Human Resources Committee on Dec. 8th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

I'd like to bring the meeting to order.

We will have video conference testimony from Suncor Energy Inc. individuals: Arlene Strom, vice-president of communications and stakeholder relations; and Cathy Glover, director of stakeholder relations and community investment.

We also have with us, from the Conference Board of Canada, Anja Jeffrey, director, Centre for the North; and Heidi Martin, research associate, leadership and human resources research.

We'll start with a presentation of about five to seven minutes. Then we'll have rounds of questions by each of the parties. We'll start with Suncor Energy's presentation, and if we don't encounter any difficulties we'll go to the Conference Board of Canada.

Go ahead, either Ms. Strom or Ms. Glover.

[Arlene Strom, Vice-President, Communications and Stakeholder Relations, Suncor Energy Inc.]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I first want to thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today. We were asked to talk to you about some of the work we are doing within our Suncor Energy Foundation, particularly as it relates to building skills in rural communities. In our case, a lot of that work is in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, or Fort McMurray.

We hope that today will be the beginning of a dialogue with you. We haven't done the sort of deep policy thinking, given the notice we had, but we're very happy to share these examples with you. We really believe in some of the principles we're about to share with you.

First, it's important to have multi-stakeholder dialogues with the federal and provincial governments, first nations partners, communities, and industry at the table developing solutions. We think these kinds of dialogues and investments in solutions for building skills and capacity in the community will pay long-term benefits both economically and socially.

With that I'll turn it over to my colleague Cathy Glover, who will tell you about some of the work we're doing within the foundation. Then we'll look forward to your questions.

[Cathy Glover, Director, Stakeholder Relations and Community Investment, Suncor Energy Inc.]

Thanks, Arlene.

Mr. Chairman, it's a pleasure to be here this afternoon. As Arlene mentioned, we want to talk primarily about the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.

I think most of you know it is the nation's largest municipality, about 68,000 square kilometres, with the city of Fort McMurray proper at about 77,000 people. Within the larger regional municipality are five first nations and several Métis locals.

The area is important to us at Suncor because that is the home of our core business, the base of the oil sands industry. It is where most of our employees are working and living. While it is a large community, it is a remote community. Even within it, there are more remote communities, for example, the community of Fort Chipewyan, a fly in, fly out community, which is dependent on an ice road in the winter.

We talk about that as the foundation of what we're doing, but everything we're doing is looking at the municipality, and within a larger context, on a more national basis.

The Suncor Energy Foundation, on which we have been asked to share some background with you today, is a private charitable foundation that was established to receive Suncor's contributions and to support registered charitable organizations in Canada. We're funded entirely by the company. We have a board of directors that is made up of internal individuals, at a vice-president level or above.

We are looking to seek unique opportunities to build sustainable communities through effective collaborations, as Arlene has already mentioned, and to enhance the quality of life in the communities that are key to us.

We've identified five integrated funding priorities, and those are cultivating community leaders, building skills and knowledge, inspiring innovation, engaging citizens, and collaborating for a new energy future.

Since its inception in 1998, the foundation has contributed more than $74 million into Canadian communities. Our investments are strategic in their support of Suncor's business interests while at the same time more broadly contributing to solutions to challenging issues on a regional and national basis.

Examples of what we're sharing today, as I said, are about Wood Buffalo, but they are also looking at a more national perspective, addressing issues primarily around skilled technical trades and workforce development and aboriginal opportunities.

Some programs we're supporting are national in scope, for example, Actua's national aboriginal outreach initiative, which is developing science and technology programs in remote communities across the country. We've been participating with the Public Policy Forum's dialogue on aboriginal youth engagement and education programs to try to find a new collaborative way of addressing educational outcomes for youth across the country.

The company has also been addressing a number of issues in our operating areas, including hiring, skills development, work with employees once they're on board, business incubators in first nations communities that are neighbours, and procurement programs. All of these work to build a strong program.

The building skills and knowledge portfolio we're looking at is definitely about building a skilled and engaged workforce. We want to reduce the risk to our future growth by trying to ensure we have a strong pipeline in place and focusing on the faculties and trades we know we need in our business and industry.

