Official Languages Committee on May 29th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Williamson.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Godin, I would like to remind you that Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton are not the only places in the southern part of the province. I am a member for the New Brunswick Southwest riding. My main town in my riding is St. Stephen, which has 6,000 people. In the north, there is Hanwell, which has 6,000 people, and Grand Bay-Westfield, which also has 6,000 people. My riding also includes Sussex.

The southern part of the province is not just the golden triangle. Those three cities are doing very well, but there are problems in the rest of the province. The same is true for francophones and anglophoes. The unemployment rate is high. In the southern part of the province, the roads are not paved in gold. The population is facing challenges.

Ms. Hébert, could you tell us a bit about the employment insurance system?

When they receive employment insurance, the people of Moncton are entitled to it for a shorter period than those in rural regions. What is the impact of this difference on the willingness to participate in the economy? What term did you use earlier to describe this, Mr. Chiasson?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

He used the term entrepreneurship.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Exactly.

Ms. Hébert, what is the impact of that system?

[Anne Hébert]

In the southern part of the province....

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

No, don't tell me about the southern part of the province.

Things are going very well in Moncton. However, the employment insurance system is not the same across the province. In Moncton, it is fairly different.

[Anne Hébert]

In Moncton, if someone wants to work full time year-round, they are more likely to find a job. Basically, there is a cultural shift toward year-round work.

In the northern part of the province, there are many seasonal jobs. We know a lot of people who have those types of jobs.

You talked about anglophone rural regions, which are located much closer to large centres than northern regions, for instance. In Moncton—or close to the Moncton area—a company involved in a seasonal industry will have a different experience than a company from the province's north because their employees can find another job. Essentially, if they are not happy with their seasonal job, they will go elsewhere. That has forced companies to diversify and find other ways of doing things because they couldn't keep their seasonal employees. It may not be generalized, but this phenomenon applies to most of the companies.

In the northern part of the province, however, the employee often has no other option. The system becomes sort of a crutch for companies, as they don't need to diversify their operations. They know they will keep their employees because they need to work a certain number of weeks. The system is also something of a crutch for those workers, since they know they don't have to find another job.

So this definitely creates some particular situations. Earlier, companies from outside the province were discussed.

Lets take for example a company that has set up shop in the northern part of the province and wants to provide year-round jobs, but cannot find skilled workers. At some point, the government changes....

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Why can't the company find skilled workers?

[Anne Hébert]

The people want to work during....

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Some people who live there are unemployed. You are saying that a company may set up shop and provide jobs.

[Anne Hébert]

I am giving you an example of a business that set up in the northern part of the province and decided to make permanent jobs available. Fifty per cent of the workers refused those jobs. Some of them say that they want to continue working in the same way. A few months later, the federal government changed the Employment Insurance Act, and the issue was resolved.

We have an entity in our province called Invest New Brunswick. That organization seeks out companies from the outside and encourages them to come set up in our province. The organization's biggest challenge is to find employees for the companies.

I can talk to you about another company from the call centre sector, which is a fairly strong industry in New Brunswick. It had offices in Bathurst and Fredericton. The company had to close its Bathurst office because it never managed to have the number of employees it needed.

That's a problem. This also brings us to the issue of training. Unemployed individuals don't necessarily have the training required to access those jobs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. Hébert.

The floor now belongs to Mr. Nicholls.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I want to continue on the emerging sectors of the economy that I was mentioning and give a chance to the other witnesses to answer this question.

I know that, Mr. Antunes, the Conference Board came up with an excellent report in 2008 called “Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada's Creative Economy”. The green economy and the creative economy are both emerging worldwide and proving to improve the competitiveness of nations around the world, but we have had witnesses who work with the cultural sector, the ecological sector, and minority communities who say they don't have the means and the stability in terms of funding.

Given the leveraging that has been mentioned of these sectors and of the minority community itself and the bilingualism in this country, would you not recommend moving perhaps to a more stable funding model, maybe a three-year funding model, rather than a one-year model, and augmentation of funds given to organizations supporting emerging sectors of the economy in our minority communities?

[Pedro Antunes]

I'll start really quickly. I wanted to make that point. I think we often still hear very much about the good jobs in our economy being labour-intensive manufacturing. The truth is that we have suffered a huge restructuring in manufacturing, and it's very difficult for us to compete, especially with the openness that we're looking at towards other markets in labour-intensive manufacturing. We have a European agreement coming in. We have agreements with South Korea and other emerging markets. We need to think elsewhere. Just on that point, I think it's very important that we look to some of these perhaps non-traditional and emerging sectors where we can compete because they tend to be high-tech, highly educated workers.

We have problems with innovation, entrepreneurship, and commercialization. These are topics that we often talk about that I think, if we focus on those and leveraged some of the funds that we do have, because they're all limited towards some of these industries, we would have a greater payoff in the long run than sticking with the old model of funding manufacturing.

I will just leave it at that, but I think it's a very good point.

[Anne Hébert]

Letting the government decide which sectors will be prioritized is always a dangerous move.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Ms. Hébert, according to reports on competition, innovation is an area of weakness, and that hurts the competitiveness of Canada's economy. If the market is unable to resolve the issue, the government must do something.

In the world's most competitive economies—such as that of Switzerland—the government gets involved with the industry in order to promote innovation. So I think the government does have a role to play in that area.

[Anne Hébert]

Absolutely.

You are talking about innovation, but you are not focusing on a specific sector. We may be talking about innovation in the sectors of forestry, agriculture or fisheries. We may also be talking about innovation in manufacturing or in new economies.

That is exactly the point I was driving. The environmental sector, for instance, is related to forestry. We have to take into account the economy of those regions and not set aside what already exists.

Regarding your question about a three-year funding model, I fully agree with you. The constant need to request funding slows down development.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Chiasson, do you have anything to add on the issue?

[Maurice Chiasson]

We are talking about emerging economies or emerging sectors. Earlier, you asked what the government could do. As a businessman, I would simply say that the government's approach should not be reactive, but rather proactive.

I talked about entrepreneurial culture, and I use that term a lot. Community members and organizations must develop that culture. Governments should also embrace some elements of the entrepreneurial culture. Instead of being reactive, the government should be proactive when dealing with some specific situations. It should not wait for the ship to have sailed before deciding to jump aboard.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Some witnesses have told us that they have adopted an entrepreneurial culture in their organization. The problem is that, owing to the one-year funding model, they expend large amounts of energy on raising funds, instead of providing services. Every year, they have to fill out a lot of paperwork to obtain financial assistance. A three-year funding model would give them stability and enable them to promote and develop an entrepreneurial culture. At the same time, they would be able to provide services to their clients.

Do you agree with me in this regard?

[Maurice Chiasson]

I totally agree with you. Organizations do spend a huge amount of time on managing their funding every year. I understand that they have to properly manage the money allocated to them, but, at the same time, they expend a lot of energy on managing that money annually instead of investing their efforts in other areas, including service delivery to their clientele.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

We will suspend the sitting for five minutes. However, before we do that, I want to thank our guests for their testimony before us today.

The meeting is suspended for five minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]