec.

Through a forum of federal, provincial, and territorial labour ministers, governments can encourage and incent employers to ensure that they are a part of the solution. This could include a workplace training tax credit. It could also include measures and incentives to ensure that provinces engage employers and businesses in their essential skills training models. In some provinces, the labour market agreements are used, for example, to support employers in providing literacy and essential skills training.

Innovative partnerships of government, employers, and employees can equip Canadians with the skills they need for the job they're in, and for their next job. The leadership of our federal government can help ensure that our workforce has the skills that will allow Canadian business to excel in the global economy. In that sense, increasing skills has a far-reaching economic impact for every community in our country and for our nation as a whole.

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for that presentation.

Is it Ms. Clarke who is going to present? Okay, go ahead.

[Michèle Clarke, Director, Public Policy and Federal Relations, Association of Canadian Community Colleges]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Michèle Clarke. I'm the director of government relations and policy research at the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. We appreciate the opportunity to provide input to the committee's study on skills development in rural and remote communities. I am accompanied today by my colleague, Suzanne Taschereau, who is responsible for our essential skills initiatives.

ACCC is the national and international voice of Canada's 150 colleges, institutes, university colleges, polytechnics, and CEGEPs. With campuses in 1,000 urban, rural, and remote communities, these institutions draw students equally from all socio-economic quarters.

Our presentation today focuses on the roles colleges play in improving skills development in remote rural communities. We will identify some of the barriers to effective skills development, and share innovative approaches and practices on how colleges work closely with business, industry, and community employers to meet their education and training requirements to foster business innovation, and to enhance access to post-secondary education and training.

Colleges and institutes have extensive reach across Canada's remote rural communities. They are often the only post-secondary institution in the area, and are a valuable resource in providing rural and remote Canadians with equitable access to post-secondary education and skills training. Our three colleges in the territories have main campuses as well as extensive networks of learning centres serving small communities. Aurora College, for example, has 24 learning centres. These colleges serve as hubs of community response and local socio-economic well-being. They offer innovative programming and service delivery modes to facilitate access to post-secondary education, to support innovation, and to improve productivity of rural small and medium-sized enterprises.

As noted in the Canadian Chamber of Commerce report “The Business Case for Investing in Canada's Remote Communities”, current education funding models disadvantage rural communities. The confusing complexity and prevalence of many different types of financial assistance mechanisms for post-secondary education often discourages learners from participating in post-secondary education. Colleges are often faced with having to piece together funding sources tied to the eligibility criteria for which different learners are eligible. In many cases the funding does not address other challenges, such as geographical and transportation needs, access to child care, and learning support services. Offering a wide array of wraparound support services to ensure learners succeed in transition to the employment market is critical. However, delivering effective student support services in rural areas is more complex and costly.

A significant proportion of the adult population in rural and remote communities is under-prepared academically to participate in post-secondary and skills training programs. In small towns and rural areas, high school dropout rates for youth are twice those in metropolitan areas. Moreover, the shift towards a knowledge-based economy will require advanced and essential employability skills, such as document comprehension, critical thinking, and problem solving. We welcomed the initiative announced in the June 2011 budget to expand territorial colleges' literacy and numeracy programs. Colleges' experience with adult upgrading and essential skills development is a key part of the solution to providing people living in remote rural communities with transferable skills for employment.

ACCC is working with HRSDC to increase the employability of aboriginal people, newcomers to Canada, unskilled workers, and the unemployed currently excluded from the labour market. A national framework will be created to support their essential skills development, including an integrated process to essential skills development and a national repository of essential skills resources.

Relatively modest investments in upgrading essential skills, like those just mentioned, can yield significant gains in productivity. Providing current and meaningful information about career development and related skills development opportunities is also essential. The Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies, in partnership with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, offers the mobile career coach program to Saskatchewan first nations communities. Two recreational vehicles were retrofitted and equipped with Internet capability, laptops, and office space to allow staff and participants to comfortably engage in mobile career services.

