Human Resources Committee on Oct. 24th, 2006

[Charles Ramsey]

“General literacy” refers to the opportunities given to those people to upgrade their skills so that they can compete either for more training places or for positions in the workplace.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

I haven't had a chance to read that, but that's a great clarification.

[Sue Folinsbee]

I think it's really important that we don't focus just on workplace literacy and literacy for jobs. We've got to look at the bigger picture.

Also, I would like to say that even within the whole issue of workplace literacy, if we look at a lot of the programs over the last fifteen years--the ones especially that labour has been involved in--the workplace was a venue and it was a place where people could focus on the skills for their jobs, but also the skills to help with their family and their community as well. I don't think we should lose sight of that.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

Go ahead.

[Leslie Childs]

I just wanted to say that I've had an opportunity in the last four or five months to travel all the way across Canada and to visit some of the places I've lived and worked in, to talk to ordinary people across Canada. They ask what I'm doing, and I say I'm doing workplace education, and they say, “What's that?” I tell them, and they say, “Well, why do we need it?”

I can tell you there is a huge gap in understanding the size and nature of this problem all the way across Canada. Nobody has a handle on it really yet, except maybe us in Nova Scotia.

I think the other thing that is out there that is huge and that people really haven't come to appreciate is that there is a huge lack of credibility in the education system today. I've talked to a lot of human resources people across the country, and one of their common concerns is that people they hire or would like to hire just don't have the essential skills to do the job. And they feel bad about turning them away. They understand the impact that has on the family, but they just can't use them because they don't have the reading, writing, and math skills they need. So this is a pan-Canadian problem.

I think the way to do it is to build credibility back into learning and back into education, and to make it not such a scary place to be. Too many people today think, “I won't go into a classroom because it's scary”.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

Did you want to add something, Mr. Ramsey?

[Charles Ramsey]

I just wanted to say that over the last seven or eight years, the executive directors of the national literacy organizations have worked together to put into writing what we consider to be the need for a pan-Canadian strategy. In the materials that I brought, which have been circulated, you'll find a ten-year action plan that was put together by the movement for Canadian literacy, in consultation with the other national literacy organizations. That document carries a lot of weight because it was well-circulated in the community Canada-wide and it bears the support of all of the literacy people in all parts of the country at all levels. So it's a good quick read of about ten pages on what needs to be done over the next few years.

A lot of us in the literacy community consider this to be the road map, this very committee's document, which was published a couple of years ago. There are excellent suggestions in this that, if followed, would make a big difference in the literacy condition of this country.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I raised the question also because there have been community learning initiatives for cities, to make learning cities, or to help develop learning cities and learning towns. These really embedded learning as a community process that brought these partnerships together and really helped catch everyone in the net or helped everyone participate. So I really appreciate the clarification, and I'm certainly going to look at that.

If I have thirty seconds left, I just want to speak to the issue of early learning in child care. I introduced a bill in the House that would hopefully enshrine some of the values you mentioned, like accessibility and quality, because we know that our later learning experiences really begin in early years. That will be discussed on November 21, and hopefully we will show the will of Parliament to go in that direction at that time.

Thank you for raising it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Madam Savoie.

We're going to move to Mr. Warkentin for seven minutes.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Certainly workplace training seems to be the theme of the morning. Earlier this morning we talked to some of the different witnesses who had some issues surrounding workplace training.

I was able to talk with them about this, and I'll bring it up again right now. According to the Conference Board of Canada, when looking at different OECD countries, Canada seems to be lacking in terms of the investment that employers are making in their employees. As an example, in Canada, employers are spending $824 per employee, whereas across the border, just south of us in the States, employers are spending more than $1,000 per employee.

As we look at this issue, I'm wondering whether you can identify any way we could possibly bring the employers to the table to help them see the value of investing in their employees, and whether there are any reasons you can identify that are inhibiting employers from contributing to the education of their employees.

[Sue Folinsbee]

We've been asking this ourselves, those of us who've been in workplace literacy for the last twenty years. It has always been difficult to get employers to the table, even when you show the investments.

One thing we would suggest--and this came out of the round tables--is to look at the 1% training levy in Quebec as a way of providing a pool of funds. Employers there have to spend 1% of their payroll on training, and if they don't, it goes into a fund. Some of that is also for literacy. That would be really worth investigating for the rest of Canada as a strategy.

[Margan Dawson]

I agree. When we look at why businesses aren't investing in training, I still think you need to look at your community. For example, in Nova Scotia, many of our businesses are made up of very small organizations of five or six employees. They're mom-and-pop operations and they make up a good portion of Nova Scotia. They're not always eligible for programs, nor do they have the resources to do it.

How do you get them to buy in? I think we need to be more innovative in our thinking. I think tax incentives are one way and so are programs. But we also simply have to look at the reality of their work, and I don't know that we do that often enough.

I'll give you an example. I work with a group of small business owners. They're one-owner companies. They're on their own. They may have one or two staff people. We've taken an innovative approach. We've brought them together within our community, so we actually have the numbers we require to put together a program, and we're delivering essential skills for small business owners. We've had a huge impact. I've been working with them now for three years, and their businesses have grown because we've developed the essential skills and worked it into the customized workplace--what is it that they need in their workplace. It's become a very powerful story and a very powerful picture.

It really means you need to speak to the businesses. They don't have the resources, quite often, and it's a resource issue. You can look at Michelin and High Liner, those larger companies. They have the resources and the funding to do the human resource development. That's not applicable to smaller businesses.

