Human Resources Committee on March 27th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'd like to call this meeting to order pursuant to Standing Order 108.(2). Our study of employability in Canada will continue.

For the sake of the members of Parliament who are present right now, we were working on a subcommittee report on agenda and procedure, as well as on a motion from Mr. Lessard. My question to the group is whether we want to deal with that issue now, as we said we would, or look at that afterwards.

You want to deal with it now? If I could just ask the witnesses to be patient for one second, we're going to deal with a little housekeeping, first of all.

Go ahead, Mr. Lessard, please.

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

Mr. Chairman, out of respect for our witnesses, I suggest that we set aside 15 minutes at the end of the meeting to deal with that. We could now move to our witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay. Is that all right, then?

Why don't we get started with the witnesses, then.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I don't have my translation. Could you tell me what we just agreed to?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Lessard suggested that we hear the witnesses who are here now and that we deal with the motion in the last 15 minutes. Is that correct?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay. We'll get started right now.

We have two meetings this morning. The way things will work today, for the witnesses who haven't been here before, is that there are seven minutes for each group for your opening statements, and that will be followed by a couple of rounds of questioning. The microphones will automatically turn on when I identify you or when the member of Parliament identifies you. For those who have been here before, this will be old news. For those of you who need translation, there are translations in the earphones.

Mr. McKeown and Ms. Moore, from the CNIB, welcome this morning. You have seven minutes, please.

[Bill McKeown, Vice-President, Government Relations, CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind)]

Good morning. Thank you very much for inviting us. I'm wondering, for my benefit and Cathy's benefit, if we could do introductions around the table so we know where people are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Most definitely. Why don't we start with the Bloc. If you could introduce yourselves, we'll go around the table.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Hello, my name is France Bonsant. I am the Bloc Québécois member for Compton—Stanstead, in the province of Quebec, and I happen to have the flu.

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

My name is Yves Lessard. I am the member for Chambly—Borduas, on the south shore of Montreal.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I'm Gary Merasty, MP from Saskatchewan. I'm Liberal, as well.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Hi, Mike Savage, member of Parliament from Dartmouth--Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

My name is Dean Allison. I'm the chair, and I'm a Conservative.

I'll just mention that you have the NDP sitting next to you, but they both have stepped out for a second, and there are a couple of Liberals missing who will be showing up, I'm sure. And a couple of my colleagues are missing.

Go ahead, Mr. Lake.

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

Mike Lake, Conservative member of Parliament for Edmonton--Mill Woods-Beaumont.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I'm Lynne Yelich from Blackstrap.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, there you go.

[Bill McKeown]

We have distributed our brief, and I'm sure you have taken the opportunity to read that. It contains the factual information, so we don't think we'll go over the brief, because you're quite capable of understanding that, I hope. We'd be very happy to answer questions about that when we're finished.

What we thought we would do this morning is tell you a couple of stories of how employment can affect the lives of people with vision loss. I thought there was no better story than my own to tell, as I'm quite familiar with it.

I grew up as a sighted child and went through school and through college being what I thought was able to see, but when I was 21, I was diagnosed with an eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa. I was told at that point in time that I would be blind by Christmas, which is a scary thing to have happen to you when you're that age. Needless to say, that devastated me and my family. There really wasn't anyone to talk to or anyone to turn to. My ophthalmologist referred me to CNIB.

CNIB at that point in time had a number of vocational counsellors and a number of employment counsellors. That's where I was referred. The vocational counsellors sat with me and talked about the eye condition, but also took the time to listen to what I wanted to do. They helped me work towards the goal I had set for myself. Although some people would think it would not have been a great goal for a person with vision loss to try to aspire to, they worked with me. They helped me get into school. They encouraged me. They provided me with the support I needed to have the courage to keep going forward at a time when I really felt I probably would be unemployable, that I'd probably never work, that I'd be reliant on family benefits or something like that.

