Government Operations Committee on Nov. 17th, 2009

[Christopher Smillie]

Can we work together to encourage more young people to get into the trades? Absolutely. I'd say we have between 50 and 60 training centres across Canada. We'd be absolutely willing to do outreach to communities and to regular people in those communities who might be interested in coming into the trades. Potentially we could work on some of the things that the red seal department does in HRSDC. We could work on Skills Canada. There are definite ways we could interact with each other.

Is there a specific trade at risk? I got the note from Mr. Cann, and he said no. At the end of the day, I think it's the trades with a longer training cycle that have a harder time bringing people in. If you have a four- or five-year training period, when you're trying to bring someone up to journeyperson status it's more difficult than a two- or a three-year training period.

[Steven Schumann]

Right now our average age for operating engineers, who range from crane operators to concrete pumps, is around 45 years old. That's our average age. You look at some of our training schools, and I'll take Holyrood, in Newfoundland, we have young men and women there who are willing to get trained on the various equipment, but they need the jobs. If you look at tower crane operators, to get a red seal, I believe Ontario requires 6,000 hours for an apprentice to get to a journeyperson.

Who's usually the first to go on a job? It's the apprentice. So to get your 6,000 hours takes a very long time. It's a great job if you get to it, but getting to it is the problem in some places. If we lose an apprentice, who may be laid off for four or five months, they need the work and they'll go somewhere else. We will lose them; they won't come back.

In our sector we have an aging demographic, and we have an issue trying to get some of these apprentices and young people in.

[Christopher Smillie]

We could work together on promoting the hiring of apprentices with our contractors. At the end of the day, these folks need a job to get into an apprentice program. If there's one thing we can do to work together, it would be to promote to the contractors and employers in Canada the value of hiring an apprentice. When I pitch the value of an apprentice to a particular contractor, or say I'm meeting with an owner, I always talk about it like this: “An apprentice costs you $20 an hour and you can charge that apprentice out at $55 an hour. A journeyperson costs $50 to $60, and you can only charge them out at $70 an hour.”

If there's something we could work on, it would be the value of an apprentice program with contractors across Canada. I say hire an apprentice and develop some sort of program that rewards and recognizes contractors who do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Merci.

We're running out of time. Did you have one very quick question? Would the committee indulge Mr. Martin to ask a question?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I have one specific question that I should have asked in my first round. Thank you for the chance to get it on the record.

One of the problems with the apprenticeship system is keeping apprentices, for the reason you mentioned. With my own apprenticeship, it took me seven years to get my carpenter's ticket. Those years of 1980 to 1987 were rough years.

One of the problems with our EI system is that when you go to school and you're released from your job to do your six weeks at community college, you get the two-week waiting period on EI. I had a family and kids by then. A lot of them say they can't interrupt their income for two weeks, so they pass on their school component. It might be another year before it comes up, or they might be frozen in second year, or they might drop out altogether.

Is it the position of the building and construction trades department of the AFL-CIO that there should be no waiting period in the community college component when you go on EI as an apprentice?

[Christopher Smillie]

If that were proposed, if that were in the bucket, so to speak, we would definitely be supportive of such an initiative. I'd say that right now there are roughly 200,000 apprentices who are sort of in the system. Anything we can do to make sure that the transition between the workplace and school is as seamless as possible would be of assistance.

I appeared at another committee discussing Bill C-50, regarding the extension of employment insurance benefits, and at a broader level, we made sure that apprentices were not excluded when they do go to school. We didn't get the full monty, so to speak, on the waiting period, but we did make sure that under Bill C-50 apprentices aren't penalized for going to trade school.

Would we support it? Yes. Is it something that we can definitely work towards? Absolutely. I'd be willing to bring you industry information on that.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much, witnesses, Mr. Smillie, Mr. Cann, and Mr. Schumann, for being here.

This is the stimulus package study, and we wanted to listen to stakeholders because we wanted to know what was going on, on the ground, and you have given the committee sufficient information. I think the information has been very useful.

Nobody denies that stimulus funding is important, but this is about the rapidity with which the funding has to go out, so that the problems the construction industry or other stimulus areas are facing should not have to be faced, because it's a two-year deadline. We are looking at what the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities have said and we will be looking at your recommendations as well, as we go forward with our report.

We are concerned that the $3 billion that “went out” probably has not gone out--the budget officer hasn't said so--so we will try our best to see what we can do on this side of the House and, together, how we can work.

Do you have any closing remarks to make before I suspend the committee?

[Christopher Smillie]

The only remark I would make is that we are a willing partner, and anything we can do to assist anyone on the committee, we're willing to do. We can go to training centres. We can meet people who are actually doing stimulus jobs down the road. We can see people who may not have access to stimulus funds, to be fair to everyone on the committee, but at the end of the day, I pledge on behalf of the organizations I represent that we're an open book and we'll work with anyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much.

The committee is suspended for one minute.

[Proceedings continue in camera]