Human Resources Committee on May 6th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

I'm really reticent to open this for discussion, because it does have a definite objective that does not concern the overall study, in my opinion, being put on the floor here just now.

In actual fact, I'm not going to allow the motion to stand, Mr. Cuzner. We'll need a notice of motion on something like that. As well, it's interrupting our next group.

So I'll rule that out of order. I can be challenged on it, but I'll rule that out of order at this point. You can bring it up at a future meeting

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Absolutely.

Let's take a brief recess while we set up the next panel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, as we continue the second hour of our meeting. We're continuing this hour with our study on the renewal of the labour market development agreements.

Joining us from the National Association of Career Colleges is their chief operating officer, Mr. Serge Buy; and from the British Columbia Construction Association, we have Mr. Manley McLachlan, president, and Mr. Paul Mitchell, special projects manager from the skilled trades employment program.

I'll just note that we will recess at 10:30 to move in camera for consideration of the draft report we have in front of us on opportunities for aboriginal persons in the workforce.

Gentlemen, each association or each representation has a 10-minute presentation.

Perhaps we could start with you, Mr. Buy, for your 10 minutes.

[Serge Buy, Chief Operating Officer, National Association of Career Colleges]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank you for inviting the National Association of Career Colleges to speak about labour market development agreements. Since 1896, our association has represented for-profit and not-for-profit private institutions involved in post-secondary education and training. We have about 160,000 students throughout the country, which is about eight per cent of the total post-secondary student population, and our members directly employ about 17,000 Canadians.

Training can't continue to be a political football between provincial and federal governments. With an increasingly connected economy and global trends, what happens in one region affects another. Canada, in the grand scheme of things, is a country with a small population. We need to pay serious attention to global trends. In the recent debate about the Canada job grant, there was a lot of discussion on who is responsible for training. Let me answer. We all are, and the solutions are local, provincial, and national. This is why we strongly support a federal government that sets standards and requires clear and tangible deliverables for the funding it gives. This is why we strongly supported the Canada job grant.

We understand the job market in one region is different from that in another region, but those who say that solutions are only local or provincial fail to recognize that in the 21st century, individuals are much more mobile and they tend to go where the jobs are. Mr. Mayes gave the example of the young people from British Columbia who moved to Alberta. We have to recognize the situation, and this is why a national perspective is so important.

I will divide my comments into two parts: the use of funds, and the measurement of success.

We firmly believe that the best use of Canadian taxpayers' dollars resides in skills development. We would, therefore, advise the government that it take a number of measures for its funding mechanisms such as the LMDAs, including the following.

First, it should ensure that the level of funds available to students is sufficient to cover the cost of training and living, because offering insufficient funding is probably worse than offering nothing at all.

Second, it should develop funding mechanisms that are not overly cumbersome or complicated. Not all candidates are able to navigate what some believe to be a highly bureaucratic process. Those who often can't go through the process are often those who need help the most.

Third, it should make sure that money is not spent to curry political favours at the provincial levels by funding deficits in public post-secondary institutions. The intent of LMDAs is not to fund the operating budgets of public post-secondary institutions.

Fourth, it should involve private post-secondary institutions in public policy decision-making as much as possible. We have our feet on the ground and can offer sound advice.

Fifth, it should ensure that when there is a way to offer services and training through private means, it is used. The private sector, such as career colleges, is often more responsive, more innovative, and faster to develop solutions.

Sixth, it should verify that funding is used to have job-ready graduates with the possibility of employment. Stop, I repeat, stop all discrimination in programs that see some initiatives only open to public post-secondary institutions.

We also need to involve employers in the training process. I've had the opportunity to participate in the mission to Europe on skills training led by the Honourable Jason Kenney and Mr. Armstrong, who is here. It was an eye-opening experience that showed how employers in Germany and the U.K. are intrinsically involved in training. While the German system can't be implemented directly in Canada, employers need to be brought to the table. They are part of the solution that will see us providing stable, long-term employment to an increasing number of Canadians.

Governments must fund programs for the LMDA that have employer involvement in a design of curriculum or the definition of the expected outcomes. There is too often a disconnect between the skills taught to the graduates and the expectation from employers.

Let me give you two examples that ended up in very successful outcomes—which you might use for your next topic on aboriginals, by the way. The company operating the nickel mine in Voisey's Bay approached one of our members at Academy Canada to provide training in local aboriginal communities. They needed a workforce and couldn't get one with the proper skills. The training was done within the community by Academy Canada. Their results skyrocketed, with participants going from a 7% completion rate to a 76% completion rate. The employer was pleased and the local community leaders were also extremely satisfied. This was a win-win situation for everyone involved.

