Human Resources Committee on March 4th, 2014

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

What you're asking the federal government to do, as we negotiate the LEAS and the , is to make sure that we talk to the provinces about how we expect this money to be used and allocated.

[Joan Harris]

Absolutely. Especially when you're considering capital initiatives, where the province is using those training dollars for capital initiatives, to have some kind of aboriginal input into that, in this province anyway.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Recognizing that these are all federal tax dollars being transferred to the provinces' ministries, you'd like to see the federal government have a bit more control over how those dollars are used. Is it accurate if I say that?

[Joan Harris]

That's accurate, absolutely.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Cayen, I'm interested in your program. I'm from the east coast. Mr. Cuzner and I both know a lot about the fishing industry and the seasonal nature of this work. Before Rodger and I retire and head up there for $70,000 in three months....

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Could you talk a little about that? You talked about the age of your clients going into the fishing industry and how successful they've been in recent years. I mean, they're 20 years old. How do the clients come to you? I know there's word of mouth and they see what their older friends are doing, but is there any way or are there any programs to reach down into the high school level to let them know what programs are there, to try to recruit at that level, before they have this really difficult transition from school to work or from dropping out of school?

That's a really difficult time where, from my experience as an educator, we lose a lot of young people. It doesn't matter if they're first nations or from other ethnic backgrounds. It's a really difficult transition from school or dropping out of school to actually getting into the workforce. Are there any programs or is there any outreach you do to try to attract these people before they back up...?

[Elisabeth Cayen]

Yes. We do go into the high schools when we get the opportunity. As I said earlier, the cost of travelling is humongous in Iqaluit and in Nunavut as a whole, so we can't go to every school in every community. That's not practical. However, we do go to the regional centres, and that's often where a lot of the kids end up coming anyway. When they have a career fair, a lot of the kids from the outlying communities will come there as well. Whenever there are career fairs or other opportunities.... In fact, next week we'll be at the Iqaluit high school, and we'll be talking to them about our program as well.

You have to remember that we can't really take anybody under the age of 18 years. That's mandated by Transport Canada. They're the boss and they say no, and that's good, because you know what? You need a level of maturity to be able to be away from home. You have to have cut the apron strings, and we find that generally that's not at 18, but at 25 at least.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

You did talk, however, about the amount of pre-training you do to try to get those basic employability skills. Are there restrictions from Transport Canada that would preclude a program like that being offered to those who are younger than 18?

[Elisabeth Cayen]

No, absolutely not.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Could you do that part of it?

[Elisabeth Cayen]

Absolutely, yes. That's something we've developed. It's really our screening process for our next level of courses. We are finding that without it.... Students would come to Iqaluit for training, but we just didn't know what kind of training they were getting, because they were missing class. They weren't coming to class. They saw it as a holiday, because.... You have to remember, training in the north is completely funded. That's the model they've used for years and years. There is no financial requirement by the student, so they have a free holiday.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

That's a hard experience to break for them when that has been the tradition.

[Elisabeth Cayen]

It's very difficult, yes.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

It's necessary that it be broken, so that these work skills are displayed and they actually learn what it's like to show up on time, to show up and take good jobs. It is difficult, this transitioning from school to work. We see that across the country in all ethnic backgrounds. I do think that the more work that can be done in working with the secondary school system to help recruit, to help do some of these pre-job skills...I think that would be a worthy endeavour, not only from you but also from the schools working with you and the guidance counsellors and others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong. That's five minutes.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Now we move on to Madame Groguhé for five minutes.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Cayen, you mentioned the possibility of asking for an internship that lasts at least two weeks before signing up for a training program. What percentage of the people who do pre-training internships end up succeeding and finding employment? Do you have some idea of that percentage?

[Elisabeth Cayen]

I'm not sure I understand the question.

What we have is a pre-training program. That's a two-week program that basically introduces a student to what the fishing industry is all about. We talk about all sorts of things, including lifestyle, etc. We look at their numeracy skills. We do all kinds of assessments with them. It gives us a chance to screen whether they're a person who would be suited for the industry, and it gives them a chance to look at it and ask themselves if they really want to do it.

The number of people who come through the pre-training program and move on to pre-T is not so much related to ability as it is to interest. Some people who come in may think that they want to be fishermen, that it's what they want to do. Then they find out what it's really all about and they say, “No, thank you.” As for the number of people who go from the pre-training to the next class, probably 80% of them do.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Okay.

You also talked about accountability. I would like more information about that. What do you mean by accountability? What kind of challenges are you dealing with there?

[Elisabeth Cayen]

Our accountability is straight across the board, from financial accountability.... My personal philosophy is that at the end of the day, I'm a taxpayer, so if that expense is not something I would be comfortable with, then it's not happening. I do that with any kind of funding we get through the program. It's not just the federal funding. It's the same thing for other types of program funding. In terms of financial accountability, that's very important. To me, if you don't have that....

I have another little mantra, which is, follow the money and then you'll find out what happens. If you're following the money and it's going to good training, then it's good; it's money well spent.

The other part of accountability is the job part. If we're doing training just for the sake of training, that's not being accountable, in my view. In my view, that's just not doing anything. There's no purpose to that.

The other thing I should mention is that not everybody who goes to work out of our programs takes even a pre-training program. Not everybody goes to the fishing industry, but they go to a lot of other sectors, because they've just developed some confidence and they say, “Gee, I can learn.” I track those results as well, because I think they're important.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Overall, do you think that accountability does a good job of covering all of the work done, or could it be improved?

[Elisabeth Cayen]

At this point, I think we're in pretty good shape. I've done accountability for many years in many different programs, so I would say yes.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Paterson, you also mentioned the opportunity for young people and not-so-young people at the YMCA to do internships. There is one aspect you did not talk about though, and that is starting businesses. Can you tell us a little about that, please?