Evidence of meeting #28 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Canadian Teachers' Federation
Apprenticeships...yes.
It seems to me that the kind of question you're raising would connect to the first recommendation we made, which has to do with developing a national strategy to address youth unemployment and underemployment. These are the kinds of matters that I hope could be addressed in such a strategy.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you.
My next question is for Susan Uchida from RBC Learning.
Susan, in your opening remarks you talked about RBC launching 100 new paid internships. I commend you for that. I think it's great news. As you know, we recently reached an agreement with the provinces to go forward with the Canada job grant. This will of course bring the federal and provincial governments as well as business into a partnership for training.
Can you explain how RBC would take advantage of or help to contribute to the Canada job grant?
Vice-President, RBC Learning, Royal Bank of Canada
Well, currently this particular program or indeed any of our internships are self-funded within the organization. They're paid out of the corporate citizenship budgets that we have. We're not participating or requesting funding from any government sources.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Right, but for skills training within the financial sector.... RBC obviously has thousands of employees and requires a lot of training every year. Do you see an opportunity to become involved with the Canada job grant for that training?
Vice-President, RBC Learning, Royal Bank of Canada
It's not my area of expertise, but I would say that predominantly we have managed those experiences through our own funding and our own budgets.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Okay, thank you very much.
My next question is for Joyce Reynolds.
Welcome, Joyce.
You mention in your opening remarks that young Canadians often get their first jobs in the restaurant industry. I was one of those Canadians, at one time, and I can tell you that I learned a lot of very valuable skills in the restaurant industry. I learned how to serve people, for one. I learned how to deal with different types of individuals—sober people, inebriated people, and others—and skills that have taught me a lot for my job today, actually.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
It was a good experience, and I can tell you that it's great training for young Canadians.
I want to ask about how the Canada job grant could impact the restaurant industry as well,
Executive Vice-President, Government Affairs, Restaurants Canada
We have a real variety of jobs in our industry. We have a lot of entry-level jobs, as I've already mentioned, and we have semi-skilled to highly skilled jobs, so it's going to be used by different members in different ways.
We provide a lot of on-the-job training. It's not going to apply to those particular jobs, but for some of our higher-skilled jobs, and our cook and chef apprenticeship jobs, I think it will be very helpful.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you.
You also brought up in your opening remarks the CPP enhancement that has been proposed by some opposition parties as well as by others who are here today. Paul Moist, for example, recommended an enhancement of the CPP.
Our studies and other people's studies show that this would potentially kill many jobs. In fact, 70,000 jobs could be at stake, from what our empirical studies have shown.
What are your thoughts on enhancing the CPP?
Executive Vice-President, Government Affairs, Restaurants Canada
As I mentioned in my remarks, payroll taxes have been job killers in our sector, and we have concerns about increasing payroll taxes. Yes, I understand that it is a contribution to retirement funds for the individual, but for the labour-intensive business, there's a significant cost attached to CPP and EI premiums, although I think there are things that can be done to help labour-intensive businesses. I mentioned a couple of them in my remarks.
Conservative
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Very quickly, Mr. Smillie, can you tell us about the wonderful things you learned about the German apprenticeship program while you were there with Minister Kenney?
Conservative
Senior Advisor, Government Relations and Public Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
Oh, my time's up. No, I'm just kidding.
Senior Advisor, Government Relations and Public Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
The most important key learning was that not a single bit of training goes on in the German system without an employer at the other end who has already agreed to hire that person. Be it in a high school, a community college, or even at the university level, there are no programs existing that train for no reason. Everything is linked to an employer, and the employers are there with the educators and with the governments determining curriculum and determining what skills will be needed for those businesses.
My time is up.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Okay, thank you.
I'm sure we'll return to this as well.
We go to Mr. Brison, please.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Thank you.
Mr. Smillie, what can we do federally to address the issue of apprenticeship completion rates in Canada, and what do you see as the key problem driving it?
Senior Advisor, Government Relations and Public Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
For the benefit of the group, in terms of apprenticeship completion, we have lots of people registering in apprentice programs, but a good number of them aren't finishing. There are really two ways to assist apprenticeship completion. We need to incent these people to move through the system. The apprenticeship incentive grant is good in years one and two. We can easily extend that to year three and year four. Most apprentices in the country are doing four- or five-year apprenticeships, and that grant doesn't apply to them.
The second issue is mobility. If there's an apprentice in your home province who, for financial reasons, can't get to where the work is in Saskatchewan or Alberta, we ought to try to assist them to get to where that work is. There is a learning advantage and there's an economic advantage. That apprentice in Nova Scotia gets off employment insurance and goes to work and starts paying income taxes right away. Be it through a tax credit or through some sort of grant on EI at the front end, get them to where the work is so they can do their hours. These days hours are interchangeable between provinces, so you could go from Ontario to work in Fort McMurray, and your hours working at Syncrude will count toward your apprenticeship in Ontario.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Thank you very much.
Ms. Woloschuk, throughout Canada, I believe, in most provincial systems we're graduating more teachers than there are positions. There's a bit of a mismatch in terms of the current job market and the number of teachers we're producing.
On top of that, we're hearing from a number of groups that have met with the committee, including the community colleges and organizations representing trade schools, that the quality of guidance counselling in schools across Canada is not as robust as it once was. Could you reflect on that for us? It's being proposed that there may be a role for a national government to provide more up-to-date labour market information to help inform the important decisions made by young people—in terms of career and education paths—which is required as a result of the diminution in the quality of guidance counselling.
President, Canadian Teachers' Federation
I can't comment on specific programs in every province, but I can tell you about my own experience in my province. Career education begins in a very formal way when students are in grade 9, but there's also work that's done even earlier. There's a lot of work done in assisting students to develop portfolios, to become aware of the job market, to do the kinds of self-assessment activities where they learn their strengths, what their likes are in terms of the kind of workplace they would enjoy, all of those kinds of things, to try to get them organized to know what type of work they might like to do and what the requirements are for getting into that field.
There's always a need for good information, and if that were available from the federal government, I think that's something that would be valuable for schools to use.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Yes, the latest market information from Statistics Canada, as opposed to Kijiji, for example....