Human Resources Committee on Oct. 25th, 2023

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

We've had a couple of witnesses recommend that we include international students. Is that something that Habitat would support in terms of broadening the pool of applicants and those who might be able to boost the diversity numbers that we're looking for?

[Sean Ferris]

It's funny you should say that, Chad, because this year we actually brought in a student from France, and it worked out incredibly. He was in it to learn about construction but also to enhance his English skills. He was a tremendous diverse addition to the team and brought tons of skills and other elements that really enhanced us.

One, funding would be important, but two, he's a bit of a unicorn, in that we don't get many international applicants. Knowledge in terms of how to recruit would be key in order to make that a reality.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Mr. Collins, you are over your time.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Madame Chabot, you have six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for their testimony.

In fact, we'd love to talk to you about the housing issue, Mr. Ferris. It's another issue of great concern to our committee.

Mr. Pederson, first of all I think you've been reassured during the meeting. It was not the intention of this committee, through its study, to see the Canada Summer Jobs program diminished. On the contrary, the purpose of the current motion is to see how this program can be improved, both in terms of funding and flexibility. In this sense, all the witnesses to this study are contributing to helping us improve the program. This is the desired objective.

If I understood correctly, you talked about eight-week summer camps, offered to 460 children aged 6 to 12. Considering the specific nature of your summer camps, which are aimed particularly at families in need or single mothers, are you obliged, because of funding and the number of weeks, to offer fewer camps than you would have liked?

You said there were children on the waiting list. Are there still many who can't find a place at a camp, or are you managing to fill your needs?

[Gord Pederson]

Thank you for your question.

We definitely are not able to meet the needs of our community. We definitely have to turn people away because we do not have the capacity to provide any more programs than we do currently with the number of staff we have.

Our Canada summer jobs funding provides all of the instruction for that program, so without the program we have nothing. It is crucial for us to be able to run the program to receive the funding through this program and, of course, with the funding itself, it allows us to provide low-cost programming. The low-cost programming, especially in our community, is very important and is something, as I've mentioned, that just through popularity alone will show you the effects and how important it really is.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

You also said you had results for eight weeks. I think the majority of witnesses talked about the number of weeks.

Given that you hire young people to take care of young people, would you need more than eight weeks? Some witnesses told us that you often have to train the young people you hire for camps for at least a few weeks. Would it then be more advantageous for you if the duration were longer?

[Gord Pederson]

Most definitely there is certainly the capacity there to go a little longer. Our situation is a bit unique in that we're based out of a school, so we don't really have access to the facility too much earlier.

We did receive some cutbacks to our program this year. We were able to maintain the eight-week-long program for the children, but where we had to cut back was in training. It was disturbing that we had to make that happen. That way we were able to keep the capacity for the program itself, but unfortunately did not provide the same level of training that we have done in the past.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Ferris, I want to make sure my notes are accurate. You said that Canada Summer Jobs salary contributions help you hire four young people a year during the summer months. You also said that your organization works, of course, in different ridings, but that, under the program, contributions are granted for a single riding.

Can you submit requests to create jobs in other ridings? Is it you who's asking to hire four young people a year, or are your needs greater, given that your organization works in several ridings? I hope my question is clear.

[Sean Ferris]

I think you're very clear. Currently we have only one social enterprise ReStore location, and of course it sits in one riding. We're working on opening another, and we were desirous of bringing students in to support the fit-up of the second building. We weren't 100% sure that we would be able to bring students in, due to safety and permitting and all the other requirements, so we've decided not to apply for Canada summer jobs funding for that second location for fear that we would not be able to employ them there.

If we thought we might be able to switch them between locations, we could even have doubled the amount for one location and then moved them to the other location.

In regard to our construction, we may have times when we can employ students on a specific build site, but then we bring in a professional to do specific work, which prevents students from being there for a period of days and weeks. We need another location where we can send students for safety reasons and other reasons. We can do so, but it lands in another riding.

From a construction standpoint especially, we rarely bring in students, because we need to shift them from location to location and riding to riding. Unless we can absolutely guarantee that we have a span of work for them, we do not apply.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Ms. Zarrillo, you have six minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'll go to Ms. Akerman second, because I want to hear some of her thoughts around hiring employees with disabilities and also how we would connect them to those 92 organizations you spoke about. You have so much knowledge and such a strong network.