From there I did go back to school. I went back to being a post-graduate, and then I came back to CNIB, and their employment counsellors worked with me to help me find employment. I worked for 10 years in the private sector in a couple of different jobs before I came back and ended up working at CNIB.

One of the things that were there then that I don't see today is that kind of support being available. The CNIB was being supported at that time through the federal government to provide the kind of support that I needed. It enabled me to move forward and get my life together. I've been able to go on and, I think, be fairly successful. I have a wife and a couple of kids who are all sighted and I live quite a normal life as a taxpaying person. Without that support initially and without that help, I probably would never have got the courage to go back to work.

One thing that I think is extremely important is that we find a mechanism to put those kinds of supports in place so that people like me, the young people who are coming along today, and others at a more senior age who lose their sight can have the ability to maintain a somewhat normal lifestyle and continue to work and be productive members of society.

I'm going to turn it over to Cathy now. Cathy has a couple of other stories to tell.

[Cathy Moore, Director, Consumer and Government Relations, CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind)]

Thank you.

Just as an additional fact to add to the brief we presented to you, according to the Government of Canada's own report in the year 2005, 80% of all the money spent on disability was spent on income support. We would maintain that this is unnecessary. With the appropriate interventions, that amount can be lessened and more people can become taxpayers.

To conclude today, I'll just tell you a very brief story relating to our first point on the need for awareness of ability. When I was 18, in grade 12, as a young kid with a congenital visual impairment, which means that I have about 10% of usual vision--and I think that 20:20 vision has to be superfluous, because I feel I'm doing fine--I went to our local St. Thomas, Ontario, public library and applied to be a page. They interviewed me, and they were very thoughtful and tried to be sensitive and said, “I'm sorry, dear, but we just don't feel you're going to be able to do this. We need people to put the books away in order, and we don't think you're going to be able to do this.” They hired somebody else. Lucky for me, that somebody else didn't work out. So they called me back in, and they said they would hire me, but I would be on probation.

It was my first paying job outside of babysitting. I in fact did very well at it. I learned all kinds of things. I learned to keep trying. I learned to accommodate myself. My job accommodation was to drag the stool around with me so I could climb up to look at the top shelf to get it in order. The other one was to remain agile so I could lie down on the floor and get the bottom shelf in order. I did fine. I learned all kinds of things there that everybody needs to learn in order to develop a good work ethic, and I was able to do it because I was given a chance.

The awareness of people's abilities in the disability community by employers is really lacking. People don't know how to accommodate. People don't know what to do. So we end up with this pool of qualified people, because the educational attainment of people with disabilities is starting to near the norm, but the unemployment rate is still horrendously high. There is no other sector in which we would put up with that.

I will conclude by saying that if we can do the three things we have suggested in our brief--increase awareness of ability, increase the capacity within the labour market sector to provide accommodation, and focus on youth and make sure youth get the kinds of experience they need--if we can do those things through labour market agreements with the provinces, we'll really see some gains or, might I suggest, a diminishing of that 80% of money spent in this country on simple income support.

If we have more time, we'll say more things, Chairman Allison, but I suspect that we're at the end of our seven minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You've run almost to the end. So you did a very good job on the timing.

[Cathy Moore]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to move to our next group, the Canadian Centre for Global Professionals. Mr. Chowdhury and Mr. Malek, you gentlemen have seven minutes.

[Monjur Chowdhury, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Centre for Global Professionals]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members of Parliament. On behalf of the Canadian Centre for Global Professionals, please allow me to express my highest enthusiasm for presenting something to you that I've been dreaming of for years.

The objectives of our presentation are to share the experiences and recommendations of effective and proactive ways of dealing with the challenges of employability in Canada. I will focus on three important points: first, our approach to employability; second, our recommendations; and third, why we think we will be successful.

First, I have a couple of words about us. The Canadian Centre for Global Professionals is a unique initiative of new Canadian professionals. It offers professional skills and knowledge, in an organized and innovative way, to government organizations, academic institutions, and research and development centres.