An American company operating in Ottawa needed to increase its skilled workforce. It had two choices, either to pull out of Ottawa and move elsewhere—and I don't think it would be in Canada—or find a partner to train potential employees. The result was a partnership between Fortinet, a multi-billion dollar company, and Willis College, a small college just down the street here, that will lead to more than 200 jobs with salaries of more than $100,000 each. Career colleges know how to create those partnerships, and those are the types of partnerships that the federal government should try to enhance.

Finally, we would strongly suggest that the federal government start discussions with the provinces on how to open apprenticeships to other educational groups. Too often our career colleges are excluded from being able to offer apprenticeship programs, especially in the trades. That's a provincial decision.

We need to re-evaluate the way we measure success. Here are some thoughts: the number of dollars invested per graduate; employment rates for graduates in various wage categories per chosen sector of activities; how many partnerships with industry have been created. I couldn't stop thinking when I listened to the previous speakers about the numbers—640,000 people, a million people. The more it goes, the larger the number was, which was very interesting. But the question is, how many of those people have real and meaningful jobs? How many of those people came year after year? Within the 640,000 people, how many of them were there in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012? If you're going to talk about measuring success, we need to have real measurable criteria that we can really use.

Too often we benchmark the success of programs by using the number of people having gone through an activity, but the activity leads to something positive such as meaningful and long-term employment. Training the same person year over year on how to write a resumé should not be seen as a positive result. Getting that person a long-term, meaningful job to allow her or him to provide for their family is a successful result. We hope for more of those outcomes.

In Alberta, where I went a few months ago for discussions with the provincial government, I was given the numbers of graduates of career colleges in Alberta. Over 90% of them find employment in their chosen field of study within three months of graduation. For me, this is a success because you know that these people are getting good and meaningful employment for the future, and that's what we'd like to repeat more often here.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you.

Now we'll move on to Mr. McLachlan, if you're the lead on this, for 10 minutes.

[Manley McLachlan, President, British Columbia Construction Association]

Certainly.

Thank you very much.

We'd also like to express our thanks for the opportunity to speak to this committee. It's always a pleasure to come to Ottawa in the spring from Victoria, and we're happy to be here.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Manley McLachlan]

We're going to provide this morning a little bit of a different perspective, I think, on the LMDA, and, in many ways, our experience with the labour market agreement funding.

Let me just give you a real quick overview on the British Columbia Construction Association, the work that we've been doing, and then Paul Mitchell, my colleague, will give you more of the detail around the program that we've operated now since 2006.

First off, we're an employer organization, we're not a labour relations organization. Our membership is some 2,000 companies across British Columbia who are all involved in the construction industry. About 500 are general contractors, about 500 are manufacturers and suppliers, and the balance are trade, speciality trade, and civil contractors.

As I said, we're an employer organization, so we're a little bit unique in the fact that we are operating a program thoroughly embedded in the demand side of the supply/demand equation, if you will, around the training programs. Our experience over the last number of years has indicated to us that this unique relationship exists probably only in British Columbia. There are few organizations like ours that have taken on this type of programming.

We're directly connected to the employers. We have a team now that has grown over the last number of years, with a staff of some 57 field workers in 14 different communities across the province. One of their tasks is obviously to connect with the employers. They make some 6,000 points of contact with employers on annual basis, and the purpose for that contact is to find out where the jobs are. In the recent discussions, debates, negotiations, whatever you want to call the whole process around the Canada job grant, we actually found ourselves in kind of a unique situation where what we do is exactly what had been envisioned with the jobs grant, that is, to align people up with employment opportunities, and then provide them with sufficient training to make them either more employable or to make them successful in achieving employment.

We did distribute some information. Our results last year were some 2,800 people in the Province of British Columbia that we were able to connect with jobs in the industry.

Now we know that the construction industry, while there are many opportunities for employment in the industry, lots of trades to get involved in and a lot of administrative roles, it's probably not the easiest sector to get into, particularly if you're a landed immigrant, if you're in the aboriginal community, if you're woman, or if you're a person with disabilities. Paul will be able to illustrate how we overcome some of the challenges associated with that fact.

