Evidence of meeting #15 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Phil McColeman
Thank you, Mr. Ritter.
Now we'll move on to the first round of questioning. The first questioner is Madame Groguhé.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all of the witnesses and I welcome them.
The study began some time ago. The negative effects and all of the issues related to the aboriginal population were related to us repeatedly. When we look at the whole picture, as you and other witnesses have explained it, we see that the labour force development and training strategy is hard to fit into a continuum.
Let me explain what I mean. I regularly point out that it seems necessary that we have a real strategy that evolves constantly, so that we may talk about the economic resiliency of aboriginal populations. A witness also referred to this. The expression “economic resiliency” is strong and very meaningful. We cannot put this strategy into effect by itself, without considering all of the elements such as early education and all of the measures that must be taken to improve housing, living conditions and so on. We cannot, in the final analysis, claim that this strategy that has been put in place has solved everything.
In my opinion, some very good things are being done and that is all for the better, thank God. However, I think we have to look at this in a much broader way. We have to get a bird's eye view to see the whole landscape clearly.
This seems to me like an important consideration. Some of you referred to that and I would like your opinion.
10:05 a.m.
Executive Director, Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre
Can you just ask the question please? I have a hard time.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Regarding training and labour development, do you think we need to study all of the issues upstream? Should we, in your opinion, consider early education when we put strategies in place, so that we can begin intervening sooner?
10:05 a.m.
Executive Director, Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre
In our region we work with our bands, and I'd say that we work collectively with them. In terms of the early education in our area, we stick with our mandate of employment training for unemployed aboriginal people, but we work with our education coordinators and we work with our day care centres to develop workers for those jobs.
That holistic approach is what all first nations and aboriginal communities look at. We're just one part of that.
10:10 a.m.
NDP
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Fine.
My next question is for both witnesses.
I would like to know your opinion on something which has not been touched on at all, which is retaining aboriginal persons who join the workforce.
Could you quantify for us the number of persons who, after having taken training, stay in their jobs? Do you have any idea of what those figures are?
10:10 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission
Thank you very much for that question.
The Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission undertook some significant research into completion rates. We found that overall for our population of apprentices in compulsory trades.... Those are trades in which you have to be either an apprentice or a journeyperson to work within that trade. Within our province there are four of those. The number of compulsory trades varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but we have four in Saskatchewan.
Our completion rate for compulsory trades is running around 74%. For other trades, the completion rate is running about 10 points lower, at around 64%. When we look at the population of aboriginal people within our apprentices, we find that overall completion rates for that population run around 10 points lower in each group. In compulsory trades, aboriginal completion would be running at around 64%, compared with 74% for the average, and in non-compulsory trades running at around 54%.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Phil McColeman
Sorry, that's right on the five minutes.
To committee members, we just received a notice that there will be bells at 10:38 a.m. for votes, so I will stop this panel of witnesses at approximately 10:30 to give us time to deal with committee business in that final eight minutes.
Mr. Mayes, you have five minutes, please.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
To some of my neighbours just down the road from the Okanagan—Shuswap, where I come from, you talked about the outcomes and the clients you have, but I want to dig a little deeper into getting the clients to your office and the outreach. There are some cultural challenges and maybe social isolation, and maybe there needs to be encouragement to bring first nations clients to your office to get that training and get that hope and those opportunities.
Do you take part in any of that activity, or is that done on a local level by maybe the band council or somebody in the band administration?
Ms. McKenzie.
March 6th, 2014 / 10:10 a.m.
Heather McKenzie President, Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre
Thank you.
As was stated, I'm Heather McKenzie. I'm the president, yes, but I'm also a community member of the Williams Lake Indian Band, which is basically the urban community of Williams Lake. I'm on council there, but more importantly, I've been the education manager for 20 years now. In that time I have not only assisted that early learning to develop into future jobs, but I've watched children over the years graduate, go on to post-secondary, and be hired directly in our very fast-growing economic community.
We have an employment service centre right within our community that works directly with CCATEC, which is more the urban connection there. We also hold career fairs. Those career fairs basically focus on those youth and young adults who will basically grow our self-government treaty. Four Shuswap communities in our area are basically moving on to stage five.
Some of the barriers there include, yes, grade 12 and driver's licences, but we continue to work on those age groups. It is not just from birth on; for people from their forties to early fifties there seems to be more of a barrier. But below that is a group that's growing in education, and I'm just so proud of that group.