I will focus on the successful diagnosis of the problems.

Michael Bloom, from the Conference Board of Canada, completed several powerful and very interesting studies about employability. We are in agreement that a conservative estimate of lost immigrant income is more than $3 billion to $5 billion per year. In his work, Dr. Malek and Dr. Ahmed from the University of Ottawa did a wonderful job.... Here I have the full scientific work from the Canadian scientist: Dynamic Model for Population Distribution and Optimum Immigration and Job Creation Policies. Unfortunately, none of these recommendations has been applied.

Secondly, provincial and federal governments do not have a consensus about underutilized foreign credentials. It is our understanding that if this concept is not implemented properly, it could send a message to the rest of the world about this catastrophic mismanagement of human resources. It is almost like inviting guests to your home and then going out and leaving the guests to fend for themselves.

These are our findings. However, we have a successful solution. Our slogan is “Stop Complaining, Start Contributing”. Our organization is built in such a way that its goal is constructive cooperation. We are looking for your cooperation to work with us.

In Ottawa, we have organized a teachers worker cooperative called Alive Education & Consulting. We have more than 12 foreign-trained teachers who are waiting to be members of our organization. In Toronto we have three organizations. One is working for the technology transfer to foreign countries, the second is working in the field of finance, and third one is in the field of education. At the federal level we have an organization called ICAN: Immigrant and Refugee Community Action Network, and we have more than 40 members there.

Now, allow me to go to the recommendations. I have six recommendations but I will touch on only one or two.

The first recommendation is to invest in new Canadian professionals with a global perspective. I'm talking about an action plan for the development of export- and import-related businesses in new technology--for example, renewable energy, nuclear technology, nanotechnology, etc., which will be a practical solution for job creation inside and outside of Canada. As you know, new Canadians bring their knowledge connections and linguistic and cultural skills that are used by these talented people who have left their countries of origin. We need to remind ourselves that there are billions of people in China, India, and Africa, and there are tremendous resources waiting for us there.

The second recommendation is about supporting alternative methods of job creation.

The third recommendation is about having a proactive and effective immigration system.

The fourth one is on support systems in education.

The last one is on Canadian working experience.

I believe we will be successful, and l will express my optimism by talking for a minute about a success story. This is about Professor Muhammad Yunus, who got the Nobel Prize last year. Through his creative enterprise he has made it possible for about eight million to ten million people with no qualifications to find real solutions to their economic problems.

Honourable members of Parliament and leaders of Canada, I'll never understand why we in Canada, one of the richest, largest, wealthiest countries in the world with the brightest, most talented, and skilled people in the world, would not be able to change our lives. Many of us experienced specialists are just surviving, but I believe that if we work hard we can change our lives. I will be working until the end of my life in this wonderful world, and that is why I believe I will be successful.

I appreciate my friend Dr. Abdul Malek, who is working hard with us.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. We look forward to asking you some questions when we move to the next round.

We'll now move to the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers and Ms. Lemay.

You have seven minutes, please.

[Marie Lemay, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Council of Professional Engineers]

Bonjour.

Before I start, I want to thank my colleagues from the CNIB. I've attended a couple of these committee meetings, and this introduction was very helpful for me too, so thank you for asking that.

Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here today to discuss a matter which is of major importance to the engineering profession. My name is Marie Lemay. I am the Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers.

It's a pleasure to be here to talk about a really important subject for the engineering profession, and that is the skills shortage. Before I go into it, I'll say a few words about who we are.

We are a national organization that represents 12 provincial and territorial licensing bodies. Through them, more than 160,000 engineers are licensed across Canada. We are a non-partisan organization. We are the national voice for the profession. We're not guided by self-interest; it is the protection of public safety that is our mandate.

On the skills shortage, in the context of the globalization of the knowledge-based economy that we will have to compete in, the increasing need for a highly skilled labour force is a really important issue for the profession.

