Human Resources Committee on Oct. 4th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 48 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities on Thursday, October 4, 2012.

We are starting a little late this morning. As you may well know, we changed locations from the Centre Block, where we meet normally, and that has caused a bit of confusion.

I know that Mr. Cleary is on his way and should be here any moment. We thank you, Mr. Cardozo, for being patient with us. Also Aleksandra Popovic, who was supposed to be here, was not able to make it to Ottawa. I understand that she will be joining Mr. Cardozo sometime during our hearing this morning via video conference.

As you know, we are studying the general area of fixing the skills gap, addressing existing labour shortages in high-demand occupations, understanding labour shortages, and addressing barriers to filling low-skill jobs.

We will start with your presentation, Mr. Cardozo, and after you have completed it, there will be rounds of questioning starting at that point. If Ms. Popovic should arrive, we'll hear her presentation as well. I see that Mr. Cleary has just joined us, so we have the full committee here.

Mr. Cardozo, if you wish to proceed, go ahead.

[Andrew Cardozo, Executive Director, Alliance of Sector Councils]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this invitation, which we consider to be very important.

Could I be so bold as to ask if you could introduce the members around the table?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Absolutely. Perhaps we will start with Mr. Eyking and work our way through. Go ahead.

[The Honourable Mark Eyking, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

My name is Mark Eyking and I'm a member of Parliament from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I am François Lapointe.

I am the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.

I am wondering if the interpretation is working. If I speak to you longer in French, are you getting the English version?

It seems to be working.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

My name is Ryan Cleary. I'm the member of Parliament for St. John's South—Mount Pearl, and that's in Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Good morning. I am sorry for being late.

I am Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, member for Hochelaga. My riding is on Montreal Island, where the botanical gardens and the Olympic stadium are.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

I'm Mike Sullivan, from York South—Weston, which is in the west part of Toronto.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Good morning. My name is Kellie Leitch. I'm the member of Parliament for Simcoe—Grey and the Parliamentary Secretary for Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

I'm Colin Mayes, member of Parliament for Okanagan—Shuswap in British Columbia.

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

I'm Joe Daniel, member of Parliament for Don Valley East, in Toronto.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

I am Phil McColeman, member of Parliament for Brant.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

My name is Devinder Shory. I'm the member of Parliament for Calgary Northeast in the province of Alberta.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Good morning. I'm Brent Rathgeber, the member of Parliament for Edmonton—St. Albert.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Ms. Popovic has arrived. Welcome. Make yourself comfortable.

That done, we will have Mr. Cardozo start his presentation, and after he has completed it, you're certainly welcome, Ms. Popovic, to make your presentation if you're ready. Is there anything you'd like to say at this moment?

[Aleksandra Popovic, Program Manager, Workplace Skills and Training, ABC Life Literacy Canada]

Only thank you very much for having me. We are in a beautiful downtown building in Toronto that has just recently been renovated. It's wonderful to be here. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

All right.

With that, Mr. Cardozo, please begin your presentation.

[Andrew Cardozo]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and members. Thank you for the introductions too, and the chance to be here to talk about the issues you're dealing with.

I am going to talk about five trends, namely, shifting economic powers, changing demographics, growth of knowledge, labour market mismatches, and the changing nature of work.

I will go through my slides fairly quickly so that I can cover the five trends in five minutes.

The first trend is the shifting economic powers in the world. Goldman Sachs has predicted that by the year 2050, China will be the number one economic power in terms of GDP, the U.S. number two, and India number three. Canada will slip in a sense, from number 10 to number 16, somewhere between Vietnam and the Philippines. I say “slip in a sense” because it won't necessarily slip; it's that the other powers will become stronger.

The relevance of that in terms of human capital is that it may affect the flow of human capital—not only financial capital, but human capital—as people may find certain countries less attractive than they do today.

The second trend is changing demographics. You are well aware of the aging population in Canada. There are some figures here comparing Canada to some of the other countries. Interestingly, it is the aboriginal population in Canada that is the youngest. I've got some figures to demonstrate that the median age of the aboriginal population is presently about 26.5, which is considerably less than the median age of 39.7 for the rest of the population.

The third trend that is interesting for human resource issues is the growth in knowledge. There is a projection that 60% of kids currently in kindergarten will work in jobs that do not currently exist. We are educating young people and kids for jobs that don't exist. That is part of the challenge ahead of us.

In terms of the growth in knowledge, there's an estimate that somewhere between 65% and 81% of young people and workers in the future will require post-secondary education, including university, college, and apprenticeship. We are essentially expecting the next generation to be both generalists and specialists: to have a fair amount of knowledge about a lot of different things, and at the same time be specialists as we specialize knowledge in a number of different areas.

Trend number four, which you are certainly well aware of, is the labour market mismatch. Dr. Rick Miner, whom you know, has talked about people without jobs and jobs without people. I've listed for you a number of the shortages that are projected for the next decade in their sectors of the economy. How did we get to this point? Certainly aging population is a major part of it, along with growth of the economy, rapidly changing technical requirements, a high level of issues with regard to adult literacy, and the high unemployment level among aboriginal people.

