Human Resources Committee on April 1st, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Make a very quick response, please.

[Pierre Gratton]

I'm not familiar enough with the competencies of the ASETS holders in Williams Lake, so it's hard for me to answer that specifically.

With B.C. AMTA or the Mine Training Society, elsewhere you have this partnership, you have the support from industry and the educators, and you have an accepted curriculum. You have the simulators, you have a lot of the necessary in-class training materials, so it works. If the ASETS holders in a particular region don't have that they're not in a position to offer the same kind of opportunity that B.C. AMTA is able to for the mining sector.

B.C. AMTA is now expanding to be much more than just mining and to play a role in other sectors.

It has been a very successful partnership model.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you.

Mr. Cuzner, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses.

I'm going to ask two questions and then see if we can get a response.

First, a lot of the testimony that we've received here at committee has been around the mining sector, but I think that as a result of the Marshall decision in 1999 one of the true opportunities that first nations people have been able to seize has been in the fishery in Atlantic Canada. I'll pose the question and then I want to give you a couple of seconds to gather your thoughts on it.

Do we continue to train? Some communities have done well with that opportunity, and other communities haven't done as well. Are we continuing to train young people to get into the fishery? Because it was a completely new experience for a lot of first nations communities. If you can gather your thoughts on that, just give us your view on it.

I want to go to Ms. Cluff-Clyburne. The Prime Minister in 2012 said that Canada was seized by this skills crisis, and Minister Finley referred to it as a crisis. Minister Kenney sort of stepped back from that; he's not sure why.... I think the Prime Minister's comments were really a result of the study that the chamber came out with.

In 2012 when you tabled the report on the skills crisis, you said that the number one challenge to Canadian competitiveness was the skills crisis, but since then, Donald Drummond, the TD, and the PBO have come out and said that it's sectoral and regional. Could you sort of square the difference in the two?

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne]

Yes, and just to be clear, my expertise is not.... I believe that someone from the chamber has already appeared before you and addressed the broader issue of the skills challenge.

I think that from our perspective it is best characterized as a skills mismatch. That's how employers see the situation. They still regard it, at least from our members' perspective, as their number one challenge to being competitive. It is regional, and nothing that you've said isn't true, but it still remains a tremendous challenge for businesses.

The numbers speak for themselves. We still have a lot of people unemployed, and we still have employers saying they're not getting the skilled workers they need, so I would say that it's evolved into more of an issue of a mismatch than a shortage. But if you're in the mining industry, it's very definitely a shortage. Other sectors may not characterize it that way.

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

If you're one of the 15% of these young Canadians who are looking for that first job, they're saying that they have skills to offer, so your evaluation, your assessment, of this being a mismatch I think is probably more accurate.

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne]

That would be correct, yes.

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

So on the fisheries opportunities, are we doing okay there? Are we doing well? Are young people being drawn to that industry? Are you guys able to train them for that industry?

[Valerie Bowers]

Well, as METS ASETS holders, we don't really deal with the fisheries. Fisheries are a different part of employment. There's a fisheries section that looks after fisheries.

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

Do they have training components?

[Valerie Bowers]

Yes, they do. They actually go to the NSCC, the Nova Scotia Community College. They have a marine institute where they train them for fisheries. They have their marine emergency duties. Some of them are captains.

But it's actually I think a pretty closed market. Not a lot of young people are going that way. The fishermen who are already there tend to stay there because, as you know, employment issues are really tough. Also, the fishing season is very, very short, so it's really hard.

[Karen Pictou]

It varies across Nova Scotia, really, as to how much involvement a first nations community has in the fisheries and what types of catch they're doing and things like that. I know that some of the communities with ASETS dollars are paying for things like MED, for decking and courses and things like that. Still, across the province in the majority of communities, captains are non-native and they're still leasing out that work to non-native—

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

It's like....

[Karen Pictou]

Some communities are doing this; others aren't. The communities are rather leaning in that direction, training their community members to be captains and things like that. In some communities, Millbrook being one—my home community—one of the fishermen recently started his own business. He is trained as a captain, and now the community is leasing parts of the quota to him and he is personally hiring his crew. So it is starting to go that way.

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

So it's a revenue stream for the community, plus a job creator.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much. That's the end of that round.

Now we go on to Mr. Armstrong for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll pick up on that, Karen, because you and I have spoken about this before.

This is a new industry for first nations people in Nova Scotia, and we're still breaking ground on making it truly a vehicle for broader employment.

But for a new and a young industry, there's a lot of potential in it. Would you agree with that?

[Karen Pictou]

Yes—and no at the same time. There is potential; however, the number of jobs in each community in fishing is not a large number.

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

That is right at the moment, but if you had self-employment there, the money would revolve more inside the communities themselves, and that might generate some more economic activity.

Let me go back to Mr. Montpellier.

You talked about the mining essentials program and about how the program's been expanded nationally. How many provinces have engaged in this? In how many sites do you have this training program?

[Ryan Montpellier]

We have 10 active sites today. We've had intakes in B.C., Yukon, the NWT, Saskatchewan, nothing in Manitoba, several in Ontario—several in the Ring of Fire and the Sudbury Basin. We'll have our first intake in Quebec starting next month. We'll have our first French intake in Ontario, and our English intake is in Quebec, which is ironic. Our first French intake will start in northern Ontario at Collège Boréal, and we're hoping to have our first one in the Maritimes start this spring. So it has been national. There has been a concentration, probably, in Saskatchewan and Ontario.

There have been some really interesting intakes with this. With the Native Women's Association of Canada, we've had 16 women go through the program, and most of them find employment. This is a win on a number of levels.

We've also had some sites that have really struggled. The training in northern communities, where we don't necessarily have infrastructure, has been a real challenge. We've had to stop the training for methadone clinics and we've had no running water or have not had the right infrastructure in the facility. We've had trainers who have gone into communities and just couldn't handle it and have had to leave halfway through the program.

So there are a number of challenges in this. We've had some really really good success stories, but we've also had.... This is not traditional education.

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

Thank you.

Karen, in Moose River we have some opportunity. I know there has been some discussion between the Millbrook Band and the owner of the Moose River gold expansion. Mining sounds like something we might take a look at to try to engage now for future employment.

Have you talked about this? Has there been any discussion with them about that program?

[Karen Pictou]

Yes. It's still being negotiated to reach some type of agreement, but there will be employment opportunities, and when opportunities come up, the information is shared with all of the community.

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

Concerning your comment on LMAs and funding, I want to make sure you know that there's no requirement for the province to use LMA money to fund a Canada job grant. They don't have to use LMA money for it; they can use any federal funding for training dollars. It can come from the LMDAs and other funds as well. The Province of Nova Scotia won't likely be using any LMA money to fund the Canada job grant.

Susanna, thank you very much for coming. You talked about the RBC program, the stay in school program. Can you expand on that a little? I'm unaware of that program.

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne]

This is a program that RBC started, as I mentioned, in the early 1990s, more than 20 years ago. They recruit aboriginal students from across the country to work in their branches, mostly in the customer-facing functions, because in my understanding of how it works, most of the telemarketing or support services are provided in more central locations. That's my understanding of it.

I'd be happy to connect you with RBC to get more information about where programs might be available in Atlantic Canada, for example, but my understanding is that it's available throughout the country and in the territories. It brings aboriginal students into the branches so that they can see what it's like to work in a bank, basically, and explore the opportunity to learn what education is required for holding this type of job after they finish high school.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you.

I'll move on to Monsieur Brahmi, for five minutes, please.