Human Resources Committee on March 27th, 2007

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Allison. I wasn't going to speak, but I heard Ms. Dhalla mention that there would be students in her riding who will be unable to work for not-for-profit groups.

Instead of getting into all this rhetoric that this is bad or that's bad, let us be very clear--and Mr. Lake just said this--that 100% of the funding for not-for-profit sectors has been preserved. That is 100%. So let's not get into games and say that there are students who are not going to be able to work in the not-for-profit sector. It hasn't changed on that front.

The only thing that has changed is that we're not subsidizing multinationals with hard-earned taxpayer dollars through this program, which means that a member doesn't need to look in a senior's eyes or a hard-working family's eyes and say that we're taking their federal tax dollars to subsidize Wal-Mart or to subsidize Safeway.

The riding that Mr. Lake previously mentioned, when he said $10,377 for Rogers Television, $2,212 for Ford Canada, and $20,000 for Bacardi, was Brampton--Springdale, which Ms. Dhalla would know quite well.

The good news about this change is that you can look taxpayers in the eyes and say that we are efficiently using their tax dollars and that we're not going to subsidize multinationals. I can't understand how anyone could be against that. I know it is the job of the opposition to get upset with government policies. But when we decide not to subsidize multinationals, and 100% of the funding goes to not-for-profit, how can you be against that? It is absurd.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. I only have two names left on the list, and if those are the only two names to speak, we can have a vote after that.

We'll go to Mr. Silva.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I'm going to be very brief, Mr. Chair.

I have never, frankly, heard so much double-talk and nonsense in my life. The reality is that, first of all, in my riding of Davenport, every single one of those groups is not-for-profit. Never mind about IDA or Wal-Mart or whatever. Those people should not be getting it. That's fine. We don't have a problem with that. The reality is that those community organizations are not-for-profit organizations. They need this program. It is not a question that they can hire on their own.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

They're getting it, Mario.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

No, because they have to now go city-wide. They are not going by riding anymore. They have to compete with a larger group of people. There are very affluent communities in Toronto that may not need those programs. But in ridings like my riding, which is a working-class riding in which there are tonnes of not-for-profit organizations working with the local communities, now they have to compete with everybody. Chances are that half of them won't get it, when they were getting it before.

They aren't big business. I just mentioned to you that every single one in my riding is a not-for-profit organization. More than half of them, I know, will now not be getting those programs this summer.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

That's not the case across the board.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

It is going to be the case, and those jobs are needed, because not-for-profit organizations have limited budgets. They don't have extra money to hire students in the summer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We'll go to Madam Savoie, and then we are going to finish up with Ms. Dhalla and have a vote, please.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I have just a final point. The issue seems to me to be oversimplified: either we subsidize Wal-Mart or we cut part of the program. They could have kept the total amount of funding. Looking back at the last report, I see that is what was suggested. There is no recommendation to cut any part of this program. The government could have shifted all the funding to non-profit and local government, where really good jobs are created.

It seems to me that the new criteria, although some of them, I concede, are very good, are overly restrictive, unnecessarily restrictive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. Ms. Dhalla, you can make a last comment, and then we are going to go to a vote.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

I just want to say, in closing, that whether it's not-for-profit or whether it's big business, like in Brampton--Springdale, where they had applied for funding and were able to hire students, the bottom line is that students across the country were able to have employment in the summer, to make jobs and actually pay down the tuition fees, pay for education, and pay for other important tools. If the Conservative government were really serious about this, Mike, with all due respect, if you guys were really serious, then you would have kept the funding where it was to make sure that even more non-profit organizations actually had the ability to hire students.

With the cut in funding of $10 million to $15 million less than what it was, there are going to be many non-profit businesses in this country that will not be able to hire students. The bottom line is that we can play all the partisan politics we want, but students in this country have been betrayed by the Conservative government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, those are all the comments. I'm now going to call the question.

