Evidence of meeting #30 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
Thank you.
Hi, and I apologize for my voice. It was quite an exciting weekend for us, as you know.
I want to go back to the fact that you said your budget is being cut. We're hearing that there are shortages out there, yet when we look at a document that was prepared for us, based on HRSDC's Canadian occupational projection system, I find it sometimes contradicts itself. In some places it says that most of the places are balanced right now, and if there is a shortage by 2020, there will be a surplus in some of these jobs. A lot of it is in the sciences field.
I'm concerned because if we're looking at the need to fill positions, the need for employment—and we have people out there who are looking for employment—and your budget is being cut, I'm trying to figure out what impact that will have with respect to being able to entice people to take courses or upgrading or anything like that to be able to move forward.
3:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
If I may, I honestly believe that within the environmental sector we do not have common language and logic. So when you're comparing some of the other numbers, we're not necessarily using the same NOC or NAICS codes to collect that data.
Our data has been accepted by Stats Canada as being more reliable because it deals specifically with functional jobs, and NAICS and NOC have not kept up with that.
I believe, as well, that you're right. Professional development change is the rule, not the exception, in our area, and keeping pace is going to be absolutely critical.
Our labour market intelligence indicated that people wanted to have online programming. They wanted distance delivery so they could do it online, because they work in remote areas, and so on. We created a partnership with 25 universities and colleges across Canada and we now offer, as I mentioned, a diploma, a baccalaureate degree, and a master's degree, 100% online, with no residency requirement. We currently have 1,000 students taking 2,500 courses, and 15% of those students are foreign students, which means that in their home country they get a parchment from a recognized Canadian university before they get here. The remaining 85% are professional development.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
I'm going to let my colleague ask a quick question before I go back to the questioning.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Around the issue of online access to programs, the OECD issued a report that showed that Canada has slipped to 13th out of 34 member countries in its percentage of people with access to high-speed Internet, and that we've been steadily slipping in the past 10 years. What we're hearing fairly consistency is that the way to go is online programming, especially for rural and remote areas where people can't come, and yet high-speed access is a huge problem for many of these areas.
What has been your experience with that?
4 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
It is. We find that specifically in rural, remote areas there are issues.
When we're talking about Canada's north and other areas, there is difficulty—
4 p.m.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Sorry, I have to go on. I live on Vancouver Island, one hour north of Victoria. Significant parts of my riding are on dial-up. It's not just rural and remote.
4 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
It is an issue, when you're talking about technical data and trying to get people involved in that area, especially if Canada wants to be a leader and offer these programs internationally in order to attract people to come to Canada based upon our educational system.
4 p.m.
Executive Director, BioTalent Canada
Certainly both allegorical and empirical research have indicated that more people use social media in order to find out what jobs are out there and add up their skills.
So as more businesses—and even small businesses trying to preserve resources—are shifting everything to an online search system, I believe this problem, if it continues, is only going to grow. There is going to be that much more of a disparity.
4 p.m.
NDP
Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
There are so many questions now that I want to ask—at first, I wasn't sure.
4 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
I can answer. Pick one.
4 p.m.
NDP
Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
I have 45 seconds.
Basically, I'm wondering if you could tell me what you consider low-skilled employment versus unwillingness to pay decent wages to workers. Can you just briefly talk to me about the low-skilled workers out there?
I'm just wondering because there's a shortage of low-skilled workers, but there's also the fact that there are employers out there who are not paying a good wage, and that's why people aren't vacillating to some of those jobs. I'm just wondering if you could speak to that.
4 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
I think one of the parts of that as well is that our organization looks at a very large difference between a labour shortage and a skills shortage. We don't believe that presently we have a labour shortage; we believe we have a skills shortage. As a result, employers will pay less to individuals who don't have those skills, because they're going to pay them to acquire those skills while they're on the job.
I would anticipate that relatively quickly those salaries should move up as the individual demonstrates that they have those specific competencies.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki
Thank you, your time is up.
Mr. Trump, I just have a side question from that.
You mentioned that you're tied in with about 25 universities. One question I have is this. If you're able to do some online programming in your various occupations, would you feel that could apply to others?
Secondly, have you done some quality assessments in terms of those coming through the online system versus those who are hands-on in the classroom, or maybe at a particular training institute?
4 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
Our partners in this whole process are some of the larger universities in Canada, as well as several universities from the United States.
It's only begun; we've only been in existence for three years. Our first master's student started last year, so we haven't graduated any of those as of yet, but it's interesting to note that in the second intake, we had double the number of qualified applicants as we had in the first year.
Certainly, within the industry, the talk on the street was that this is a great program, and let's get involved.
With respect to how we are going to work with the other universities, the universities that are involved as our partners here, they just simply offer their courses up, we accredit those courses, and then they become part of our activity. We use some of that money to identify where the curriculum gaps are and to develop new curriculum to fill those gaps.
It's a self-propagating process because we are indeed a not-for-profit Canadian corporation.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki
I have a quick question.
Are you going to have some quality measurements or assessments later?
4 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
Absolutely, we will, because the graduates of the program receive university parchment, actually, from Royal Roads University, which is where our centre is physically located.
4 p.m.
Conservative
March 26th, 2012 / 4 p.m.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
Actually, Chair, that was a good segue into where I was wanting to head with better understanding the post-secondary connection here.
When you say 25 universities, could you name a couple of those universities that you're associated with?
4 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
There are the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, and the University of Calgary.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
If I were a person enrolling in the courses online, would I pay a tuition similar to what I would pay to enrol in the university?
4 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
You would pay the exact same tuition the university would charge for that course online. There is no additional charge to go through this degree.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
You mentioned an institution right at the end of your comments. What was the name of it?
4 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
It was Royal Roads University.