We are looking at the evolution of the jobs grant as an opportunity for us. The eligibility criteria had been a very big problem for us when our funding was confined to just the labour market agreement. Non-EI eligible or someone looking to improve their employability meant, quite frankly, that when our staff hold an information session, whether it's in Kelowna, Vancouver, Prince George, or whatever, 50% to 60% of the people in the room we had to show them the door because we couldn't work with them. So we appreciate the fact that the British Columbia government a couple of years ago went out on a limb a bit, invested some of their dollars in allowing us the opportunity to deal with the full spectrum, and then blended in some LMDA funding that allows us now to deal with 100% of the people that literally come through the door.

We're in a pretty interesting environment in British Columbia right now. We did circulate a statpac that we've generated. The world is hearing a lot about LNG development. The statpac that I hope is in front of you really only includes one LNG plant, and there's potential for a number of those plants.

So in terms of the numbers of employment opportunities we have, there is pretty substantial demand in British Columbia not just for skilled trades but also for entry level work in the construction industry. I know that our management team and our staff are excited about the future. We believe there is a role for labour market development agreement dollars, because of those eligibility criteria. We think we're a living illustration of how to make the connection between job opportunities, employers, and the required training to get people into the workforce.

I'll turn it over to Paul and he can give you more detail on what we call our demand-side driven model.

[Paul Mitchell, Special Projects Manager, Skilled Trades Employment Program, British Columbia Construction Association]

Thank you, Manley.

Thank you for the opportunity for appearing. I'd like to give you a bit of an overview. I'm much better at answering questions than delivering speeches.

As Manley mentioned, what we have is the demand side support model versus a supply side service model. There's a significant distinction to be made there. We literally have a mantra that all of our field workers live by and that's that we don't start the training machine until the job offer is made. So we literally spend a significant amount of our time in the field. The 6,000 points of contact are real. We travel around, meeting with employers, talking about their needs. Once we identify the needs, then we go back to the unemployed. We know where they are.

We have spent six to seven years developing relationships with all of the service providers, government service providers, in all of the communities around British Columbia. They have prepared the unemployed by doing the resume writing, the job search skills, and what we do is target our supports to the individual and the job in question. Often, that means credentials or certificates, short-term certificates, to allow people to work safely on construction sites. It can often involve a training component. We do a lot of on-the-job training with training agreements.

This isn't a wage subsidy. It's an agreement between the employer and the people they're hiring and we hire people at the full rate for that position in question and then we identify what it's going to take to get that individual's skills up to the point where they're producing at 100% and that's a negotiated process. Because we're construction and trades and apprentice, it often includes a journey person who delivers that training. We actually identify the number of hours and days it will require for that individual. We monitor it, sign off on it, and then that person is brought up to speed and is then, from our perspective, registered as an apprentice in the system. So we do a lot of it. I guess we did become excited about the jobs grant because we saw it as a natural extension of the model we've created.

Another unique aspect of our program is that we don't hire career practitioners. For the most part, we hire tradespeople. These are people who understand our sector, our industry, and the jobs that are involved in it. Then we teach them some skills that involve interviewing, counselling, small “c” counselling. We have an assessment process that we have developed that really outlines.... It's on our website. It's an interactive model that we've created that allows somebody to work through a number of different dimensions of their life to see if they're suitable for this kind of work, and it allows us to target where we put our supports. It can be training or improving working situations on a job site. It can involve tools and equipment. It often involves moving people from one community to another.

We've often referred to our approach as a series of concentric rings. We deal with the local concerns first, giving opportunities locally, then because of our reach across the province, we start going to the next ring, adjacent communities, and mobilizing people to where the needs are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much, you're right on time.

Now we move on to our rounds of questions. The first round of questions will be five-minute rounds.

Madam Groguhé.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the witnesses for their explanations.

All three of you, I believe, raised a very important question dealing essentially with the balance between training and employment. In my view, the word “balance” is at the heart of what we are dealing with at this time.

Mr. Mitchell, you raised the possibility of linking trainers in companies and the employees likely to get a job.

What size business are you talking about here?

[Paul Mitchell]

It applies to a number of different sizes, from Joe the plumber, with a single apprentice, to a large company, where we have very targeted training that could involve private trainers that we would bring in, who are registered in our province to deliver training.

Again, we negotiate this based on how much the company will pay for it and how much of it we will support. I guess what we consider the employer's contribution in many ways is the job that they're offering. When we get into these sorts of situations, these are not entry level jobs for the most part. These are well-paying jobs.

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

Okay.

