Evidence of meeting #25 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was students.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada
I think the total cost is about $18 million. You heard from ESDC, web portal, Working in Canada portal.... I don't think it's government's job to design portals. It's to make available longitudinal, credible data on whatever the issue is we're trying to track.
Liberal
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
You mentioned guidance counsellors. My understanding is that within the public school system guidance counselling is not as resourced, or as available at it used to be, in any case, yet, at the same time, young people today are more connected to information and technology than ever before.
Is there the potential for a more robust effort by the federal government to get the information, but then to provide it broadly to young people where they live digitally, and as such, the guidance counsellor role does not become less important? They're getting information. They're getting it in real time. Does that make sense? If we did more of that research, that would help inform people, potentially, even more than the traditional guidance counselling role did, or is certainly doing today.
Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada
I had two takeaways from the U.K. trip again. My colleague Ken Doyle did the travelling, but he's briefed me enough.
In the U.K. they just recently redid their thinking on apprenticeship, and apprenticeship is slightly more widely understood in the U.K. They've come up with something called statutory duty for high school teachers who have to be able—and correct me if I'm wrong, Ken—to advise high school students on the various alternatives.
That's one thing. The other one is Doug Richard, who did this review of their skills training system, said, “Government, get out of the business of portals and design. Young people don't want to know about this. Gamify the data, open-source the data, put it out there, and let whoever's got a good way of managing this data make it accessible to young people.”
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
The second approach is more easily done by a federal government, given our constitutional realities, and that makes sense.
There are a lot of people with university degrees who then decide to pursue a polytechnic or college...yet they're already burdened with student debt. Should we create a much more flexible student loan and aid funding program, such that there can be funding throughout a person's career and life and educational stage? Because it may be at 35, it may be at 45 that people need to go back to school and upgrade their skills. Should we do an overhaul reflecting the realities of modern work?
Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada
It depends on how big the pie can be. Of course, “woulda, shoulda, coulda”, but, at the end of the day, we have tremendous constraints on any kind of public funding for education. It's what we can do within those constraints. I think one of the things that's really important is to say there should be academic mobility. I don't want to leave the committee with the impression that one should only choose university or only choose a polytechnic. We also want these pathways.
We don't have a national credit transfer system in this country. That's the better one to work on.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Brison.
I'll go to Mr. Saxton, please.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thanks, Chair.
I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Keddy as well.
Very quickly, there's been a lot of discussion about unpaid internships here today and the problems that may arise from them. I'm trying to go back to what Mr. Adler said, and that is, where's a solution? I've heard a few things talked about: better regulation, better enforcement. Is anybody talking about getting rid of unpaid internships?
I don't know, but, Claire, maybe you could just tell me quickly what a possible solution is, and then I'll ask Jonathan.
President, Canadian Intern Association
Internship is a really broad term, and I in no way would recommend getting rid of it altogether. But I would recommend having no more illegal, unpaid internships and improving the law, which means internships can only be unpaid as part of an academic program. It's amending the Canada Labour Code to say, if the internship is part of an academic program it can be unpaid. If it's not part of an academic program that intern's entitled to minimum wage.
Conservative
President, Canadian Intern Association
Volunteers are not regulated under employment standards in any jurisdiction.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
What's the difference, then, between an unpaid intern and a volunteer?
President, Canadian Intern Association
It's really up to the labour boards to determine. If there's a question as to whether the person was an employee or a volunteer, that will go to a labour board. They can make the conclusion as to whether that person was a true volunteer, they were doing it for altruistic purposes, or whether it was in fact a job.
Conservative
National Director, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations
I would say it comes down to access to post-secondary education. Folks, whether they have a university degree, a college degree, a polytechnic...have higher employment outcomes afterwards, have higher lifetime earnings. Even touching on what Mr. Adler said with the stratification of societies, if we're able to ensure that everyone has access, everyone's able to go to school, that's how you're able to break those cycles of poverty and eliminate those barriers to folks being stuck in precarious or low-wage jobs for the rest of their lives.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Finally, here is a question for Ms. Bollo-Kamara. You can add to that last answer as well, but you mentioned earlier Canada's summer jobs program. My understanding is that we have increased it.
What did you mean by re-funding it? We increased it by 10% last year, I believe.
President Elect, University of Toronto Students' Union
It's in the funding here somewhere.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
If you don't have it handy, since my time is almost up, perhaps you can look for it and I'll let Mr. Keddy ask the next question.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
We're out of time. You also have another round. The Conservatives have another round.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
Mr. Groulx, you talked about a unique challenge amongst linguistic minorities, in particular the French linguistic minority, but you came at it from a different angle. I'd like some clarification.
Certainly there's been a huge impetus in non-French communities to have children learn French because it's advantageous to their career advancement and gives them other options. What I was hearing from you is a call to have French-only positions opened up. But the linguistic communities that have been successful, such as the Acadian community in New Brunswick and in Nova Scotia.... They took the federal government to court and won that court battle without any help from the French community in Quebec; they did it by themselves. That community has very much integrated into the labour and the job market, quite successfully, and has managed to maintain and enhance French at the same time.
Is there a lesson to be learned there?