Human Resources Committee on March 26th, 2012

[Alain Beaudoin]

With regard to your question—thank you very much—I said in my remarks that the issue of talent is a shared responsibility. The industry and the associations and the post-secondary institutions are actually collaborating through the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow's ICT Skills. What they're trying to do is to really encourage young Canadians to enter into those types of studies in order to get excited about it and to understand the parameters.

On that front, HRSDC is providing funding to this coalition in order to promote the entry of students into those professions. You may want to consider, because they have experience with it, inviting the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow's ICT Skills to talk about what they see as best practices and opportunities to promote to young Canadians.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

One of the things that certainly some young Canadians face, even once they graduate, is getting that first bit of experience and being mentored into a position somehow. Are there any initiatives related to that?

[Shane Williamson]

Yes. I had mentioned the internships, and again, they were pitched more at the graduate student level. But for example, the National Research Council has a youth employment program, and they provide small and medium-sized enterprises with some funding support to allow them to employ post-secondary students to tackle some of their technology programs. So there are programs in place of that nature.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Are they of significant size? We have lots of graduates coming out of school every year, but if you only have five places—

[Shane Williamson]

There's $25 million that is dedicated to it, per year.

[Alain Beaudoin]

If I may, to complement Shane's answer, a number of universities have co-op programs as well, and a number of firms in the industry are high users of those co-op programs, and they seem to be working well.

They're good practices. For example, the University of Waterloo and the Université de Sherbrooke put a lot of emphasis on those co-op programs, because they recognize the benefits for the students and for the industry as well.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Yes, I fully agree with that. I went through a program similar to that. But I have a lot of students in my riding saying, “Give us something to do”, and that's a challenge, particularly when you come in without any major experience in your degree program.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Your time's up. Thank you.

Mr. Cuzner.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Gentlemen, thanks for being here today.

I have three sons between 19 and 24 years of age, and so it may look a little self-serving—me wanting to get them off my payroll and onto somebody else's—but I'll ask these questions on behalf of the almost 15% of young Canadians who find themselves unemployed. There's an even more alarming stat, which is those who are disengaging completely from the workforce. I think everybody around this table knows it's in everybody's best interests to do what we can, and make the suggestions we can, to close that gap.

That being said, as Jean said in her comments and Mr. Daniel mentioned in his, mentorship and work experience are key components of this, and I think the federal government has a role to play in mentoring. I know that one of the great opportunities is through summer work experience, through the federal branch, but we see that through Industry Canada's summer work experience program, between the years of 2006 and 2011, the department did not spend over 25% of its annual budget allotted for summer workers.

Could you explain to us how that might have happened?

[Alain Beaudoin]

We're not familiar with the details on this, so we'll take note of your question and we will get back to you if this is the wish of the committee.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

You know, it concerns me that between 2006 and 2011, on the summer work experience program alone, over $11 million was returned—over 26%—and on the career focus program, just shy of $4 million.

If we're talking the talk, I think we want to have our best game forward as well. So 25% of a budget allocation, when we're looking at trying to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Mr. Cuzner, if I might interject, I think those questions probably would have been better put to HRSDC officials, as those programs—

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

No, they're related to Industry Canada's employment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Industry Canada? Okay.

Is that correct?

[Alain Beaudoin]

We'll check in terms of the details.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Yes, my sense would be it probably is—

[Alain Beaudoin]

Me too, but we will check.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

If it's within your department then we would expect a response. If it's not, I think the question would be better put to Human Resources.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

This disconnect, this is what you live. Where is it coming apart? We've heard from first nation groups and some of the companies that are trying to develop opportunities in the north that they've really tried to focus now—and they've adjusted their focus over the last number of years—on trying to get into public schools to share information with young people from first nation communities about the opportunities that are there and help prepare them for the careers of tomorrow.

Do you have any sense of where the biggest gap is in getting to young Canadians? Is it through the public schools that we make them aware of those opportunities? Is it in training opportunities at post-secondary institutions, or in the provision of mentorships?

Do you have a sense of where the gaps are happening and where we're not addressing them?

[Alain Beaudoin]

Thank you for your question.

I think the answer to this question would be very complex and I feel that we don't have the answer to it, other than to say that in our case, with regard to the ICT sector, we felt that we needed to have an ICT round table with the various stakeholders in order to identify the priorities moving forward. I referred to the five priorities earlier and we intend to move forward and work with the various partners in the coming months.

With regard to your specific question as to what would be warranted in order to convince kids to enter new professions or get them excited about what needs to be done, I think it's an issue that a lot of people are grappling with. But as I mentioned to one member of the committee a bit earlier, if you're interested in knowing what the Coalition for Tomorrow's ICT Skills has done and is doing currently with the industry and with academia, in order to increase awareness and get kids excited, I would recommend that maybe you consider inviting them to tell you about what their experience is all about and what they think.

[Shane Williamson]

Also, in our area, with the granting councils, we concentrate on what we called the STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council does have an albeit small program—$3 million per year—the PromoScience program, that provides funding to organizations that do try to encourage interest at a young level. There are programs for disadvantaged, underserved, or underprivileged youth, for example, programs to provide information for teachers in the K-to-12 level.

But we identify issues, if you will, at each stage. At the early stage, it's by ensuring young children have an interest in the STEM areas. Also, once you get to the graduate level, we make sure they're interested in working with industry, in particular, in tackling industry problems.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

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

We need to break a little early, but I understand Madam Perreault has a question.

If that's the case, go ahead.

If you have a question after, we can certainly deal with that.

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you for being here.

I have a few questions about persons with disabilities.

Have you adopted any measures to further encourage persons with disabilities to consider going into information technology?

[Alain Beaudoin]

That’s a very good question.

I am not sure whether specific efforts have been made to this end, but I know that efforts are made in various departments to ensure that these individuals have access to the information they need. But I am not sure about the professions you are referring to.

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

Along the same lines, in your opening remarks, you talked about internship programs. Is a portion of that funding set aside for people with disabilities?