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Human Resources committee  When you're a construction company in a market that can't find people, you do everything you can to find folks. When you can't do it in that local market, usually you have to advertise and you look to other places in Canada first. When you can't satisfy that, then you're able to

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  Actually, I have a success story, and it is getting better. The Red Seal people, and actually the provincial jurisdictions and the licensing boards, are getting better at recognizing hours worked in other provinces. It is actually getting better. Some of our locals in Windsor, wh

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  It is bilateral between the provinces. It is working. It's a success.

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  What I'm saying is that we have all this planned investment in our country. There's almost $1 trillion in planned energy projects out there ready to happen. And if we have a strategy in place—I hesitate to say an energy policy or strategy—and are looking at a policy around these

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  Thank you for your question. I didn't mean to be critical about the Canada-U.S. thing. We're still waiting, and I understand. In terms of your question, we do work with local high schools across Canada. It's an issue, however. When I went through high school, there were no shop

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  I don't know that program specifically, but I am aware of several initiatives, mainly in northern Alberta at the oil sands, where there's a large concentration of this kind of work. Basically, there is a consortium of construction companies that are focused completely on hiring a

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  Today, I would say that the construction labour market is at 95% capacity. Six months from now it'll be at 110% capacity. So really, we don't have enough people today. Even if we could get everybody to where the work was, it still wouldn't be enough. With the confluence of energy

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  I have a number. The construction workforce has 1.5 million people in it in Canada, and last year, in the 15 specific trades that we represent, 5,400 temporary foreign workers were brought in. So it's very low.

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  I'll answer your second one first. The time it's taking to get the Red Seal on average is twice the intended length, with it usually taking eight to ten years before someone does the final exam. They're getting their ticket, because first you get your provincial ticket, and then

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  It depends on the length of the apprenticeship program, but in construction it's usually three or four years, so it should be three, four, or five years, I would say.

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  Well, there are issues in industry with.... All of the apprenticeships are monitored and maintained by a joint apprenticeship council, so you would have employers and the labour providers monitoring the system, but it's not very formalized. I think industry needs incentives to mo

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  I talked about it in my pitch. I think—

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  I think we need hard dollars for companies and people who move through the system. People are staying as second- or third-year apprentices because they're making good money and in third and fourth year there is no apprenticeship incentive grant to keep going. There is a graduatio

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie

Human Resources committee  Sure. The policy outcomes that we discussed at that forum were the meat and potatoes of my presentation. It was decided that in order to move forward a four-pronged fix was really needed. It included talking about the permanent and temporary immigration system; about labour marke

May 16th, 2012Committee meeting

Christopher Smillie