(Amendment agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

On the motion, we've asked for a recorded vote.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

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

Is she allowed to vote? No. All right.

Mr. Chairman, I have a question. I realize it's been passed. I should add that something very significant just happened thanks to the Conservatives which we should not dismiss. There are examples here of summer job placements in multinational companies which should never have taken place.

Last year, Mr. Chairman, we worked very hard on this project. My colleague referred to that earlier.

I'm going to finish my question, Mr. Chairman.

I would call on our colleagues to provide us with the following information: the cases, the number of employees who gained access to these programs and the periods within which it happened. We need to be in a position here to make appropriate decisions. To avoid having the minister misled, we need to debate this issue and be aware of the situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. This is all the time I'm going to commit to this right now because we need to have witnesses here.

I would invite the witnesses up. I apologize. We will go a little bit over time to make sure that we have a fulsome discussion.

I welcome the witnesses to the table at this time.

We're going to break for 30 seconds just so they can change meetings, and then we'll get started in a moment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we proceed with our study of employability in Canada, and we'll now continue to hear our final group of witnesses.

We want to thank you for being patient with us as we worked through internal business matters and because we realize that you were probably scheduled to come and see us some time ago, so your schedules have been really flexible.

Without any other additional information, we'll just get started. Each group has seven minutes. I'll give you the two and the one, as we go, and then we'll follow that with a couple of rounds of questions.

I just want to welcome each individual. I know we have Mr. Davis, from the Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science, and so why don't we start off with your group.

You have seven minutes, sir, and welcome here, today.

[Kurt Davis, Executive Director, Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am a trained medical laboratory technologist as well as being the executive director for the Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science. I have a passion that runs deep for this profession, and you might say that I'm also married to the profession, as my wife is a current practitioner as well.

The Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science is the national certifying body for medical laboratory technologists and medical laboratory assistants in Canada. It is also a voluntary not-for-profit professional society that represents 14,000 medical laboratory professionals who work in almost every community in Canada.

Each and every one of you has had an encounter with the work of our profession at some time in your life. Medical laboratory technologists conduct sophisticated medical tests on blood, body fluids, and just about everything else they send to the laboratory. Test results are used by physicians to evaluate and make informed decisions about their patients' health and possible treatment. We are the people who work behind the biohazard “Do Not Enter” door, and therefore many people do not know or understand what it is that we do.

I'd like to share with you briefly some recent results from our elite survey study, which indicated that, of national decision-makers, over 60% of elected officials were unaware that medical laboratory professionals were Canada's third largest health profession; and secondly, that almost half of them did not know that up to 85% of medical decisions are based on medical laboratory results.

We recognize from these survey results that our profession has more work to do in order to help both elected officials and the general public understand our profession's contributions to health care. Our members are the diagnostic engine of the health care system and the lack of decision-maker awareness of our members' roles will only exaggerate the already existing funding and human resource challenges we face.

In preparation for our main point for this committee's consideration, I need to share with you a little bit about the regulatory environment for our profession in Canada.

Medical laboratory technologists are regulated in six provinces: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Employers in unregulated provinces also usually require CSMLS certification as a condition of employment for MLTs. CSMLS certification is entrenched as the gold standard for the entry-level requirement for medical laboratory technologists in Canada.

In 1999, our Council on National Certification approved a new process to determine the eligibility of internationally trained MLTs to the CSMLS certification exams. This process, called prior learning assessment, has three steps. The first is an evaluation of the academic credentials by external experts for document authenticity and equivalency; second is a proof of successful completion of language proficiency tests; and third—and we feel most important—is the thorough evaluation of the initial medical laboratory training program and a review of the experiential learning, professional development, and work experience in medical laboratory science. This work of the PLA process is conducted by CSMLS staff in our national office in Hamilton.

Once an individual has successfully completed all three steps, they are deemed eligible to write the CSMLS national certification exam. We do not grant certification without examination.

