Thank you, Chair.
I thank the other members of the committee.
Today I want to focus my remarks a little bit on the job market, so cutting across a number of themes. I want to pay particular attention to the issues of persistent labour and skill shortages. In thinking about the bill, initiatives like the labour mobility deduction program and others like it are important steps in a welcome recognition for employers who are having difficulties finding talent, especially in the trades sector. Despite some of the headline stories with respect to labour and skill shortages and low unemployment that we're seeing in Canada, I nevertheless still want to emphasize the point that many Canadians still struggle to find quality jobs today.
To harness and leverage the ongoing and planned initiatives and to create quality jobs for Canadians and to spur investment among businesses, I would offer up to the committee the following two considerations.
The first is that we need a comprehensive labour market strategy that supports and aligns with other economic, environmental and social outcomes. A well-functioning labour market is a cross-cutting issue. We may hear it throughout the other interventions today. It is needed in other areas to support these objectives. Simply put, our goals to improve competitiveness, address housing affordability and transition to a lower-carbon economy will not succeed if businesses and government cannot find the people and the talent to make those investments and transitions a reality.
A comprehensive strategy can bring together in a coherent and mutually reinforcing way the various pieces that augment each of the individual actions that are planned. A strategy of this nature is also a great and tremendous opportunity to bring together governments, employers, labour, educators, training providers and others to think collaboratively and cohesively about how to discuss these opportunities and challenges. A strategy is thus not about new measures or new spending, but it's about making the most of the investments that are planned.
The second point I want to make is that I believe we need to get serious about addressing labour and skill shortages. This should be a key pillar of any broad labour market strategy, and it requires our collective attention. I have a few points for consideration on where to start with respect to persistent labour and skill shortages. The first is that we need to recognize the difference between a labour shortage on one hand and a skill shortage on the other. These are not the same issue, and they require very different policy interventions. We need to diagnose the problem first before we design a solution. The extent of labour versus skill shortages is different across the country. It's not the same in my rural Cape Breton hometown as it is in Toronto. We need an action plan that properly diagnoses the problem across the country before we think properly about the solution.
To do that, a few suggestions, again very cost-effective, would be to streamline and promote more open access to existing sources of information, such as job vacancies and EI recipients. All of this must be done, of course, while we are mindful of privacy considerations, quality of information and data quality, but I assure you it can be done.
The third point under this strategy would be a cohesive and integrated approach to skills development. Here, too, I want to emphasize that skills are not the same as qualifications or credentials, and for far too long we have equated the two. Much of our programming and even the way in which we collect information and data is rooted in the old way of thinking that is based on qualifications and credentials and not skills. The good news here is that there have been significant investments in the past few years in the skills space. However, a comprehensive labour market strategy that includes testing and evaluating innovative approaches in partnerships in skills development would help make the most of those investments.
Finally, I would offer the following comment for the committee, which is that I believe we need to strengthen our culture of evaluation. No matter what new measure or policy we implement or attempt, we should make every effort, to the extent possible, as part of that framework to include an evaluation, one that goes beyond just monitoring and that is more about whether the program worked or didn't work.
Finally, from my international experience, I would say that, in Canada, I think we need to be more open in terms of accepting when something doesn't work. We can learn a lot from what doesn't work, but we need to think more strategically about how we integrate evaluation into all of the various initiatives.
Thank you.