I'm going to start with Mr. Pederson, because I just want to express how much I appreciate the work you do in the community. I know you've gone through many challenges. You used to have a physical space, and some changes in the municipality forced your organization to resettle in a different space. You've done a tremendous job.

I think your comments on the importance of these Canada summer jobs to social impacts within the community are so important. My question is around your mentioning that you have a really strong, diverse group of candidates as well as students who come into the camp.

Do you have any suggestions for the summer jobs grant program on how they could incentivize the hiring of youth from other equity-seeking groups? How do we make that more accessible to these groups, or do you have any thoughts on that for the hiring process or even the advertising process?

[Gord Pederson]

Thank you so much for that question.

You know, we're fortunate that we have strong representation in our staff population, which has grown organically just by virtue of the nature of the multicultural community we're in. How to make that work on a federal level, I'm not sure. I know that, at the community level, we have a number of community associations that deal with all aspects of the multicultural society and we're able to go through them to make use of their contacts to reach out to people. I'm not sure about it at the provincial and national level, but certainly I think the more we reach out to have students apply for jobs and the more opportunities we have to touch different sectors, the better it is.

Certainly recruitment is not an easy thing. I think most people have probably mentioned how you have to work quite hard to get applications, and we want to make sure we're representative of all those sectors. We may have to involve the provincial and national bodies for some of these areas to provide an avenue to reach out for job applications.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you for that. I don't have a lot of time, so I'm sorry if it seems I'm cutting you short, Mr. Pederson.

I'm going to go to Ms. Akerman.

You mentioned disability. This is an under-represented group in this program—they are below the index in relation to the general population of this program—so I'm very interested in how we increase that. You did mention the 92 organizations you have as touch points.

How do we give more education to these students and young people you're employing about how to tap into those networks? Is that something Canada summer jobs grants can do, in your opinion?

[Shawna Akerman]

Canada summer jobs can go with the school boards and work with their co-op programs and go into the high schools. That would be really good because that's where those high school students are going. It's the same with the university boards. There are different points also. You have all the government agencies for neurodiversity and all those for autism. If you have an identification, you usually have a support somewhere. If there were a training summer job—for example, one level lower than the $4,200 you give per person, so we would give about $2,000—so that we can start training people out of high school and mentor them a little bit more...because we can't pay them the same amount, that minimum wage. If there's a training program that leads them into summer employment.... All the government agencies have different mandates on how to train people with disabilities for jobs, but when you get there, there's not enough training with the employer to keep the sustainability.

I'm neurodiverse. I was a teacher and it was a horrible job for me. I had to follow a lot of rules all the time and I was terrible at it. I am so grateful I did not get fired, but I also couldn't live there and stay there because there were too many rules for me. Those are the kinds of things our neurodiverse youth face when they are leaving high school. Where do they go? How do they know how to work anywhere? For people with disabilities, there is a piece missing in this transition. They can stay in high school until they're 21, but you hold their hands there. They are supported continually, and parents are involved. When kids turn 18, they are adults. You can't do anything for them. You can't talk to them. I have parents call me, but I can't talk to the parents, even though I should, because the kids are neurodiverse and can't make their own decisions. There's a piece missing in there, and that's the piece we need to address if we want to use disabilities.

There is also ODSP. I work with ODSP. There's funding of $3,600 per person with ODSP, but it's the same thing. I get that for six weeks. I can't afford in either of my businesses to continue employing people I have to continually train. It takes up too much time. We need a piece in there. We need a better training piece. There's a lot of money here and there are a lot of kids here. There's a missing piece.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Zarrillo.

We're going to conclude with two-minute rounds, because I need a few minutes for committee business. We'll give a full round of two minutes each, so it's basically one question.

We'll start with Mrs. Falk for two minutes.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you to each of our witnesses.

Ms. Akerman, you've done a great job, so please don't doubt your ability.

[Shawna Akerman]

Imposter syndrome gone—thank you.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Preach.

I'm going to direct my questions to you, if that's okay.

Do you find, in your experience, that the Canada summer jobs program's application and eligibility criteria are clear and easy to understand?

[Shawna Akerman]

No.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Are the program applications and the Service Canada website written in plain language?

[Shawna Akerman]

For your brain, maybe.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

No. I'm asking for you.