Some of the solutions to better align supply and demand are higher levels of literacy; workforce growth through immigration, which is a part of the solution; including aboriginal peoples more, and focusing more on their education attainment and job attainment; and the inclusion in the workplace of people with disabilities, older workers, and women in non-traditional occupations.

To go about this, we need a national skills strategy. By that I mean a skills strategy that involves all levels of governments, business, the education system across the country, and a number of other stakeholders.

The last trend that I want to mention is the changing nature of work. Career paths are changing by necessity because long-term jobs are hard to find or because upscaling becomes essential or both. The next slide, a brilliant slide by Professor Sylvain Bourdon of the Université de Sherbrooke, demonstrates through these three bars the changing nature of work.

In the first one, the traditional model, people were educated for about 20 years, worked for about 40 years, and then retired.

In the second model, which he has called the lengthened youth transition, people are educated for about 20 years, then for a period of another five or 10 years go back and forth through education and training and back through the work world. Then they get a steady job, work for another 30 years, and retire.

The third model is what he has called the lifelong learning model. This model has both positives and negatives to it. It shows people having a series of jobs that change on a regular basis. They transfer between jobs and training, periods of unemployment, and then periods when they do a bit of both; they may have unemployment and training at the same time, or work and training at the same time. The positives are that people engage in lifelong learning; the negatives are that it is increasingly difficult for people to have both long-term employment and long-term full-time employment.

Some of this happens through necessity: people often have to piece together two or three jobs, all or most of which are not very long term. Contract work, short-term work, is becoming more the norm. This is unsettling both for individuals and for the economy. It is harder for people in uncertain jobs to buy houses, cars, or other major purchases.

Those cover the five tendencies. Let me close with a couple of comments.

I work with the Alliance of Sector Councils, which is an alliance of some 30 organizations that deal with skills development in specific areas of the economy. Some of those were demonstrated in the two slides in which I showed you the skills shortages that exist. Councils deal with a number of issues, with labour market information being the core of what sector councils do. They cover issues such as aboriginal engagement, occupational standards, working with internationally trained workers, and workplace learning.

The rest of the slides, which I won't go through at this time, Mr. Chair, because of time constraints, cover some of the interesting and innovative solutions that various sector councils are involved in. The last slide I have is simply a listing of all the councils with their logos.

There are other important trends out there. One of the trends that I haven't talked about today is certainly the issue around literacy, and I'm very pleased that my colleague today will be talking about that in more detail. She certainly has a lot more expertise and knowledge of the issue than I do.

That covers my comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for that informative presentation. I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to answer some questions, and hopefully you can address some of the innovative solutions that you spoke of.

We are interested to hear from Ms. Popovic with respect to the literacy side of things. If you would like to commence your presentation, please go ahead.

[Aleksandra Popovic]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning everyone. Indeed, bonjour. My name is Aleksandra Popovic and I'm with ABC Life Literacy Canada.

At ABC, we envision a Canada where everyone has the literacy skills they need to live a fully engaged life. Literacy is the core work that ABC does, including workforce literacy, community literacy, and workplace literacy. ABC has had the privilege of appearing before this committee several times to speak to the importance of literacy and essential skills for Canadians. We appreciate this privilege.

Today I'm pleased to be able to address you about this issue within the context of addressing existing labour shortages in high-demand occupations. We believe, and research demonstrates, that the weak literacy skills and essential skills of Canadians are directly related to the difficulties employers are having in finding the trained workers they need. When I speak of the essential skills, I'm referring to reading, writing—

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

May I interrupt you for a moment? We're translating simultaneously, so if you could slow up in your presentation, it would help the translator immensely. Perhaps you could back up a bit and start again and speak a little more slowly.

[Aleksandra Popovic]

Absolutely.

ABC has had the privilege of appearing before this committee several times to speak to the importance of literacy and essential skills for Canadians. We appreciate being able to do so.

Today I'm pleased to be able to speak to you about this issue within the context of addressing existing labour shortages in high-demand occupations. We believe, and research demonstrates, that the weak literacy and essential skills of Canadians are directly related to the difficulties employers are having in finding the trained workers they need. When I speak of the essential skills, I'm referring to reading, writing, document use, and numeracy, which collectively are known as literacy skills, as well as oral communications, computer skills, thinking skills, working with others, and continuous learning.

Research undertaken earlier this year by Rogers Connect market research group on behalf of ABC Life Literacy Canada indicates that 80% of Canadian business leaders find it difficult to find qualified employees. More relevant to this committee, nearly half of these respondents attributed this difficulty to the low literacy and essential skills levels of Canada's labour pool.

The essential skills we looked at in this survey are not technical skills or job-specific skills required by particular occupations but, rather, the skills applied in all occupations. Those are the essential skills I just referred to.