We are also very supportive of the language and culture. I think once we overcome those barriers for our people there will be a real pride that we can move forward and overcome any kind of education and employment barriers by knowing our grassroots.
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre
Mr. Mayes, we have 10 points of service within our region, employment services that link the really remote communities to CCATEC office.
We have outreach services. Our program workers do go out to all the reserves, too, so we do have that covered.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
That's the client.
Now, as for the potential employer, do you have outreach to various opportunities with employers in the area with whom you work? Are you a contact point automatically for them?
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre
Yes, I am, and we have our two program workers who are also out working with local employers.
What we're finding now—and this is the first time in the 21 years that I've worked with this organization—is that the employers are finally coming to CCATEC. We've been situated there for 21 years. They know we've been there, but now, due to the economic growth in our region, they're coming to the first nations agencies like ours.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
What are some of the outcomes?
I had a meeting with the president of the Interior Logging Association. They were telling me that they're working with the college and finding that they would make investments to help students go to college, and then they would find that the students would not stay with the job. This is both for aboriginal and non-aboriginal, so I just want to point that out.
They gave me a case of a non-aboriginal person. They invested $22,000 into making that person an equipment operator for the forestry industry and the person just didn't go back to work, didn't like the type of job.
As far as the outcomes are concerned once that connection is made, is there a retention there with the job?
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Phil McColeman
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask that this round be ended. It's at five minutes.
If you wish to answer that in a subsequent round, you're welcome to do that, or provide a written reply to that, if you wish.
Mr. Cuzner, you have five minutes, sir.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Thanks very much.
I will go to Mr. Ritter.
The 74% success rate is pretty impressive, to tell you the truth, and it's lower with the required trades.
Who are you able to develop the partnerships with? Are you seeing the bigger corporations—SaskPower, PotashCorp—as the ones that are taking on the apprentices? Is it a little less likely for small operators, small contractors to take on? Is there a profile you can give us on who is seizing those apprenticeship opportunities?
10:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission
An excellent question, thank you very much.
It's actually quite the opposite. Larger employers tend not to participate in the apprenticeship system to the extent that we certainly believe they should. The bigger the employer, the deeper the pockets, the more likely they are to hire experienced journeypeople away from small or medium-sized enterprises. My stakeholders refer to them as “poachers”.
Most of the companies that hire and train apprentices are on the smaller side. They're the ones that believe and certainly understand the competitive advantages they receive through training and certifying their existing workforce. Part of the challenge for them, though—and, in fact, one of the reasons they sometimes cite a reluctance to continue participating in the apprenticeship system—is the fear that if they train these apprentices through to journeypersons, they'll lose them to a larger employer just for the sake of a few dollars.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
For those dropping out of the apprenticeship programs, are you seeing trends, patterns, or commonalities in the reasons that they are leaving the apprenticeship programs?
10:15 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission
We've completed the completions research and the next stage is to look into the barriers to completion.
Our initial findings suggest it's very much a mixed bag, everything from a decision to leave the trade to pursue something else, to family circumstances, to money issues. The largest single category of reasons for them to exit the apprenticeship system seems to be “other”.
We have a plan in place to undertake more research into that, but that work hasn't been completed yet.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
We've heard from other presenters. Their comments have been around flexibility and the ability to work with other ASETS holders, others involved. Are you seeing that as one of the things that would allow you to do more with what it is you have to work with to maybe eliminate some redundancies, duplication, or whatever?
10:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre
One example I could give you on that one would be the labour market agreements in British Columbia that are fairly new and under review. It makes no sense for 10 of us or 13 of us to apply for the same funding. Where there is a strategy in place in British Columbia, we could all apply for the same funds.
At the First Nations Human Resource Labour Council table we have undertaken that a little bit with some capacity for the ASETS staff, so we certainly look at that.
If I may comment on the retraining, what we do at the CCATEC office is we have trainees who come back and forth and don't utilize their tickets or something. I just had a file that was brought forward to me yesterday, and we didn't support it. The client hasn't utilized the training. Our mandate is training for a job. My question is: we've done the training, how can we help you get that job now? It's always related to employment.
It only makes sense provincially that we do partner, and have one administration body to look at centralized training for us. We did a little bit more so in the safety department.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative