Human Resources Committee on May 27th, 2014

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

Thank you very much.

[Mathew Wilson]

Thanks.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

We're now moving on to Monsieur Brahmi.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Wilson, you joined forces with the Canadian Labour Congress to create the Centre for Workplace Skills. Could you briefly tell us what lessons you learned from that joint venture?

[Mathew Wilson]

I'm sorry, but I think there was something cut out. Which joint effort?

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

I'm referring to the Centre for Workplace Skills, a joint undertaking with the Canadian Labour Congress.

[Mathew Wilson]

That's a great question. That's been an ongoing project and joint venture we've had with CLC now for going on six or seven years. I think we've learned quite a bit out of it. In the partnership right now, we're actually trying to develop national occupational standards, both for factory floor workers and for management, around some of the competencies needed.

We've also developed and co-developed training around essential skills and some of the other basic skills and technical skills that are needed to operate modern manufacturing. It has been a very good partnership to date, and we're still working with CLC on the Centre for Workplace Skills and growing the training that we are doing together for both employers and employees.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Do you think employees should become more involved in their training and skills development, instead of always waiting for employers or the government to take care of it?

Do you think there should be greater cooperation between employees and employers in that, collectively through workers' associations, employees should play a more proactive role in their occupational destiny?

[Mathew Wilson]

Maybe there's a bit of a misunderstanding or maybe the knowledge is not there about how much workers are involved, but obviously, major union groups like Unifor and others are major trainers in this country. They have their own training centres set up right across the country, and in a lot of the natural resources sectors the unions and worker groups also have that and work very closely with employers.

I think a lot of that goes on today. Could they do more? As for the union side, I'm not sure. Should they do more? I think there should be much more cooperation between—

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Actually, I wasn't asking whether workers' associations should be more involved, but whether they should engage in a greater level of cooperation with employers. In other words, in order to get a true sense of the needs locally, I'd like to know whether more joint training initiatives are needed, instead of having employee-led training, on one hand, and employer-led training, on the other. I am talking about better cooperation.

[Mathew Wilson]

I guess I would answer similarly. I think a lot of cooperation goes on today, and I'm not sure how much you could improve it. We do not hear complaints about areas of training that need to be improved. A lot of it does go on today. I'm not sure how much more we can improve it.

I guess I would say—and our actions with CLC certainly underline this—that we believe employers and employees should be working together on the training of their workforce.

Part of the challenge may be—and I don't have the recent statistics—that only a third of private sector employees are actually unionized, so in a lot of cases there probably aren't collective areas in which they can cooperate and push through training. A lot of it is through senior worker management as well as the management itself. They kind of collaborate on that, and I don't know really how much more could be done with regard to that cooperation. From my understanding, there is quite a bit of that today.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

There's time for a very brief question if you want to take it. No?

Okay. We're now moving on to Monsieur Mayes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses here today.

Those of us from British Columbia have had a little bit of a meeting with the premier to talk about skills training not only for the gateway project but also for the LNG projects that are proposed for the west coast of British Columbia. Basically in all of those projects, the companies are concerned about the labour resources to do these projects and are looking to the province to help out with training people.

The question I have is more directed to Madam Pennington. Have Enbridge and other companies identified the skills that are needed and have they said they will need so many welders, etc., so that can be communicated not only to the educators but also to those who are potential trainees for those jobs?

[Catherine Pennington]

I think how I'd respond to that is both Enbridge northern gateway and other companies have participated in a number of the labour market studies that have occurred. There have been a great number of them in British Columbia, especially in the north-northwest in the last few years.

Through that participation, we do provide numbers and estimates around our labour demands and needs. Clearly, we need to overlap that with all of the projects that are anticipated to occur in British Columbia and the north-northwest in the next few years. There's some significant concern around demand and volume certainly, and also the skills. So we have definitely participated.

The other part of industry is that we get better identification of our labour needs as we move through our technical study's processes. All of the projects are in different phases of evaluation of those technical studies, and I guess identification of what their labour needs will be from that. So we will certainly get closer to that identification as the months go on.

