Human Resources Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

[Paul Hébert]

The issue of older workers is a very important one in mining, because of the facts I gave you in my opening remarks. The term “older workers” in mining tends to include people who wouldn't otherwise be considered older workers, because we have people retiring between 50 and 55, after 30 years of service, who are not ready to retire completely.

Companies are becoming more and more flexible in terms of how they accommodate these people. The remark I make when I'm addressing groups of miners is that there's always a preponderance of 55-year-old white guys in the room. That's with all due respect to 55-year-old white guys, because I hope to be one some day.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[A voice]

Many years hence.

[Paul Hébert]

Not that many.

There's certainly a need, and employers are beginning to meet the need to be flexible in accommodating those older workers. There may be other opportunities in flexibility to make it more worthwhile for workers to go back and apply the 20-some years of knowledge, on average.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Again, I'm looking for government policy recommendations. Don't forget we dropped the CPP back from 65 to 60 several years ago. That's helped early retirement, and we have a lot of tax issues for government benefits that penalize low-income people who work. I'm talking about people getting guaranteed income, for example, the guaranteed income supplement. If anyone makes any money, there's a dollar-for-dollar loss. So there's absolutely no incentive to go to work.

[Andrew Cardozo]

If you're asking whether I think we should take the CPP back up to 65, I don't want to touch that one.

I guess most provinces have dropped the mandatory retirement age, so that allows some people to work beyond 65 who want to. I think incentives are the way to go to allow people to work at least part-time if they want to, and many people who retire early do want to work part-time. So incentives through the tax or any other system help.

What we're facing is not only fewer people in the workforce when they retire, but also a huge loss of expertise and the knowledge that goes with them. But after all that is said and done, Mr. Murphy, I have to say that all we're doing is putting off the problem by five to ten years or so. We still have a bigger demographic problem looming down the road. It's interesting that 10 to 20 years ago, the issue was how do we get people out of the workforce to make way for more people to come in. Now we've turned around and said no, stay; but we've all decided we want to retire early.

[Paul Swinwood]

As someone who's on a Freedom 99 plan, I'd be very interested in seeing what your guaranteed income supplement and everything is. I'm already eligible for some of these things but have decided not to take them because I'm having too much fun at work. So one of the issues is putting a work environment in place where those of us who are mature workers can continue to contribute without being penalized.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Mr. Brown for five minutes.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to split my time with Lynne. I'll start off, though.

Coming from Ontario--I did hear some mention of B.C. and Alberta--could you touch upon the skills shortages you're noticing in Ontario and what that region of the country is facing? Secondly, I'm interested in interprovincial mobility problems that any of you three may have noticed within your respective sectors.

[Andrew Cardozo]

Perhaps I can start.

In Ontario, the manufacturing sector, whether it's some of the councils that we have, such as the plastics sector, the wood manufacturing sector, is certainly hurting. The plastics sector across Canada, I think, is over 60% located within an hour's drive of the GTA, so people in your riding and in those areas who would be working within that sector are certainly facing shortages.

Policing is another one across the country. The Prime Minister has mentioned that he wants to see the RCMP increased by a large number of people. That's going to be tough to make. The Ottawa Police recently announced that it wants to hire 130 or so by the end of this calendar year. It's going to be really tough to find those people across the country, so as much as we need and want them in places like Toronto or Ottawa, it's going to be tough.

Most sectors, except for perhaps the fisheries sector, are members of our council and have considerable membership within Ontario. I can't think of many that are not facing shortages here.

[Paul Hébert]

Certainly the mining sector in Ontario, Ontario being the province with the most mining activity of any across the country, is facing those shortages. The priority areas in our sector would be engineers, geoscientists, and tradespeople. Some segments of the manufacturing sector are experiencing a downturn, so again are looking to those to try to offset.

I spoke to mobility issues in terms of some occupations being very mobile while others are not at all, and I'll go back to it again. That's an issue that can be addressed by developing and applying occupational standards. That way employers and institutions from across the country speak the same language in training and recognizing the credentials and competencies of workers.

[Paul Swinwood]

One of the issues we're observing is that a lot of the downturn in the manufacturing sector is again impacting a sector that has been, I would say, first in and last out, so a lot of the people who are losing their jobs in the manufacturing sector are not looking for other work. They are people already in their late fifties, early fifties, and have enough of a package, given the early retirement plan support that they're getting. A lot of them entered the manufacturing sector with only a high school education, if they were lucky. They used to walk down the road from their high school and start work at the plant, and of course their family--you know, dad worked there, Uncle George worked there, Aunt Mary worked there, and everybody else worked there. So in a lot of cases the people who are coming out need significant education or significant training to be re-employed, so there's a major challenge in looking at the demographics of the people who are suffering from the layoffs and how to get them into other employment.

I would suggest that if we have anything, support for significant re-skilling would be needed to get those people re-employed, much longer than a six-week or seven-day training course.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I have one quick question. You mentioned that you have nine universities as members of your sector council, nine universities.

[Paul Hébert]

Yes, I mentioned there were nine universities that offer mining engineering in Canada.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I was thinking it was part of your sector councils. I was just wondering why Arctic universities are not a part of your presentation. Given the uniqueness of being a circumpolar university, that they're hooked up around the globe, I wonder why you're not aggressively trying to get them in your sector councils. Or are you?

[Andrew Cardozo]

I think a number of councils will have academics from various universities who will be on their boards. I'm not sure there are many universities per se that are actually part of sector councils.

Paul Hébert has mentioned some of these universities they've worked through. Our hope was that we could work through the AUCC, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, which is the counterpart to the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, and that has been a really efficient working relationship. The AUCC is structured differently and doesn't really deal with services to its members, so we're going to have to develop relationships with individual universities--and that is happening. I wouldn't classify that as aggressive; I'd like to classify it as aggressive, but we're not there yet.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I'm surprised that when you talk about mining you don't mention Saskatchewan. Why? It certainly is on the map when it comes to uranium, it's the biggest and the best in the world as far as supply of potash, and diamonds are coming. So I'm just wondering whether there is a problem with Saskatchewan when it comes to our laws and regulations. Definitely mobility is a problem, because we didn't get on-board with Alberta and B.C., so obviously mobility is almost the opposite problem that Alberta and B.C. have addressed, but we haven't.

[Paul Hébert]

Saskatchewan figures in a major way in all of our work, in all of our research, for a number of reasons. As you said, they're global leaders in potash and uranium production, and there are also some very bright lights in terms of aboriginal inclusion. Cameco and COGEMA, in fact, were the subject of an in-depth case study that's now being promoted to the rest of the Canadian mining industry as an exemplary model.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Would you forward a copy of that? If you're using it as an example, I'd like a copy of it.

As well, Mr. Cardozo, I'd like your notes.

[Paul Hébert]

Absolutely.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Very good. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, that's all the time we have, as we have to move on to some other business.

I do want to thank the gentlemen at the end of the table again for taking time to come in. As you have noted before, this is something this committee has undertaken in terms of a study. We feel it's important. We realize it's a huge issue as we move forward in this country. We want to thank you for enlightening us a little more on this issue as we go forward to make recommendations to the government when we're done this study sometime, hopefully, depending on how many motions keep coming forward, either at the end of this year or maybe sometime in 2008. Anyway, we'll keep moving forward.

Thank you very much, again, for taking the time today. Have a great afternoon.

[Paul Swinwood]

Thank you.

[Paul Hébert]

Thank you.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Chairman, I'm wondering why the police sector representation isn't here today. I was really looking forward to hearing it. I have some ideas for them.