Evidence of meeting #51 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was quebec.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Steven Schumann  Director, Canadian Government Affairs, International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 793
Robert Blakely  Director, Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office
Yves-Thomas Dorval  President, Quebec Employers' Council
Norma Kozhaya  Director of Research and Chief Economist, Conseil du patronat du Québec

4:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you very much, Madame Beaudin.

We're now going to move back over to the Conservatives. I believe Mr. Cannan is up.

4:45 p.m.

Conservative

Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses. I appreciate the discussion around the table. As previous colleagues have mentioned, several witnesses have been at the various meetings, and Minister Finley as well as the staff, and we've alluded to the approximately 190,000 employees who will benefit from the amendment to the EI act, as well as to the work share programs. There are about 8,500 work share agreements in place helping about 165,000 employees. So it is a suite of programs that we have implemented, with the additional five weeks and with the economic action plan, and trying to put them all together to build on that and monitor it and be responsible. We'd love to be able to help everybody, and that is our effort as we move forward. But we also have to be responsible for taxpayers' dollars.

As an association, Mr. Blakely, you mentioned that this specific bill, C-50, would materially assist your members. How many members would benefit from this particular legislation amendment that is being proposed?

4:50 p.m.

Director, Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Robert Blakely

With our current membership, roughly half a million members on any given day, we represent 8% of the workforce in Canada. So if you look around, I think your number was 190,000 people who will benefit from this, and based on that 8%, on any given day about 13,000 of our members will benefit.

But I'd also like to make sure that the apprentices, a significant number of them, don't fail to benefit. I'd like them to benefit.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

We're very adamant about supporting our apprentices. As we know, that's a sustainable workforce that we need to mentor.

I know in British Columbia we've been working at a promotion on the female marketplace for our apprentices as well, so it is really encouraging to see in the mostly male-dominated trades a lot of females are entering. As the father of three daughters, it is encouraging to make sure that we have an equal opportunity employment sector.

We had the Canadian Federation of Independent Business here on Tuesday and they talked about the whole aspect of an accountable EI program. As we know, the money is gone, the $57 billion or however much was expended. The fact is it's not there, so we're working at trying to be accountable in the future. What would you recommend? Would you support the mandate of a new EI program, where it is going to be balanced and have cost recovery?

4:50 p.m.

Director, Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Robert Blakely

I believe that EI should be self-funding wherever possible. I also believe that the current legislative regime makes it difficult for that to be achieved, given the strictures there are on the finance board to raise enough revenue. I forget exactly the number, but they can only change the premium in a narrow band. If they could do more, I would be happier.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

Colleagues from Quebec, as far as the proposed Bill C-50 goes, as I said, it's not the panacea, not the silver bullet--these are all incremental programs to help the workers--but would some of your members benefit from this legislation that's being proposed?

4:50 p.m.

President, Quebec Employers' Council

Yves-Thomas Dorval

No, it is the employees who have lost their jobs. But employees work for companies. Of course, people in Quebec are probably going to benefit from it, but to go as far as to say... We represent employers. We notice that the contributors will be the ones to pay, and employers are going to have to pay more for this new program. That is what worries us, as I am telling you. Now is not a good time to ask people to pay more.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

Thank you very much.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Mr. Martin from the Liberals, five minutes.

October 22nd, 2009 / 4:50 p.m.

Liberal

Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all very much for being here today.

I have three questions: one is on equity and two are on structural reform.

On the first one, on equity, I'm from British Columbia and it seems to me there are great interprovincial differences in terms of eligibility requirements, so I would ask, do you not think--I think Mr. Schumann mentioned that one size doesn't fit all--it would be reasonable and fair to ensure that there was going to be one standard for every worker across the country?

On my second question, I think all of us are very concerned about the deficit in skilled trades in Canada. I was curious if you had done a human resources assessment of what those projected deficits would be in the various skills trades. If you could at some time give that to the committee, I'm sure that would be of great interest to us.

Lastly, you mentioned a fundamental concept, Mr. Blakely, which is making sure that EI becomes a self-funding situation, more like a true insurance program. Do you have a structure and plan on how to make that happen?

Thanks very much.

4:55 p.m.

Director, Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Robert Blakely

Let me answer all three of your questions.

The current system, which contains, I believe, 50-some zones and 50-some different qualifications, where someone living almost across the street has a different qualifying period, makes no sense to me. It needs to be fixed.

On the second issue--can we talk about the skilled trade deficit?--we do LMI studies through the construction sector council on an annual basis. I can get you some of that material, and I will undertake to do so and get it to the committee in reasonable time.

Thirdly, how would I make EI better through the funding arrangement? I think the short answer to that is, EI needs to be self-funding, and if it builds a surplus, a reasonable surplus needs to be maintained in order to look out for those rainy days. I would say that succeeding governments of Canada used EI for their discretionary funding and we're now paying the price for that.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Given the demographic changes taking place in Canada today and the competition that is going to occur from many different sectors in our economy beyond what has already been done by previous governments, do you have any sense of how one can incent young people to actually pursue the skilled trades?

4:55 p.m.

Director, Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Robert Blakely

We spend a lot of time and a lot of resources in trying to recruit young people. They say that if you're trying to recruit someone into the trades in high school, you are five or six years too late. You should be starting in grade 5, grade 6. We're actually trying to get some programs going that do this.

By putting the training that a young person gets in the trades on par with other secondary school education, that is, by the provision of some grants, some incentives to go to school, by perhaps service scholarships, as has been done in Saskatchewan.... There are a number of things that can be done. We've been to your committee a number of times in the past and mentioned mobility incentives, training incentives. In fact, your committee has even come out and made some recommendations that have adopted some of the things we've suggested. Unfortunately, none of the recommendations has ever seemed to find their way into law. They've just been recommendations.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

I think one of the sad things, and we all know about it, is the decrease in access to skilled trade opportunities within the training programs of secondary schools. I think that's a really sad thing. We know when things are cut, the trades programs are cut in schools because they are so expensive, but I think we all lose when that happens.

