Human Resources Committee on Nov. 9th, 2006

[Christine MacFarlane]

We were recommending a personal working tax credit or supplement. I think there has been some movement on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

[Dan Kelly]

That was my understanding, that it is for individuals, which we think is the way to go. You put the dollars in the pockets of individuals. In fact, when we ask our members what tax cuts are most important, often it is personal income tax cuts that our members see as being most helpful, particularly for low-income workers. In many cases, that body of people represents a group of employees for our members. The idea of reducing taxes for low-income Canadians, I think, is a fantastic idea and one we would support. The specific mechanism of a wage supplement is the one we may have some trouble with.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I only have five minutes, and I'm anxious to hear from others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You're out of time.

[Diane Brisebois]

I think all of us would support tax credits for low-income earners. It's good for a lot of our small and mid-sized businesses and it's good for the community, so it would be difficult to speak against that position. I think all of us would agree.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all your time.

We're going to move to Mr. Lessard, for five minutes please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too would like to thank you for your presentation which I have no doubt give us some insight into the issues that we are examining today.

Each time we meet with groups like yours, we learn something new and certain issues become clearer. This morning, we have a clearer picture of western companies. If I understood correctly, Mr. Kelly said that 47% of his members claim to have passed on some business opportunities because they didn't have the proper staff and so forth.

Each group seems to come back to the labour shortage problem. The Retail Council of Canada maintains that steps must be taken to facilitate the integration of older workers, Aboriginals and women into the labour market. The situation faced by women is often mentioned. It's a well known fact that despite equal opportunity programs, and whether it's deliberate or not, women and men are not on an equal footing.

My question is directed to the Retail Council of Canada representative. What steps should be taken to address this situation?

[Diane Brisebois]

Are you talking about women in particular or...

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

If your group espouses a different vision than the other groups, then I'd like to hear about it. However, perhaps you advocate an approach similar to theirs.

[Diane Brisebois]

We do in fact advocate a similar approach. Only 61% of women are in the active labour force, compared to 73% of men. As a Quebecker, you know that some laws in Quebec encourage women to return to work. In fact, women across Canada are being encouraged to reintegrate the labour market.

Instead of sitting back and waiting for legislation that will make it easier for women to reintegrate the job market, we have worked with our members to develop programs across the country to encourage women to go out into the workforce. Take daycare, for example. A growing number of Canadian retail companies subsidize daycare in the workplace to ensure that their female employees stay on the job. We are advocating a two-pronged approach: legislation to help women in the workforce, as well as industry measures to facilitate that process.

Have I answered your question?

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

Yes. On a similar note, you said that part-time work should be discouraged. From a business standpoint, that idea is somewhat ...

[Diane Brisebois]

That's not what I said. We are not opposed to part-time work, because our studies show that many people, whether students, or adult men and women, want to work part-time. Part-time workers are critically important to retail and small businesses.

We're saying that people must have easier access to the labour market, whether they choose to work part time or full time. Part-time and full-time work are equally difficult for women. To begin with, neither salaries nor job opportunities are the same. There is really no difference between part-time and full-time employment.

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

I understand. Thank you for clarifying that for me.

Still on the same topic, in the early 1980s, women were earning 62% of men's take-home pay, whereas today, that figure has risen to 72%. That means that today, there is still a difference of nearly 30% in the salaries paid to women and men. Would narrowing this gap be one way of encouraging women to enter the labour force?

[Diane Brisebois]

Absolutely, especially in the retail industry which faces stiff competition from the hospitality and other service industries. Therefore, it's very important to ensure equal pay for both men and women. That's one of the recommendations of the Retail Council of Canada and of the Quebec council. Action is needed at the regulatory and legislative levels to ensure that women stay in the labour force, share their time between work and family and earn the same salary as men doing the same work. That's essential.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have, Mr. Lessard. We'll have to try to catch you on the next round. Time flies.

Mr. Martin, five minutes for you, sir.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much.

The message I'm getting here this morning, particularly with this panel, is that one of the big challenges in Alberta these days is finding skilled workers. It's a question of looking at where they might be found, what are the pools? Diane, you talked about the disabled and creating workplaces that are adapted, and we heard some talk about women and getting more women in. We also heard that the fastest growing segment of our population in Canada at the moment is aboriginal, and yet each one of these groups is disproportionately represented in the group you defined as living in poverty.

We need to be doing something to try to reduce, if not eradicate, this terrible reality that exists in our country. We had some suggestions earlier and today of things we might do that would be helpful, and I would hope that even after today some of you might get together to talk about some stuff you could do that would be helpful, for example, the literacy people. Literacy is huge. We had a forum last night on poverty and people looking for opportunity, immigrants coming in, which is another pool. But they need literacy training, and to be cutting funding to literacy seems to me to be regressive. Also, they need proper and appropriate housing.