How do you meet their needs? According to ACOA, $40 million was pumped into the Nova Scotia economy by women entrepreneurs in 2004. How are they being supported?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Do you think tax incentives for either the employee or the employer may be--probably the employer, I would imagine--

[Margan Dawson]

I would say they would be for the employer who encourages their workers, and there has to be accountability here. It's not just handing out money. There needs to be a demonstration that in fact they're doing this. For the employer who encourages their workers to participate, what can we do to make it worthwhile for them?

There's a company called Elmsdale Lumber. They've already bought into workplace education and they've seen the value. The value is that the lumber they produce has benefited because of the workers' skills in various areas.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I am changing the subject just a little, but maybe getting to the root cause of the issue with the lack of literacy within the workplace....

Ms. Childs, you talked about the lack of credibility our educational institutions have in terms of training people from the get-go. I'm just wondering if you can talk with us, and maybe other people can have some input, about where our people are being failed, where our citizens are being failed within the educational system, as they now are. What can be done to ensure that people aren't entering the workforce without the necessary skills?

[Leslie Childs]

That's a really huge problem, and I don't think one can begin to answer just off the top of one's head. It probably takes a lot of research and consultation, and that sort of thing. When I mention that, I have seen it in my own work, but I was also just bringing to you the opinions that I have garnered over the summer talking to people all the way across Canada, that this seems to be a theme.

I think a lot of employers just culturally have not had to see training as part of their budget. That's not the case any more. It was possible, until quite recently, for an employer to expect an employee to arrive at the factory gate fully informed, fully trained, but things are changing too fast now. Employers have to begin to understand that's part of their responsibility, just like building a safe plant or...WHMIS, or anything else. But I don't think they really have their heads in that place yet, and that's what I see one of the pan-Canadian goals could be. It would be an initiative that would promote, to employers, the benefits of training their workforce.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Okay. Of course, we do want people to get the on-the-job training. I think maybe the concerns you're hearing are legitimate, if in fact we're seeing increased numbers of people who do not have the literacy skills that traditionally people have accessed.

Are we seeing a problem with our educational institutions not keeping up with the requirements of the workplace? Are we seeing people dropping out? Even with school, between K and 12, is there some way that we need to motivate these people to stay in school? What's the bigger issue here? I think we have to maybe address that.

[Leslie Childs]

It's not so much staying in school, but making sure you have the skills you need before you leave, so that you don't need to be retrained in the essential skills in the workplace. We're only talking about essential skills; we're not talking about job-specific skills. We're talking about the ability to read and write, to handle math and problem-solve, and those kinds of things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Childs.

A quick response from Mr. Ramsey on this....

[Charles Ramsey]

Yes, I just want to say quickly that the institutions often take a bad knock on this. Literacy is a moving target. If anybody entered the IT industry ten years ago and was still working there today without having had any upgrading, that person would be, for all practical purposes, having difficulty with his or her literacy because of the changing conditions in the workplace.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move now to five minutes a round.

This is where it gets really tough to try to get all the questions you want in.

Mr. D'Amours, five minutes, please.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am going to ask all my questions, to be sure I am not interrupted at the end. First of all, I would like to comment on literacy, and you may respond if you wish. I still remember the comments made by the President of the Treasury Board, John Baird, when he said that illiterate adults were a lost cause. The problems of adults who have special needs in order to be able to function are not only work related. An adult who needs assistance in literacy is not able to help his child progress further when he comes home. A child coming home from school needs help to be able to keep up with his classmates. It would certainly have a double impact. On the one hand, it could help at work and, on the other hand, I am convinced it would help our children progress further. Parents want to help their children do their homework in the evening.

That was a comment. Some committee members and some Members of Parliament should understand that reality, which is certainly a reality in rural Canada.

A bit earlier — perhaps you were in the room — we also talked about choices in relation to the Early Childhood Development Program. I have an 18-month-old grand-daughter. I am putting myself in the position of a mother who is a single parent earning approximately $30,000 per year and has one child. Clearly it is difficult to have two. After hearing my demonstration, I am convinced you will agree with me. A mother who is a single parent and wants to send her child to a child care centre has to spend 29% of her salary on it, given day care costs of $125 per week. To think of everything that has happened and the fact that this program was abolished! People may not yet have realized they are going to have to pay income tax on that income of $1,200 per year, of $100 per month.

That means that, instead of representing 29% of salary, it is more like 25%. The $5 billion program that was implemented was intended precisely to achieve the same principle as the Quebec program, which costs approximately $35 per week, a contribution of 8% of the salary of the mother. Which do you prefer, 25% or 8%? A mother would like to be able to provide piano lessons for her child or pay for sports activities. That certainly is not possible if she spends 25% of her salary — or 50% if she has two children — for child care. It does not make sense.

Do you think initiatives of that kind really give parents a choice? You may answer my question on literacy or on early childhood development, as you choose.

[Sue Folinsbee]

I'd like to address the issue of the impact of adult literacy on children. If adults and parents create a literacy-rich environment, it affects the literacy development of children. If adults are learning to read, it's going to encourage their own children to read. Even in workplace programs, in my own research across the country, I've seen that adults want to upgrade to be a role model for their children. They know that getting their certification will encourage their teenagers to stay in school, finish school, and even go on in school. This connection is really important. It's not either/or; we have to look at both.

[Charles Ramsey]

In this country, research has shown that the greatest single predictor of a child's success at school is the mother's education. If we don't make sure that parents in the home have the proper level of understanding, then the children are not going to be well prepared for school.

Secondly, I think research also shows that of the children at risk, a significant number come from single-parent families. Often the single parent is a mother with less than $30,000 a year at her disposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Ms. Dallaire.