Thank you for your comments.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

We'll move over to Mr. Komarnicki for five minutes.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK

Thank you for appearing and putting forth your points of view. There has obviously been a divergence of opinion from the many witnesses we have heard, which indicates the difficulty that this committee and government face in coming to a conclusion.

I know we've gone through a period of recession. There are some predictions that the economy is recovering, but the general trend has been that skills upgrading and training is something that is essential. Certainly as we go forward there will be needs for retraining in many cases.

Mr. Blakely, from your perspective, would you agree that funding into areas of skills upgrading and retraining would be important and should be continued?

4:55 p.m.

Director, Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK

Mr. Dorval, you seem to be agreeing. Do you have any thoughts about that?

4:55 p.m.

President, Quebec Employers' Council

Yves-Thomas Dorval

Are you referring to vocational retraining?

Yes, I would say that if there is one measure that all the players in Quebec would agree on wholeheartedly—I mentioned this a little earlier when I spoke about the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail—it is this one. This is a priority in Quebec.

In fact, the more effort we put into ensuring that workers are trained or retrained, the more likely we are to see a drop in unemployment, especially when we are dealing with the next challenge. Historically, the crisis we are currently going through is extremely brief. Nevertheless, particularly in Quebec where we will soon be facing a sizable demographic deficit, it is extremely important to find ways to ensure that our workers are better trained or retrained.

Also, when we go through a period of economic slowdown, we have to work more to maintain people's jobs, so that the employers do not lose them and that they will be ready when the recovery occurs. This is essential for us. This is a unanimous opinion, and not only among employers. This is also the feeling in a community and in Quebec society. We have had structural unemployment problems and we want to deal with them. This is extremely important to us, this is our priority.

5 p.m.

Director, Canadian Government Affairs, International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 793

Steven Schumann

I think one thing is to make sure they get the right training.

If you look at some of the problems out there, it's actually about getting the information out, even to Service Canada.

Mr. Lobb, when you and I met in the spring, I mentioned our training school. You were quite unaware of it, and service centres are unaware that we exist as training schools, and we actually put them to the provinces. To give a general example, let's say Bob's Trucking School is going to give you training on four pieces of equipment in four weeks. That doesn't give you the skill that you'll need to actually get a job, to run a forklift or a backhoe. There needs to be more information out there. If you want to get the right training, you have to ask for the right training, which means going to a school or a college that is going to give you the right accreditation and the proper training to move forward, and not to one of these private enterprises that have now been struck up and are actually getting a buck and not actually training anyone.

5 p.m.

Director, Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Robert Blakely

If you'll permit me, I'd like to comment.

Across this country the construction unions maintain a training infrastructure with $600 million, and every year we spend $200 million on training. That is all private money. The closest the Government of Canada has ever come to helping us was the TCIF, the training centre infrastructure fund, that the Liberal government put in place. It was a pilot program worth $25 million. When the new Government of Canada took power, they axed that, along with a lot of other funding, I guess because it came from the Liberals; I don't know.

The short answer with regard to training is that we need training capacity in this country. There are thousands of jobs that are going to go begging because we can't get people trained. As well, there needs to be a really good look between HRSDC and the people who provide training, in my view, to find out ways that we can do it beyond the community college.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK

Given that fact, I suppose the training has to be specific and it needs to be effective. As well, you don't want to spend three years when you can maybe achieve that in six months or a year. There's obviously room for improvement in a number of areas.

Mr. Blakely, you said we need to cover more workers, cover seasonal workers, and cover a whole vast situation that we're not now covering, but at the same time you're saying it needs to be self-funding. The aspect I'd like to raise, depending on my time, is if you're going to add benefits, it's going to mean either an increase in premiums or an increase in the deficit.

I gather, Mr. Dorval, that your view is that there shouldn't be either of those. You would like to see the employer's share brought down and brought closer to equality with the employee's share. It's fine to say you'd like to cover a wider spectrum of people and so on, but what's the reality?

Mr. Dorval, what are your thoughts about that comment?

5 p.m.

President, Quebec Employers' Council

Yves-Thomas Dorval

As I said earlier, the employment insurance program covers various aspects, and we have to take that into consideration. It is not just about benefits. Prior to the current recession, expenditures were more or less divided as follows: 50% for benefits and 50% for parental leave insurance, training, health insurance, administration, etc. In a nutshell, employment insurance includes many things, and it is going to take much more than a quick simple discussion about one aspect of the bill to really draw solid conclusions.

As far as we are concerned, we will be the first in line to participate in discussions on a comprehensive reform. It is understandable that we would want to see the employers' contribution remain stable, limited. We do not want to reduce it, but at the very least, we do not want to see employers forced to pay higher payroll taxes. We need to make sure that companies can create other jobs and enable more people to join the labour force rather than be on unemployment.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you very much.

Mr. Godin, we're going to give you a couple of minutes. You can take five, if you want. I know that Mr. Lessard wanted one additional question as well, so we're going to finish up with you two gentlemen.

Go ahead, Mr. Godin, for five minutes.

5:05 p.m.

NDP

Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB

Thank you.

Earlier, Ms. Folco asked you to provide some figures, but I am not going to ask you to do calculations the entire weekend. You said that the situation is difficult for many young workers, since they are the first to lose their jobs, and that this is also the case for women.

Is that because of the number of hours required to qualify? They need 840 hours at the moment.