I want to ask Diane this. There was a suggestion--and I agree--that if we had a good national child care program in place, then more people, more families, more women in particular, who are now living in poverty because they can't get good work would be able to get into the workforce. Has the $100 approach to child care of the present government produced any more workers for you? Has it made it better? Has it made a difference?

[Diane Brisebois]

At this point, it would be impossible to answer that question, simply because it is too soon.

We are starting to do research, but the problem is that at the same time as there was a change in the child care legislation, there was also a change taking place within our industry, in that many of the companies, especially the larger companies, were starting to invest and develop child care programs for employees. So we need to separate both to see if in fact there's a difference between how the system works with the $100 now versus how it worked prior to the new legislation. It is too early to tell, Mr. Martin.

However, that being said, there is absolutely no question that women are not well represented or as well represented as they should be in the workforce. There's absolutely no question that they are challenged in regard to balancing the needs of family and the needs of work. As Monsieur Lessard mentioned, the other challenge for women is equal pay for equal work. There are a lot of challenges.

There is no question that legislation needs to be revisited to see if in fact it is encouraging women to go back to work if they wish to do so. That is extremely important.

In our industry, in the service sector, not only in the retail sector, women represent more than 50% of the workforce. It is extremely important for us that they be able to work and to be paid and to deal with the challenges of both personal needs and work needs.

Let me speak on the issue of aboriginals. The challenge I think we all have, from literacy to the work area, is that Statistics Canada does not include the population of reserves in its monthly measurements of national unemployment. So it is difficult to have an exact figure, but informal tracking and anecdotal evidence show that in fact unemployment for aboriginals is even higher than what has been reported.

I think we can look at that together as being a huge problem or a huge opportunity. We have a member called the North West Company, which is the largest employer of aboriginals after the Government of Canada. In fact, they have developed literacy programs and developed on-the-ground grassroots programs.

The message I would give to government and to this committee is that there is not one solution. Solutions must be grassroots, and they must be built around the needs of a specific community. We have found, especially with our retail members who live in those communities, that the most successful programs are those supported in the communities and supported by everyone and built for the communities.

So there are great opportunities but huge risks if we ignore aboriginal people, women, and people with disabilities. I think there are great opportunities for all of us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Martin. That is all the time you have for this round.

We are going to move to Ms. Yelich for five minutes, please.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Thank you very much. Thank you all very much for your presentations. You've given us some good stuff to work with.

I'll start with you, Mr. Kelly. Your graph shows that the disabled are getting into the workforce increasingly. What has caused that very dramatic increase? Maybe it is not that dramatic when you look at the other groups, but I think it is good. Can you give us anything that might tell us why this has happened?

[Dan Kelly]

Sure. I think several things have occurred, the greatest of which is that there is a strong economy. Strong economies across the west have meant that employers are having to be far more creative than they ever have been in the past in terms of finding pockets of the labour force to tap into.

One of the nicest things I see, as I travel across western Canada and I spend a lot of time in Saskatchewan and in Manitoba, where I'm from originally, is that a lot more these days, in small or medium-sized businesses, people are making these kinds of accommodations to attract aboriginal workers and the disabled into their workforces. I think the economy has probably the lion's share to do with that, because employers are recognizing that they have to do more for their own business interests. The reports we get back from members, particularly with respect to the disabled, show that when they hire and make those accommodations to hire a disabled worker, that worker is often their most loyal employee, somebody who is there day in and day out, who sticks with them for a longer period of time.

So there are some real incentives, and I think employers are beginning to recognize that.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I believe visibility does make a difference. I know Ontario has a television campaign right now trying to encourage the disabled in the workplace. I saw the first ad just recently, and it showed that science and research can be an area that they can tap into.

Is the Logistics Institute partnered at all with the government, or are you part of the sector council, or are you made up of membership companies of the industry? I just want to know about your membership. I know I can see your membership. I want to know if federal or provincial governments are involved.

[Karyn Ferguson]

We were originally funded under the sectoral partnership initiative by the federal government, and through that we developed programs, a number of resources, and standards. We've also done a great deal of research into the labour market based on that work.

We no longer are funded and are actually fiscally self-sufficient. Through industry and our members and their membership dues and our own operations, we're able to sustain our own operations now without being funded.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Is there parallel work to some of the research you've done in the government? Do you overlap with Statistics Canada, or do you share with them? I just want to know whether you are part of—