Distance education is particularly effective for serving learners in remote rural areas. Nunavut Arctic College used the knowledge infrastructure program funding to develop a cyber system to expand programs offered by distance and online, in particular by brokering programs from post-secondary institutions in the south.

Alberta-North has 87 community access points offering distance education programs from five northern Alberta colleges, and Contact North is a network of 94 access centres in northern Ontario, linking students to colleges and universities via computer imaging and supporting interaction between faculty and students. These services are expensive.

Education and training in first nations reserves are also critical. Over 80 colleges deliver programs in aboriginal communities in partnership with first nations bands or with aboriginal-controlled institutes. The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Red River College in Manitoba, Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, and the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies operate mobile labs for programs for automotive service technicians, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and welders, to name a few.

ACCC is partnering with Noront Mines, the Aboriginal Human Resource Council, and a consortium of colleges to explore a potential model for aboriginal employment and business development in the Ring of Fire. The model will feature performance-based programming in two streams, one for employment in trades in the construction and mining sector and the other in business development.

Colleges not only align their education and training programs with the needs of employers through program advisory committees but also provide them with applied research and development support.

College applied research focuses on solving problems for local businesses and helping them to survive and thrive by adopting new technologies and by launching new and improved products and processes. College research institutes such as the Yukon Research Centre and the Aurora Research Institute are developing marketable cold-weather tools, gas hydrate production technology, and Arctic Internet connectivity. College applied research activities produce highly qualified graduates with real-world challenges, hands-on training with leading-edge technologies, contact with industry, and advanced skills training in all sectors of the economy.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce report highlighted the need for a federal strategy to be founded on strong research about the economic potential that exists in Canada's remote communities.

An ACCC research project on college-led rural knowledge clusters, funded by the Rural and Co-operatives Secretariat, confirmed that colleges are key players in rural system amenities and facilitators of innovation and creative industries. ACCC continues to explore opportunities with the Rural and Co-operatives Secretariat to undertake research projects to examine the role of colleges and institutes as catalysts of the creative rural economy.

We invite the committee to take note of our brief, which will be submitted on December 13. We thank the committee for giving us this opportunity, and my colleague Suzanne and I would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for that presentation.

We'll start with Mr. Patry.

[Claude Patry, NDP, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, ladies.

You say that 42% of Canadians have difficulty reading and writing, and have not received any training. I, for one, was a factory worker. In90, a new technology was developed. CEGEP teachers came to show people who had a Grade 11, or Secondary V, education how to use this new technology. Workers were pulled from the factory for six months, while they worked with teachers. Afterwards, we had to play catch-up and double up our efforts. I live 200 kilometres north of Quebec City. That is less complicated than if I were living 200 kilometres north of what is truly northern Quebec.

I have talked to employers, unemployment offices and the community. As you know, courses were offered in some places to people receiving employment benefits so that they could learn to read and write, and attend the training. I don't know if that is still the case.

Is that still being done in your area? Are companies willing to work with the community and the government to help unemployed people?

[Michèle Clarke]

Is that question for me?

[Claude Patry, NDP, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

It's for all three of you.

[Michèle Clarke]

Yes, colleges are working very closely with industry to help displaced workers. Our members across Canada certainly offer a considerable amount of training to help those people develop new capabilities, new skills, so that they can return to the labour market.

A partnership is first created between the community's affected industry and the college. As I said in my presentation, the establishment is often the community's biggest industry. In small centres, partnerships develop, and those establishments provide displaced workers with training. Yes, that process is ongoing in communities with colleges.

[Claude Patry, NDP, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Thank you.

You talked about 10,000 new workers. Training is now more demanding, among other places, at CEGEP, which many young people attend. Once they finish their high school studies, they enrol in a career program at a CEGEP or a university. Not very many of them are interested in basic manual labour.

For instance, the lady talked about truck drivers. There are fewer and fewer millwrights, welders and gas plumbers. Those are also interesting jobs, but young people don't seem to be especially interested in them.

