Human Resources Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2006

[Ed Brown]

Lifelong learning is very much a part of our thinking and our philosophy. Certainly one of the best examples I've seen as we've gone and looked at other places is in British Columbia, where I've seen a hospital where they release people from their shifts, or part of their shifts, to go next door to an old nurses' residence, which is set up as a school, to basically do computer and literacy.

That's the ideal situation we're looking at here. That's what we would see. It's the concept of putting education into the workplace, not for on-the-job training to use the machine that's necessary to do your job, but to develop that citizen and improve the quality of that person's life.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sure. And certainly having a philosophy of lifelong learning in that organization makes sense.

[Ed Brown]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Mr. George, you talked about reducing taxes as part of a possible way of trying to reduce the shortage of labour. What do you mean by that? I think I understand what reducing taxes means. And then, do you have any comments about what Mr. Brown just had to say, as well?

[Bradley George]

Everyone is skeptical when they hear that; even I was at first. We did a training report, and we asked what would be the way for members to put more money into training. The result was that the best way to have more money for training would be to have a lower tax burden. I do not disagree at all with what I'm hearing from my co-presenters here this morning, but the fact is that small and medium-sized businesses have limited resources, given the other high costs they have now. It is very difficult for them to put money into basic skills. They need employees to have that skills set. They want to train. They want to put money into informal training.

I'll leave with this message. The fact is that we're losing workers due to out-migration. It's a very difficult thing for small and medium-sized businesses these days. Training is very important to them in order to keep these workers here. We're losing people. I have members who are garage owners and who are losing people. The other day, I spoke to a garage owner with four people who has lost two people to Alberta. He's trying to train someone now. He has to train a fellow who just graduated from high school through informal training in the workplace. It's a serious issue. It is of significant concern to our organization.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Once again, it's a fight for those valuable resources—

[Bradley George]

One of the people he lost was his son, who was to take over his business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That makes it very difficult.

Thank you, Mr. George.

We're going to move on.

[Ed Brown]

Could I comment on that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sure, just a quick one, and then we're going to Mr. Regan.

Go ahead, Mr. Brown.

[Ed Brown]

The concept of educating a Newfoundlander for Newfoundland is no longer with us. We all refer to the fluidity of workers and so on. The worst thing the federal government can do is to think parochially, think provincially. You have to start looking at Canada as Canada, not as Newfoundland and Labrador and things like that. We're doing that too much. This is where the thinking is going right now.

On the concept of poaching, which Denise referred to, and taking workers from one company into another, from one province into another, we have to start looking at that as the way of life and as a positive thing. This brings the federal government more to the fore in this problem of employability that we have. It's not good to be parochial, to say that certainly we can handle this here. You have to think federally at this point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have about thirty questions, but only five minutes for answers, so I'll try to get to three if I can.

First of all, Dr. Rourke, to what do you attribute the fact that currently 8% of medical students come from rural Canada? Do you think the rural access scholarship is the right way to increase that number? What would be the target? Would it be 30%, or would it be higher than that?

[Dr. James Rourke, Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Health Sciences Centre, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Society of Rural Physicians of Canada]

Our target should represent the same proportion as who is in rural Canada, which is about 20% to 30%, depending upon how you define rural Canada.

There are a lot of barriers. One of them is that fewer rural kids go to university, to start with. All those who go to university have already spent a lot of money coming from the outside. If you come from another part of Newfoundland, you have to pay more to go to university in St. John's than if you were from St. John's. Rural families are poorer than urban families, so again they are at a financial disadvantage. This is why rural access scholarships would help to allay that disadvantage. Students coming into medical school now are very concerned about the high cost of medical education, and that is a barrier.

In the medical schools, we're doing a lot of things to try to increase the rural enrolment. In fact, at Memorial University, 40% of our students come from rural areas, because we have a very defined program to encourage them. But that's not the case across Canada.

This needs a Canada-wide approach. That's why two of our recommendations are to have a chair for rural medical education at each medical school, to maintain a focus and be a champion for all aspects of our medical education; the other one is to put a chair of rural health research in every medical school across Canada to maintain that focus.

If I might pick up on what Mr. Lessard said about why we do not focus—

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

If you don't mind, I only have five minutes for all those questions I have. I bet Mr. Lessard will be anxious to hear your answer on that point he raised, though.

Let me turn to Ms. Gillard for a moment. You asked a question earlier about whether we were having success in relation to reversing the cuts. So far, there is no success, but this committee has passed a resolution, as you know. I think, for example, that our chairman actually is one of those subversives in his own party who is campaigning, I hope, to have the minister change her mind on this. I don't know if he is as subversive as Garth Turner, mind you.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I want to say they help out.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

The minister commented, in explaining these cuts in answer to one of my questions in the House of Commons, that we shouldn't be funding lobbyists and advocates. If you had her here today to explain why it's important that she fund groups like yours and why it's not just lobbyists and advocates, what would you say to her about why she ought to be funding what you're doing, as opposed to only funding certain projects that are direct?

[Kimberley Gillard]

I found it very disappointing when we were told that advocacy, administration, and levels of bureaucracy needed to be cut out. For the last three years, 60% of the time I was the only staff in my office.

We don't believe that advocacy is our major role, because we see ourselves as educators. We're educating all partners about literacy. We're educating not just government but labour, community-based sectors, and health care. We believe 110% that it is a holistic approach; it's the only approach that's going to solve this problem.

Literacy is so multifaceted, with so many layers to it, that there is no silver bullet. Claudette Bradshaw found that when she did her round table discussion before she left. We do advocacy, but we do more awareness. The real role of literacy coalitions is to provide the only piece of infrastructure that exists in a field where there is no infrastructure.

We do everything. We are the direct link for all the community-based organizations when it comes to getting resources. We are the link to resources coming into this province that get spread out to the communities. We are the link for learners finding literacy programs. We are the link for helping resources be developed. If anything happens on a national basis and they're going across the provinces and territories looking for information. we're the first line of contact. We are the ones who sit and share our expertise throughout the year on research and practice. Whatever kind of survey is being done nationally, we're the first line of contact. We're the information source for the province.

So we go way above and beyond advocacy. In fact, all our time right now is being spent on advocacy, and we feel really bad because this is energy that could have been spent much better somewhere else.

[Ed Brown]

We don't have time to advocate.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Let me just ask the last question to Mr. George. You've indicated that basic skills are a huge problem for small and medium-sized employers in the province. You've also said that they're ready to provide training. My impression is that they're ready to provide training for the skills in their fields, but are they ready to provide training for the basic skills that they're concerned are lacking? To what degree does that include things like literacy and numeracy?

[Bradley George]

I'll be quite up front with you. In our survey we haven't matched that. It's improper for me to come out and say I'm sure that's not what they're saying, because that's not the way we work. I could venture an opinion about what they're saying to us, from my discussions with them.

I'll use the example of a garage owner. He's quite willing but afraid to train a high school graduate to be a mechanic when he knows that the garage mechanic will take the direct flight from here to Fort McMurray and he'll lose him. We've lost our direct flight to London, England, but we have a direct flight to Fort McMurray. I know the answer to the question about basic skills being a problem. I can quite certainly tell you that is the issue. I shouldn't say that, because I don't have the survey results for that, and that's not the way we operate.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Regan.

We're going to move to Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Mr. George.

When you talked about shortages, you talked about skills. If I understood you well, you said that employers tend to give the work that demands more skills to people who already have work to do.

In most businesses, you already have skilled workers who are relatively old, and so on. But we know that the basis of skills is knowledge and know-how. Do small businesses have a strategy to transfer the knowledge and know-how of older workers before they leave?