Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Menegakis. It's absolutely critical that we keep in mind two aspects of this. On the one hand, there's the timeliness and efficiency of processing immigrants to come, and on the other hand, it's the fact that we're talking about permanent residency and there are certain obligations and expectations that we need to keep in mind.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Hello. Thank you for this invitation to appear on behalf of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. I am Sarah Anson-Cartwright, director of skills policy. I am pleased to provide the Canadian chamber's comments on the expression of interest system, which is the subject matter of clauses 290-293 of Bill C-4.

Human Resources committee  I don't think I could speak to that. I'd have to see how the mechanism works. I'm not familiar with how people's decisions might be made around that circumstance.

Human Resources committee  Mr. Cuzner, unfortunately, I wasn't at the chamber, so I'm not aware of that work. I don't think I'm qualified to hazard a guess. I think we would need to look into that research. Perhaps it's an area.... I was referring to the 50% clawback associated with the GIS, not the OAS, just to clarify that.

Human Resources committee  Do you mean the clawback?

Human Resources committee  Yes. I just heard of an individual yesterday, an older person, who was offered a working opportunity, and he said, “Well, I can only earn a certain amount of income because I don't want to risk losing my GIS and my OAS.” The clawback was very real to him. He'd done his calculations.

Human Resources committee  One other approach I've heard is that some companies have adopted alumni programs, where again they're looking to tap into previous, experienced employees who have retired, and they may want to bring them on for a short term, like six months or less, for a project. That's another opportunity, and again it could be for that knowledge transfer we talked about between the existing younger workforce, potentially, and the departed former employees.

Human Resources committee  Yes. I think you heard some survey results in the testimony on Tuesday. I believe financial consideration was not necessarily the overriding reason, but of course we have a reality that after the recession many people lost a lot of savings. We have to recognize that the private sector half of employment is in small businesses.

Human Resources committee  I will start on your question about the challenges for those over 65, the older workers. If we look at them in terms of existing employees, I think the employer is making sort of a calculation. There has to be a discussion with the employee in terms of how much longer, ideally, they would like to be working, or have the interest in working.

Human Resources committee  Then there's the unemployed older worker, who for whatever reason at 65 or older is looking to stay working and earning an income. If there are challenges there, I think they may come back to the reference I made to educational attainment and the fact that the nature of work has changed.

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Butt, for that question and comment. I don't know how prevalent that type of circumstance is. Certainly, I am hearing quite a different set of comments recognizing the experience that experienced workers can bring. There is quite a bit of demand in this ThirdQuarter program, for example, from individuals looking for jobs, to continue working, even as they are a little bit older.

Human Resources committee  I think you've heard about programs, and you probably know far more than I do about the targeted initiative program. That seems to be the approach taken when there has been a displacement of workers and there is a need to consider how to address the opportunity and the training needs for those workers to find new jobs.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. On behalf of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, I am pleased to be here. My name is Sarah Anson-Cartwright, and I'm director of skills policy. Two and a half years ago, the Canadian Chamber called on Canada to address its aging workforce. Our report was titled, “Canada's Demographic Crunch: Can underrepresented workers save us?”

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Payne. One of our commitments at the Canadian Chamber is the result of having done our consultation. Hearing from businesses across the country made us realize there need to be much better connections between post-secondary institutions and the business community.

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Lapointe. Two weeks ago, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce hosted a symposium bringing experts together with small-business owners and managers to talk about training in small businesses. We realize that it's a real challenge for them. I'm hopeful that the recommendations from this one-day session, as well as the report we take forward to government, will have some suggestions on how to help small businesses.