Due to the current and growing shortage of medical laboratory technologists in Canada, there's been an increased demand for PLAs. This increased demand has placed tremendous stress on our limited resources in the CSMLS certification area, as this process and these clients are very resource-intensive.

Currently, a significant proportion of those applying for assessment come from countries in the Middle East and the developing world, where standards are significantly different in our profession. Language proficiency and varying cultural norms and practices also pose additional challenges. It's concerning that less than half of all PLA applicants are deemed eligible to write the CSMLS exams. Even more concerning is the success rate for internationally educated professionals who challenge that exam. It's significantly less than that of the graduates for Canadian-accredited training programs.

A recent study found that internationally educated applicants who had completed a bridging program had a pass rate comparable to graduates of accredited training programs in Canada. Language proficiency was also noted as a significant determinant of success.

Our challenge to this committee is to recognize that the integration of internationally educated professionals into the Canadian workforce is a significant problem for all health professions, including medical laboratory technology. As ours is one of the five priority health professions identified by the Advisory Committee on Health Delivery and Human Resources, CSMLS is working closely with Health Canada and HRSDC on a number of initiatives to address future health human resources needs for our profession, including internationally educated health professions. CSMLS is committed to ensuring that their credentials are assessed fairly and efficiently, while at the same time safeguarding the integrity of the national certification process.

Previous barriers to certification, such as residency requirements and a requirement for Canadian work experience, have been identified and removed. Medical laboratory science is the only health profession with one-stop shopping for the assessment and evaluation of foreign credentials. A recent external audit found our process to be leading-edge and a model for others to follow.

While there are opportunities for improvement, CSMLS, as a not-for-profit, will be limited in the number we can address without additional funding. Clearly, we have done our part. We welcome the recent announcement to allocate $18 million towards establishing an agency for the assessment and recognition of foreign credentials. But it's clear that more support is required from the federal government to assist the voluntary not-for-profit professional associations that are already providing this service to the Canadian health system. It's the current practitioners who have funded this process. It's been done on the backs of the current workers. We are concerned that with a shrinking membership as baby boomers exit our industry, the future sustainability of this process will be in jeopardy.

We'd like to ask you to consider the following recommendations: to provide subsidies and financial assistance to voluntary not-for-profit organizations that provide prior learning assessment on a national basis to ensure that no unfair burden is placed on those organizations; to consider providing sustainable, ongoing funding for full-time bridging programs; to ensure that immigrants are given accurate information about regulatory requirements for health professions in Canada; to ensure that immigrants are given accurate information about employment opportunities for medical laboratory professionals in Canada; and finally, to develop appropriate language assessment tools and courses for internationally educated health professionals.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Davis, for your presentation.

We're now going to move to the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, from which we have Ms. Silas.

You have seven minutes, and thank you for being here today.

[Linda Silas, President, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions]

Thank you.

I'm a nurse and president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. We represent nine nurses unions across the country, except Quebec. We have 135,000 nurses. As I always joke, we represent the working nurses of this country.

I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to present our views on employability before the committee. You did hear from health professionals on September 21, and I want to take this time to thank Mr. Allison for allowing nurses unions to present our views on this issue.

The issues we raise are not unfamiliar to you. We bring an added perspective to what you heard that day on employment relationships and working conditions. We want to specifically bring your attention to the need for an immediate increase in investment in retention and recruitment strategies. I'll stress the retention aspect, because if we cannot retain our current health care workforce we will not be able to recruit. We need a strong role for the federal government in coordinating and facilitating a partnership for change.

Why hear about us again today? On December 11, Statistics Canada came out with the first survey on the health of nurses. The data is no surprise to nurses or nurses unions, and I would add that it is no surprise to health care employers. You have received a summary, which was distributed to you this morning.