Have you planned any kind of training for those people in order to pique their interest and convince them to work in those fields?

[Michèle Clarke]

Unless I'm mistaken, you are talking specifically about encouraging young people to pursue studies in trades, for instance.

There are certainly challenges to meet in all Canadian provinces in terms of encouraging people to enrol in trade-related programs.

There are gaps in all trade areas and a lot of demand across Canada—in some trades more than others. It depends on the trade. In British Columbia, steelworkers are highly in demand. The situation is different in Ontario. In construction, major challenges will have to be met in the coming years, as some 300,000 people will try to fill positions left vacant by the people exiting the labour market. Those industries will have to meet some major challenges.

As for colleges, they certainly promote all the programs they offer and work very closely with the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, for instance, which heavily promotes the trades programs offered.

However, as you say, a prevailing belief in Canada is that young people may not want to be skilled workers. They have also often seen their parents work in trades and do not want to follow the same career path. However, wages are very high in certain areas.

That's why we, the colleges, are working very closely with the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum in an effort to promote trades. In addition, I know that the forum itself works very closely with employers to encourage apprenticeship. Young people may become skilled workers without really being apprentices. However, if they do go through apprenticeship training, they will benefit later because they will be able to reach other skill levels. Their training will be recognized in Canada thanks to the Red Seal Program certification. Their wages will be even higher than without that certification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Patry. Your time is up.

We'll move to Mr. Shory. Now you're on a roll.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here this afternoon and giving us a brief background on your expertise, which will help this committee to complete our study and come up with some positive recommendations in this area.

As you know, the federal government is committed to work with all levels—provinces, territories, municipalities, and the others—in partnership to focus on a long-term infrastructure plan for remote and rural areas. As a matter of fact, only last week Minister Lebel had already launched a process in that direction, which will help.

Last week I was reading in the Canadian Chamber of Commerce report, which you mentioned in the beginning, called “The Business Case for Investing in Canada's Remote Communities”, and I was struck with the observation it made in the executive summary. It said:

Despite many sources of government support and significant federal spending directed at rural/remote areas of Canada, consistent progress in building strong, self-sustaining remote communities is not evident.

Then in further paragraphs, I noted that there was emphasis in part in creating private sector investment in these areas.

So I am interested, and as a matter of fact the committee would be interested, to know how you feel our government can improve development efforts in remote rural communities. And specifically if you had to prioritize, say, a set of non-monetary changes—of course we all understand we are dealing with times of fiscal restraint—to encourage participation from multiple sectors in the development of remote rural communities, what would they be?

[Margaret Eaton]

Thanks very much for the question.

The Chamber of Commerce report was really an interesting and enlightening report. One of the things that I really took from that was this role of the private sector, especially in these communities. We heard about this in the Cameco story, the ability of the large employer to create community. If the employer is doing well then the community is doing well. Those communities then thrive because there are higher wages and further investment in small business, and that leads to a more healthy and sustained environment.

What we would like to see is that when the labour market agreements are being renegotiated, which will happen over the next year or two, that there be some emphasis placed on carving out some of that investment to go towards employers to create that incentive for doing the training. It benefits the employee and it benefits the employer, and that will lead to a healthier community. We really see the labour market agreements as being a powerful way to make a change that the federal government could enact.

[Suzanne Taschereau, Director, Essential Skills, Canadian Partnerships, Association of Canadian Community Colleges]

I'd like to add to that.

In the model that we're using with Noront Mines, they are a willing and very interested partner and can play a very interesting role in terms of providing incentives for some of their suppliers. What Noront Mines is proposing to do is to make it a requirement for all of the suppliers that they hire to provide some upgrading to hire aboriginal and local people. This would be done under the condition that they also release them for some amount of training. They provide conditions under their agreements with their suppliers to hire local people, thereby developing a local economy.

For that—and you're saying non-financial—they need to offset their risks in the short term. They're looking at the financial investment as an investment, not a cost, but as a short-term investment that will offset the cost, and in the long run would provide sustainable employment by providing incentives to the suppliers.

