Finance Committee on March 6th, 2014

[David McGovern]

I wanted to make reference to the various initiatives that the federal government has with respect to providing information to youth.

We have a Working in Canada website where we provide customized reports that combine job postings, occupational profiles, labour market information, and forecasts. The website is continually updated with the latest available information. We know it's widely used by students, by parents, and by guidance counsellors to obtain information about occupations.

We also have another website, Job Bank, where we provide a platform on which employers can post job opportunities, and job seekers and workers can find out about available positions.

We have a website for youth, targeted with information that's focused on youth.

We have a relatively new thing called Job Alerts, where we send out job ads directly to users.

As announced in the most recent budget, economic action plan 2014, we're working to develop a job-matching service that, when fully established, will ensure job seekers are matched with available jobs in their local area.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Okay, thank you.

To the CLC, just really quickly, I've had a real challenge with the CEO of the community college in New Brunswick, and I sort of lectured them a little bit with respect to setting the right expectations for young people going into the trades. Some think they don't have to be mobile in the trades, and they do.

May I ask what the CLC is doing specifically to educate young people on the expectation of the trades and their mobility across Canada to take work where the projects are?

[Amy Huziak]

The issue of job mobility is a really critical one, because we also have to recognize that job mobility to a large extent is a privilege. If you have to leave or go very far from your community, go far away from your family, or if you have small children, that is a very big and an almost impossible decision to make in some cases.

We have to be considering other programs to make job mobility easier for young workers. For example, as my colleague mentioned, a national child care strategy would go a long way to equalizing access to the trades for young men and young women.

I think we're out of time.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peggy Nash]

Thanks.

I would encourage members not to run out the clock with their questions because then we don't have time for answers.

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

Mr. Van Kesteren, we move over to you for five minutes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Those were wonderful testimonies. I had an old boss who used to tell me that it's in the numbers. I wish we could spend the whole time just honing the numbers.

One of the things that just shot into my own mind when Mr. Dubé was talking about the line of questioning on the OECD was that I think he's quite correct, that you take the national average but you throw in some variance.

I don't know who to direct this question to. I might just split it up a bit. It's also true with the groups within our youth employment. We've mentioned the aboriginals. We've mentioned immigrants. They're definitely there, and I think we have to hone the numbers there.

One of the questions I want to ask is why we do not have any data on immigrants. Is this consistent? Is this something that has reoccurred, or is this a new trend? Can I ask that question? Just very briefly, is there historical...?

[Alison Hale]

Actually, we do have data on immigrants in the labour force survey. They are identified—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Is that historically?

[René Morissette]

No, that is starting in 2006.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Back then we didn't do that?

[René Morissette]

No.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

That's too bad. That's an important ingredient. We won't be able to have that.

Maybe I'm going to direct this to Ms. Huziak. Thinking about the aboriginal people, we know we have a problem. There's high unemployment.

I had a meeting with a group from the mining community—this was back in the fall, I think—and they informed me that they're expecting to need 200,000 workers in the extraction industry. We know there are huge sections of the geography of Canada where aboriginals are present.

Would you agree that projects that promote growth in extraction would be an excellent source of job creation for our first nations people, and would you agree that's something we need to encourage?

[Amy Huziak]

I think that's a very loaded question in a lot of ways.

I would say that promoting good jobs, the quality we find in manufacturing and resource extraction, would be a good way to employ more young Canadians and more young aboriginal people across the country. However, that also needs to be addressed in the context of whether this resource development is being done responsibly, being done sustainably, with the consent of people on the land.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

But you would agree. I think you're right, because they tell me that the average hourly rate is in excess of $20, some as high as $70 an hour. And it's good training. These are jobs like mechanics, these are jobs like...right across the whole....

So this is something you think we should probably continue to encourage.

[Amy Huziak]

I would put an emphasis on making sure that this is done through—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Yes, that's always the case. We do that.

[Amy Huziak]

—unionized firms. We know that unionized firms provide more training for workers, both young workers and—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

But it's a good program; it's something we need to pursue. You'd agree?

[Amy Huziak]

I think it merits exploration.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I think Mr. Rankin was talking about the poor success rate we've had in training the right students.

You know that the government has introduced a new program, the Canada job grant, which will allow employers, for the first time, to become part of that decision-making, as well as the province and the feds. What about a program like that? Is it something that is going to help this situation?

Who wants to jump in?

[Angella MacEwen]

I just want to say that employers always have the option to train their own employees as they would see fit. This is not the first time employers have that opportunity. This would be the first time that they maybe—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

The first time we've done it collectively.

[Angella MacEwen]

—have access to this type of fund.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

It's the first time we've done it collectively and we're doing something—

[Angella MacEwen]

But you would agree that it is the employers' responsibility to train their workers to meet the needs they're looking for.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

But the question is whether this is a good strategy.