One in five female nurses has more than one job, which is double the proportion of other employed female Canadians. Fifty per cent of nurses reported needle-stick injuries. Three in ten nurses experience pain that is serious enough to prevent them for carrying out normal activities. Two-thirds said that fewer staff is the reason that patient care is deteriorating.

By way of background, nursing is the most important labour force in Canada, not only because of its size but because of the demand and the values placed on it. That is not to say that we are the solution to everything. But when you fix the nursing workforce, it will have a ripple effect on the whole health care workforce.

Forty per cent of Canadian nurses are eligible to retire in the next five years. In order to offset this retirement, we would have to enrol 41,000 new nurses. Today we have 12,000 nursing seats and we graduate about 8,000 nurses a year. So you can see there's a big change coming.

We work an equivalent of 10,000 full-time jobs just in overtime. That's 18 million hours of overtime a year. Sick time was 52% higher in 2005 compared to 1987. What happened was the deep cuts in the 1990s. We are not going to debate why the cuts were made; we had to balance our budgets across the country, and we did. But we cut the most in health care. We need to modernize the health information and infrastructure in our workplace. We have an increased acuity of patients, and we have failed to have a national plan to look at the future.

Since 1999, numerous studies have been undertaken to examine the worsened labour shortage in the health care sector. This research has established a relationship between healthy work environment, workforce retention, and patient safety. We now need innovation in the workplace to test, to evaluate, and to replicate effective retention strategies.

Unions and professional associations are working to establish partnerships with employers to develop workplace projects in every province. Such projects would provide the opportunity for nurses to upgrade their skills to meet the serious shortage of critical care nurses while remaining in the rural regions and to utilize the expertise of seasoned nurses to allow workplace mentoring on a train-the-trainer model.

We are seeking support for these micro-innovations to be supported by macro-resources such as the federal government. We need to include policy change and different staff training models, to be evaluated and then replicated across the country.

There is also a need to address the full-time work. Fifty-three per cent of our workforce work full-time. This is compared to 85% of teachers. Nurses are working part-time casual and of course supplementing their incomes with overtime.

The Canadian Nursing Advisory Committee in 2002 recommended that 70% of the workforce should be full-time. We're not there yet. Provinces like Saskatchewan, P.E.I., and Newfoundland and Labrador lose 30% of their new graduates to other provinces.

Federal partnerships are needed for other than Toronto or Ottawa. We need to be building links in health care between provinces and local workplaces. Real changes in health care will only happen with the commitment of local employers and employees, the vast majority or whom are nurses.

In summary, Canada needs leadership from the federal government to support micro-innovation in workplace change, and a pan-Canadian approach to health human resource planning that looks at needs, retention, and recruitment, and facilitates partnerships between employers, unions, government, and professional associations.

Merci.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you for that presentation.

We're now going to move to Mr. Buschman as an individual.

Sir, you have seven minutes.

[Louis Buschman, Consultant, As an Individual]

Thank you. It's a real honour to be invited here to offer my input on this issue, and I'll just jump right into things.

Since disabilities are non-discriminatory, and physical, mental, emotional, or sensory disabilities can be acquired at any time to anyone regardless of age, race, education, or social or economic background, I think we all have a stake at looking at the employability of persons with disabilities today.

As you know by now, some disabilities are temporary in nature, some are permanent, and some are easily accommodated, while others are more of a challenge. The fact is that eventually the likelihood is that most of us will have a disability at one point or another in our lives. I think the numbers have already been discussed by a number of the other witnesses before me, so I won't go into any detail about the statistics.

Before continuing, I want to tell you a little bit about my own background. I have more than 15 years of experience working with people with disabilities of all types, in both front line and management capacities. In my current work as a consultant on employment and disability issues, my goal is to make it easier for people with disabilities looking for employment and employers to connect.

Why would the federal government care about this issue? Because, as I believe and a number of other witnesses have explained, the workforce shortages will require Canadian employers from all sectors, including public, private, and non-profit, to access and use all available talent pools for human resources. Immigration alone will not solve our workforce shortages, and increasing the retirement age will also mean that employers need to better understand accommodation issues that arise as we age.