We've decided to address it and to tackle the three areas of immigration, women, and aboriginals. It's not that they're the only ones, but they're the ones we've prioritized.

Why is immigration so important to us? Aside from the government saying that by 2010, 100% of the growth of our labour force is going to be through immigration, we have licensing bodies right now in this country where more than 50% of their applicants are educated outside Canada. It is a real issue.

In 2002 the engineering profession decided to address this very complex issue. We decided to make it a priority, and it's been one of our top priorities for at least the last five years. Some of you know that because you've heard me talk about this before.

We started a project called “From Consideration to Integration”. The objective of the project is to ensure timely licensure for international engineering graduates from the moment they start thinking about coming to Canada until the moment they get jobs in Canada, without lowering standards. It's a project that we started in 2003. It's been a priority three-phase project. We're now in the implementation phase. There are some great stories.

What's different about this project, which we call FC2I, is that it uses a grounds-up approach. It's not a project done by engineers for engineers; we brought to the table academia, employers, immigrant-serving agencies, and government representatives who came up with recommendations that were not strictly recommendations for the licensing bodies. They went into the areas of research, information, and employment.

We decided to cast open the net and said we would not do this within a silo perspective, but we would do it horizontally and then find whoever was needed to lead the implementation of the recommendations.

It's about building a safety net for what I call a very complex multi-jurisdictional process. It's about targeted and sustained efforts to make a difference.

We already have made a difference. There are a number of projects. We have things like provisional licences in place. We have mentoring programs. We're now building an international institution database. If I had more time, I would go into this, but you can go to our website. There's some exciting stuff happening.

We think we now need to build on those successes. We think the government can identify two things.

One thing the government can do is make changes to the selection process in the immigration process. The engineering profession was previously involved in the selection process, but the Immigration Act was changed and the engineering profession is not involved anymore.

Why is it important that we be involved? It's because education is the first step to licensure. The profession in Canada evaluates whether or not education meets the licensure needs. Why not get us involved right at the beginning, so that you'd set accurate expectations and have fewer settlement problems? It's really important that we get back into the process as soon as possible.

The other thing that's really important to us is the proposed foreign credential referral office that was announced in the budget. We've been very supportive of this initiative and supportive of any initiative that will help the process, but it's really important that there be no duplication and a respect of jurisdiction. That's what we're hearing, and it sounds good. But it's again very important that engineers be referred to the engineering regulatory bodies for the same purpose, because the education will be assessed by the engineering profession.

In terms of women in engineering, it's another group where we think more effort needs to be made. I don't know whether or not you know this, but right now only 20% of enrolled undergraduate students in engineering are women, and 9% of them are practising engineering. Those numbers are very small.

We've been working very hard at this. There are a number of initiatives that we've left with you, but we need the government to help us in having a more coordinated approach.

It's the same thing for aboriginals. We've set up a task force, and we're trying to find ways to attract aboriginal students into engineering.

I would now briefly like to address the issue of national mobility, which is very important. Engineering was identified as one of the leading professions in this regard. From an international mobility standpoint, it is also important.

I'd like to finish with the three recommendations that we have.

The first one is that the government needs to be there for the long term. These issues are not simple issues; they're complex issues, and they need a sustained and long-term effort.

In terms of immigration, again, the selection process needs to be changed. The engineering profession needs to address engineering education.

In terms of women and aboriginals, we think the government should go back to funding targeted recruiting and retention programs for science and engineering.

The last one has to do with the leadership of government. I believe this is an extremely important issue for this country. If we want to compete in this global economy and this knowledge economy, we have to get more kids into science and engineering, and not just women and aboriginals. There's something we're not doing right if we compare our numbers to those of other countries. I really think it's so important and crucial that we need to have something at the high level. That's why I ask, why not a prime ministerial task force on this issue, so that we can actually bring the skills we need to this country?

Thank you.