We also have a pretty good understanding from our organizations like the Pipe Line Contractors Association, for example, and other organizations that give us good labour market information.

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

How could you see the program improving, just to better link those people that need the training as far as recruitment or making people aware of the opportunities of these jobs and the opportunities in the various skill sets?

[Catherine Pennington]

I was reading some information around some different ideas being contemplated, some reforms to the national job bank and different.... I can't recall just what it's called, but I think being able to help communicate across the country what's needed, and again, that mobility piece and supporting people with labour market mobility. The ability to move for jobs is really important, and that linkage is critical.

Some of the work that we're doing from an industry standpoint is that we've developed a very comprehensive socio-economic management plan requirement. All of our contractors will be required to develop a comprehensive plan that would be part of the supply-chain process, in which they'll be evaluated around local inclusion, aboriginal inclusion. We are definitely going to be working closely with our contractors and service providers. But I think being able to help articulate the needs across the country effectively ensures that training is aligned with developing those skills. Really providing some of the gap funding for individuals that could most benefit from training and linkages to employment is critical.

We see a lot of opportunity for young people to get the essential and then technical skills they need, and start a career. Especially in B.C.'s north-northwest there's an unprecedented opportunity for a young person to start a career and stay in their region. Really, to be a journeyperson and not have to journey very far for the first few years is really important. I think it's a great opportunity and it's a great way to get local and aboriginal people connected to the marketplace.

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

Mr. Wilson, as far as your organization, the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, do you have a program where you actually enter the educational institutions and communicate with the students directly in some sort of forum or symposium about those skills and the opportunities, and give them an outline of just what that skill entails, and also the career that they can have in those areas?

[Mathew Wilson]

We do it in our regional offices across the country, in a few of them anyway. In Manitoba, as an example, we run a program that is a province-wide hovercraft-building competition that engages high schools students, so students in grades 11 and 12. They partner with the aerospace industry, which are our members, in the province and educational institutions, in the colleges and universities. It teaches them some of the practical skills that Catherine was talking about, but also engages them and energizes them in what potential future opportunities might be, and provides a direct interaction between employers and students that are good. That helps kind of bring them into the right career paths as they're entering college and university.

Frankly, if you're doing this, though, only at the college and university level, it's too late. I think one of the biggest problems we have is in high schools. Certainly even when I went through school, in public school, in grades 7 and 8, I was taking shop classes and learning how to work with wood and weld stuff or burn stuff with a welder.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

Thank you, Mr. Wilson, just finish off your thought.

[Mathew Wilson]

I think that's the problem, though. There aren't those technical skills being taught anymore at the primary levels, so students aren't coming into the streams as much as they used to. It's a huge problem for all industries.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

Thank you very much.

Now we go to Madam Groguhé.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. I hope the simultaneous interpretation is working.

Ms. Pennington and Mr. Wilson, I gather from your comments that strong partnership is clearly needed. And that requires the employers, workers, education/training sector and unions in a given region to come together and channel their efforts toward the same end.

We've noticed a major deficiency as far as basic skills training is concerned. An employer certainly isn't going to be interested in hiring a young person or an adult who can barely read or write. The problem is fairly widespread. Whether we're talking about young aboriginals or others, people aren't learning these basic skills. How can LMDAs be leveraged to fix that problem?

[Catherine Pennington]

I absolutely agree. That it is definitely a very widespread problem. I think we have some national figures around literacy and workplace essential skills, numeracy, and those kinds of things.

My hope would be that community-based funding would be made available, and that community-based funding would be available very quickly and be accessible, flexible, and nimble for the communities to help deliver community-based programming around literacy and essential skills to bring grade levels up, or at least workplace skills up. Let's face it, not everyone needs to have a grade 12. Not everyone needs to complete even a trades training program. But I think everyone deserves and needs to learn how to read, write, and have essential workplace skills, so that they can take their rightful place in the Canadian economy.

I guess my hope would be that this gap funding would exist to ensure that communities have the ability to deliver the programming in local communities. Often people are not well situated to leave communities for those skills, so helping to deliver those locally is really important, before trades or other training is expected.

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

Mr. Wilson, what are your thoughts?