I don't know if that answers your question, but it's part of it. We are looking at partnerships. It does require some funding in the north. It's difficult. Through partnerships you can share the burden of those costs and really focus on the incentive piece of it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Mr. Shory, your time is up.

Ms. Crowder.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One of the things we heard from the earlier witnesses was regarding the pace of business versus the pace of government to respond. I've actually got an article from my local paper. It's headlined “Well-paid 'unanswered' jobs for workers willing to go north”. Vancouver Island University was actually turning students away from their heavy equipment operator course, and they were indicating the number of jobs that are available in the north right now.

Have you seen best practices for what I would call just-in-time training? Could you speak to that? That's an important issue up north.

[Suzanne Taschereau]

What we have seen that works, particularly when we're looking at the foundational skills, is to integrate them with a very small investment—between 20 and 60 hours focused on the requirements of what is needed for the job now, rather than K-to-12 long-term math and literacy.

We're finding that, first of all, the learners who have dropped out at the high school level are really not interested. It's very difficult to convince them, as adults, to go back and do grade 10, grade 11, and grade 12. But you can work with the companies, the colleges, and the local community providers, to provide that just-in-time, "what do you need to be able to do the job", which is very, very focused.

Our colleges have developed some workplace essential skills testing tools that are based on the international adult literacy scales. They require an hour or two, at the most three, depending on the learning needs, to assess what the needs are, work with the company to know what technical skills are required, and then marry those in very targeted interventions. They tend to work better.

If the funding allows for that, that is much more targeted to immediate needs, where the individual sees the practicality of it and the enterprise sees an immediate benefit in terms of skills acquisition and productivity in the workplace. Then you have the beginning of a winning formula. Then you can leverage those small successes, and the individual then wants more.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

You're essentially talking about building blocks. In your experience, is there enough flexibility and availability of funding to do that kind of process?

[Suzanne Taschereau]

I could only speak to the essential skills piece, but my colleague might be able to do that for the technical training.

When we are trying out with pilot initiatives, sometimes we have that kind of flexibility, but then they're not scaled up for the long term. So we go from one pilot to another pilot to another pilot. If we could draw from the best practices and all of the learning that we're getting from innovations in pilots, and then scale those up to much longer-term funding, then we'd be in business.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Ms. Clarke.

[Michèle Clarke]

I was going to add that the reaction of colleges.... We often describe our members as being able to turn things around on a dime. They do this regularly, and with ease and with flexibility. There obviously are some cost implications, but their mandate is to respond to community needs and to industry needs, so that if you do have an industry, an SME, a company that's local, or not, that approaches a member institution or college in Canada with a particular request, rare are the times when they're not able to turn it around.

They can certainly respond to the needs of that particular employer. Whether it be to train a small workforce, whether it be to train a large workforce, they tailor the curriculum as needed. Institutions have specific departments that work with industry. It's a different arm of the organization.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Ms. Clarke, is there something in particular that we could propose as a recommendation that would continue to support that kind of activity?

[Michèle Clarke]

In the holistic approach that colleges provide for the learners, there are approaches that colleges are putting in place to be able to support the many needs that learners in rural and remote communities have. So there's the element of being able to support colleges to be able to continue to offer those particular services. There's also partnership development. It was mentioned earlier from the perspective of incentives for employers. We have colleges that partner with employers to be able to satisfy two needs.

Take for example a health centre, as was the case in the Red Deer area, where they couldn't get workers to come to work at that particular health facility, and the college needed to provide some opportunities for its students—it's not necessarily a rural centre, but it's an example—to be able to gain work experience, so both needs were satisfied. The students were able to go to work in this facility, under supervision, to deliver some of the services that were needed and the college students, the learners, were able to acquire some industry experience. In the end, some of them were hired by that particular facility, so there was the on-the-job learning element as well.

Providing some incentives for employers, whether they be tax credits, whether they be support down the road for things that they're doing, I think would be very, very important.