For the purposes of this presentation, employability will mean any of the following: part-time, full-time, temporary, permanent, or seasonal employment; short- or long-term contracts; self-employment; supported employment opportunities; or student summer job placements.

First, employability for people with disabilities is not just about doing the job--although obviously it's the most important, and a factor of employability--but it's also about being able to get to that job, having access to employment-related training opportunities, access to supports that facilitate finding and maintaining employment and supports, such as attended care for people with some physical disabilities. It's also about timely and appropriate provision of technical aids, access to education, and access to career development practitioners, including job developers who understand disability issues. These career development practitioners are in both private and non-profit service agencies as well as in college and university career centres.

Other issues that affect employability include the lack of harmonization of legislation across federal and provincial boundaries or departments. Employability is also about supporting the needs of immigrant and visible minorities with disabilities, aboriginals, injured workers on return-to-work programs, students with disabilities, etc.

It's a pretty complicated situation, but I don't think it should be. I think the issue is that people want to work so let's help them. Most people want to contribute, and most employers really want access to the best talent available. A talent pool of people with disabilities has some of that depth. But it means that we have to work together to make it happen.

What can we do to make sure that all people who are able to work can find employment? Since most solutions to workforce shortages are predicated on a combination of immigration and increasing numbers of older workers, there are a couple of things that I think need to be addressed.

One is that while not all immigrants, by any stretch of the imagination, have experienced war or civil strife, many of those who have may have mental health problems that surface only once they are feeling comfortable in their new life. These mental health issues will need recognizing, addressing, and programs to deal with them effectively so that the person is able to continue on with minimal disruption to their work experience. The federal government could work with other stakeholders to ensure that appropriate programs are available regardless of where that individual moves in the country.

There also seems to be little discussion on how to accommodate the growing needs of older workers, although I recognize that a task force was recently struck to deal with that issue. While increasing the retirement age does seem to offer solutions, it isn't without some problems. The main problem is that as we get older, we're at greater risk of developing disability and chronic medical conditions, mobility issues, and sensory disabilities. Strategies, again, will need to be developed to accommodate those needs. I believe the federal government can play a role in convening various stakeholders--all stakeholders hopefully--to ensure that a comprehensive strategy is in place.

Another thing the federal government could do is lead by example, as one of the biggest employers in Canada, if not the biggest. The private and non-profit sectors also need to see that you, as a national government, value the abilities of people with disabilities. If you're not able to increase the representation of people with disabilities in your workforce, that sends a very strong negative message to other employer groups.

That being said, there are many employers that have seen the value and that are actively recruiting and employing people with disabilities. Some of them are big business, like banks, but there are a number of other smaller employers hiring people with disabilities as well, because they recognize the value that those people's talents bring to their business.

The federal government could help the cause by developing a national recognition program to honour the employers of various sizes that are employing people with disabilities, much like NRCan is doing.

Typically, business people like to learn from other business people. Perhaps the government could partner with umbrella groups like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and the Canadian Labour Congress to develop the business case and a communications strategy for getting the work out.

There are also return-to-work programs for people with mental health issues. The Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health has a report that outlines steps to minimize the impact of mental health on the workforce.

Also, early intervention programs need to be put in place to recognize things like learning disabilities at an early age and to implement strategies for minimizing the impact on a person's employability.

Last, there's a need to get involved in the inmate population and to recognize the invisible disabilities that are prevalent among inmates and people with criminal backgrounds, and to develop a strategy to help those people increase their employability and decrease their recidivism rate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Buschman. We appreciate that.

We're now going to move to the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of Canada.

We've got...is it Ms. Bose?

[Dr. Anuradha Bose, Executive Director and Project Manager, National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of Canada]

Yes, just like the speakers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Just like the speakers. They're great speakers.