Poor and low-level literacy and essential skills are a reality throughout Canada. According to the last international assessment in 2003, 42% of Canadians are at low levels of literacy. That means they fall below a high school graduate's level of literacy and struggle with common tasks. On a scale of one through five, it is generally understood that possessing essential skills at a minimum of level three complexity is required to manage the demands of day-to-day tasks in work, in one's life, and in learning.

New international research on the literacy and essential skill levels of Canadians is due to be released next year. It is known as the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. Sadly, early indications suggest that we will not see significant improvement in these scores. This reality is seen in workplaces across the country.

Please allow me to illustrate the impact this deficiency has on the lives of some Canadians.

A personal support worker misses out on training opportunities because she cannot read the information flyer she received with her pay stub. Her manager assumes she’s not interested.

A machine operator does not follow safe handling procedures of a chemical because he does not understand the MSDS.

Each month, a grocery store clerk misses his shift the first day after the new schedule is posted.

At a production team meeting, an employee is reluctant to share a good idea that would lead to efficiencies, for fear she would be asked to speak in front of everyone or maybe even write it down. Her supervisor finds her disengaged.

A maintenance worker is unaware of the implementation of a new alarm system because he does not know that the posted memo is intended for him.

A cashier is regularly short in his till.

A powder-coating company has an excellent team with incredible workmanship on all orders to date. Suddenly, there is a sharp increase in errors on job specifications just after a computerized system is introduced on the production floor.

The company newsletter includes important graphs and projections for the coming year that a line operator doesn’t realize forecasts a decline in sales that could likely result in a shortage of work.

Employees in a hospital must now log into the intranet to access relevant information, and their manager is finding that many are missing important deadlines.

A newly hired employee signs her employment contract without reading the policies and procedures.

Increasingly, we see Canadian business and employers, large and small, recognizing the importance of improving the skills of Canadians. For instance, I point to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s recent report, “Top 10 Barriers to Competitiveness”, which puts skills training at number one. Their more recent report on consultations around this clearly identifies literacy and essential skills as a problem to be addressed. I quote:

We need to focus seriously on upgrading the skills of our existing employees.

Our members told us the dismaying story of a workforce which often lacks basic skills—literacy, numeracy, communication skills.

Canada urgently needs to revamp its policies, programs and attitudes to support continuous, life-long learning and skills upgrading.

The Chamber of Commerce goes on to recommend that the business community step up its investment in workplace training.

At ABC we couldn’t agree more. We believe that improving the literacy and essential skills of Canadians is a shared responsibility. Governments, employers, literacy organizations, employees, and Canadians in general have a role to play. It is not one sector's fault or responsibility; we must all work together to find the solutions, especially for our high-demand sectors and jobs.

In the view of ABC Life Literacy Canada, we believe this committee could make a significant contribution to the improvement of this issue by making recommendations that call on a more integrated approach that engages government, business, literacy providers, and individual Canadians. For too long the existing system has served Canadians in a scattered approach, yielding inadequate improvement in literacy and essential skills of Canadians.

When my colleague, ABC President Margaret Eaton, appeared before you last year, she illustrated the effectiveness and impact of integrated programs at diamond mines in the Northwest Territories. The 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 for other industries and sectors that need a large, highly skilled workforce, such as forestry and energy.

Most important to the conversation this morning, this program was partially funded by the territorial government and partially by the employer, and it included a contribution of time from the employees.

Large employers typically play a significant and large role in the programs such as the one I’ve just highlighted, but skills-based, high-demand jobs are found with employers both large and small. The small and medium-sized employer sector, the acknowledged engine of Canadian employment, cannot be left out of this conversation. Integrated policies and measures need to be found that provide the means to help the employees of small and medium-sized businesses where there are also high-demand jobs.

In this committee’s report, “Skills Development in Remote Rural Communities in an Era of Fiscal Restraint”, tabled in June, recommendations included a tax credit supporting private sector training programs aimed at the aboriginal population in remote communities.

ABC Life Literacy Canada was pleased to see this in your report.

As a long-standing advocate of policy measures that would incent employers to come to the table to support essential skills training, we urge you to consider similar recommendations to truly incent a shared approach to essential skills training in Canada. A tax credit for essential skills training in the workplace would go a significant way in this regard and encourage employers, large and small, to invest in essential skills training.

Through such measures, the leadership of our federal government can help ensure that our workforce has the skills that will allow Canadians to be successful in those high-demand jobs and ensure that Canadian business thrives.

Thank you for the opportunity for appearing before you this morning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Ms. Popovic, for that presentation.

We will now open this committee hearing to questions. We'll start with Mr. Cleary—no, it's Mr. Lapointe. I'm sorry about that.

Go ahead, Monsieur Lapointe.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Chair. Sorry, Brian.

Do you speak French? Do we know if your translation device works, Madam Popovic? We can't hear you anymore.

[Aleksandra Popovic]

I don't know if my translation was occurring. I didn't hear it here in the room.