Mr. McLachlan, you raised the need to focus on eligibility criteria under the LMDA program.

Could you be a bit more specific and propose some potential changes to these criteria? What would they be?

[Manley McLachlan]

The criteria are very clear and direct. With the previous LMA funding, you were only eligible for the program if you were non-EI eligible or if you were improving your employability. It could be language training. It could be training associated with specific skills.

The LMDAs are only open to folks who are EI eligible. My understanding is clear—and I stand to be corrected—that the LMDA dollars are associated with EI funds. That's an inherent characteristic and it's a challenge if you're only being funded through one bucket of money, if you will.

I'm not sure, because of where the source of those funds originate, if I have a suggestion other than a real simple one of blending or opening it all up. I'm not sure that the legislation allows that.

Paul.

[Paul Mitchell]

I have one.

One of the issues that we have faced in British Columbia is mobilizing British Columbians to where the jobs are. In very general terms, the major activities are in the northwest, northeast, and there are pockets of unemployed in the southeast for instance.

When we start looking at people in the southeast, they are putting their hands up and saying, “I'm interested in one of those jobs”, and this is especially relevant for young people graduating out of trade schools. We are asked to assist those people in getting up there. That often involves, or obviously involves, relocating that individual from A to B.

My understanding is that the present criteria allows for a certain cap on accommodation at $175 a week. That doesn't get you one night in Kitimat. We have found people sleeping in cars, especially in the northeast where it is cold in the dead of winter. That's obviously dangerous and inappropriate. So if those caps could be pulled off and be more aligned with local conditions, that would be greatly appreciated.

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

Fine. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

We move on to Mr. Butt, for five minutes.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

My questions will be for Mr. Buy. I'm a great fan of career colleges. I visited several in Mississauga where I'm one of the representatives. I've been to several graduation ceremonies which has been nice as well. I know that the job placement success rate is very high. That's a credit to all of your members that do that.

Let's find out how we can make it even better.

How many of the students or clients would be covered? How many would have their tuition paid or be receiving EI benefits? How many are taking programs at community colleges? Do you have any idea of what kind of a percentage that would be? Is it very low or very high? Is it somewhere in the middle? How are your members taking advantage, through their clientele, of the LMDA funds?

[Serge Buy]

My understanding is it's about 80% of our clientele that is receiving some type of financial support. In Ontario, the second career program from the Ontario government supported federally by federal funds is of assistance and it's in there.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Great. The other thing that I noticed when I toured a number of the campuses and talked to some of the students was how they had decided to enrol in programs in career colleges in areas that were completely different than something they had done before. So they may have been on the auto line at GM, but due to economic circumstances they are no longer doing that but they have actually decided to come back and train as a paralegal, as an example.

I talked to one gentleman and that was exactly the case. He was 48 years old. He knew there was no way he was getting back on the auto line, and just because of the economic situation he decided he wasn't going through the ups and downs and actually went back to train as a paralegal.

How much can we do, and can we do more, to encourage those career shifts for people to make sure that they recognize that there are opportunities to be retrained in a field completely different than maybe what they had done? I recognize the fact that we obviously want young people to be encouraged to take training for the jobs that are available, but we also have this challenge of people who have worked in one sector for a prolonged period of time. There is not going to be the number of jobs in that sector going forward and they need to be trained at something completely different.

So is there anything you think we can do at the federal level in working with our provincial counterparts to make sure that we are designing programs that get to those workers and encourage them to make these career changes? Many of them still need to work for another 15, 20 plus years before they're going to be able to retire.

[Serge Buy]

Absolutely. Mr. Butt, in the recent budget we were hoping for one measure that would have really helped the people you are talking about. At this point—and I will digress a little bit—the Canada student loans program with the grant component is limited to supporting students registered in programs that are 60 weeks and longer. The people you are talking about, the 48-year-old person, would probably have a family and realize that they have no choice but to go back to training one way or another. They are going to go to school. They are not wanting to get a three-year diploma at a community college. They are wanting to go very quickly through retraining to allow them to get a job to feed his or her own family.

We were hoping that the eligibility criteria for the Canada student grants program would be diminished to recognize and support programs that would be less than 60 weeks. The government objective, and I think the objective of everybody around the table, would be to get people to work faster, not tell them that if you want to go back to work faster, we will not support you. So that could be and really should be changed.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Okay.

We're done?

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

You have 30 seconds.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

That's fine, then.

Thank you very much, Mr. Buy.