And we have Ms. Pobric.

Thank you very much for being here. You ladies have seven minutes.

[Dr. Anuradha Bose]

Thank you.

Bonjour. Good morning.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your kind invitation, and to you, Mr. Truelove, for facilitating our first visit to your committee.

Our appearance here is due to pure serendipity: a chance encounter in a parliamentary corridor with the member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, a riding with which I have a long association through its former inmate, the Honourable David Kilgour.

My name is Anu Bose. I am the executive director of the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of Canada. With me is my colleague Mirjana Pobric. I will speak, and Ms. Pobric will be here to answer any questions you might have for us. We are both able to speak from personal experience, having been casualties of the foreign credentials and lack of Canadian experience syndrome.

We are here to present to you the findings of our project “Creating Employment Opportunities for Immigrant Women in Canada”. This one-year project, which ends on March 31, 2007, was carried out with financial assistance from Status of Women Canada.

At the very outset we wish to state that the sample on which the findings are based is not scientific. The results are based on a series of interviews with employers, small, medium and large, public and private, and face-to-face meetings between the employers and immigrant women in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

What do we mean by employability in the immigrant's context? Education and training are sure tickets for entry into Canada. Seventy per cent of all adult immigrants to Ontario--the province of choice for newcomers--arrive with post-secondary credentials. Federal immigration policy, contends the Globe and Mail editorial from December 19 last year, is based more on long-term adaptability than a simple match to labour market needs. Once they're landed, it is in Canada's interest to ensure that their credentials and their competencies are fairly assessed and they are able to find employment commensurate with their skills and qualifications.

NOIVMWC has testimonies from newcomer women to show that this cohort of immigrant women and men are better qualified than ever before, yet they are worse off economically than any previous less-educated cohorts. Employability for us immigrants has come to mean being consigned to “McJobs”--dead-end, low-waged, and unskilled work--or short-term contract work with little or no benefits in a flexible labour market. Underemployment is the immigrant's curse, and we are the victims of skill erosion and what Professor Jeffrey Reitz has referred to as brain waste.

Immigrant or new Canadian status has become a liability when trying to enter the Canadian workforce. What prevents us immigrants from being employable? NOIVMWC found that there are a number of reasons that make immigrants unemployable. Some are systemic, and some are based on individual prejudice and ignorance.

There is the vexatious question of foreign credentials, which I think has been belaboured to death. We regret the federal government's recent announcements that the long-promised agency has now been downgraded to a pathfinding referral service that small agencies are doing with limited resources. We do not see any concerted efforts to create alternative methods of assessing immigrants' competencies and work experience in their countries of origin or third countries.

There is discrimination, not often subtle, against immigrants because they have foreign-sounding names or because they look, talk, or dress differently from other Canadians. Too many immigrant men and women have been discouraged from applying after having been ignored by the selection process.

There is a marked tendency in Canadian HR circles to be more concerned with fit between a person and an organization or a department. This allows some highly subjective criteria to be used when assessing a person, which would not be the case if there was more emphasis on the objective criteria of ability, competence, and achievement. Therefore, there is a predisposition to hire people who are either from their own networks or come from the same demographic groupings.

Speaking of networks, immigrants, even well-educated and experienced middle-class ones, find their intellectual and social capital is not portable.

There is also a question of language barriers. Canada requires knowledge of one or other of the two official languages for entry. On arrival, newcomers become too preoccupied with their survival to be able to acquire new language skills or upgrade qualifications, leaving little of the money that they bring in to go into the expensive requalification and upgrading battle.

Our brief, which we have distributed, is a very simple one. We have for you a list of recommendations made by employers and immigrant women sitting at the same table in different cities. We hope you will take time to read them. The full report is available on our website, and we have some here for you also.

All immigrant and visible minority women and men want is a level playing field, or at least the opportunity to learn to swim in the same pool as other Canadians.

Merci. Thank you for your indulgence.