We need to encourage the next generation to see the possibility for careers in the energy sector as something for their future, and also to cultivate a sustainability mindset: how do we get people to think differently and think about different solutions? Sometimes we call it “unconventional thinking” here.

We've worked with a number of organizations and entities to look at different solutions. That would include the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, NAIT, looking at specific skills programs, but also looking at aboriginal transition programs: how do we get kids coming into the institution to ensure their success as they start to embark on their studies? I think most research has shown that if we can get these students in the first year of their engagement fully supported, as they move on in their further studies they perform no differently than other students.

We've been funding a program called “Women Building Futures”, based out of Edmonton. This has been a unique and very strong program that is specifically targeted to women and to getting them into unique career opportunities in the trades: in oil and gas, in mining, and in the construction trades.

Over 50% of the students are aboriginal women. Many of them are single moms. The program has been designed to support that student base. There are apartments set up for the students to come right into the facility. There are day care programs for their kids. The program has been supported and designed so that these women can succeed in their studies.

In both of these cases we are seeing what we need to do to support these individuals to succeed in the studies they're following.

Another program at a whole other different level is called “Careers: The Next Generation”. We're talking about high school kids. It's a program initiated in Fort McMurray that is an industry-driven public-private program. Students in high school are getting both their school programs and their diploma, as well as achieving their apprenticeship program and tickets. In this small community where we started it—it's now a provincial program—we are helping to ensure that kids in our remote community, in Fort Mac, are finishing high school, and that we're not having them being pulled out in grade 10 or grade 11 and failing to complete a high school diploma just so they can get a fairly high-paying job within the industry somewhere.

Of course, we work closely with the technical and community college in Fort Mac, with programs that are specifically designed to support our industry, like programs for heavy equipment operators and piping technology programs. But they're also looking at the allied professions that are needed to support the community: early childhood education, nursing programs, and basic arts programs. We're making sure we have a really strong and vibrant community college in the community.

We've also worked on a national basis with the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. I also mentioned the work we've been doing with the Public Policy Forum. In both cases we're looking at how these different organizations are trying to design or look at new ways of addressing aboriginal education in culturally appropriate ways and by bringing first nations—aboriginal, Métis, and Inuit people—to the table in designing the solutions.

One of the other areas of focus for us is the area of cultivating community leaders. As much as we need technical expertise in Fort McMurray in our industry, we also need a very strong, supported base in our non-profit sector and in our community base. A lot of our investment has gone into these programs that are building skills and capacity in the non-profit sector, and into working with first nations communities to build capacity there, with programs like the Banff Centre and with initiatives like a new program called “Social Prosperity Wood Buffalo”.

The business is also very engaged and involved in doing the support. We will do direct programming especially to first nations around young moms programs, business incubator programs, and the active engagement of our employees, who are involved and engaged in the community.

I think the challenge for us is that we know the skills shortages are a risk for our industry. Our primary role, and industry's primary role, is to hire, to employ, and I think to continue to develop and build the skills and knowledge of those people once they are employed with us. We recognize that the gap is widening between the positions to be filled that we have in this industry and the available skilled resources we have. We know there is an issue or a challenge in encouraging youth from 12 to 17 years old in regard to skilled trades and encouraging—

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Could I interrupt there for a moment? If you could bring it to a conclusion, I'd appreciate it. We're well over the time we've allocated.

[Cathy Glover]

You bet. I'm just about there.

Really, just to reiterate what Arlene started with, what we're looking at and building and believing in are the solutions that are multi-stakeholder and collaborative and that look at economic and social benefits over the long term. We are also removing barriers for aboriginal young people, so they can receive and achieve education and skills training and participate in the workforce.

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for that presentation. I'm sure there'll be a number of questions flowing from that.

We'll now turn to the Conference Board of Canada.

Go ahead.

[Anja Jeffrey, Director, Centre for the North, Conference Board of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Anja Jeffrey. I am the director for the Centre for the North, an initiative within the Conference Board of Canada. I am here today with Heidi Martin, the lead author of a new report that we published in November 2011 called “Building Labour Force Capacity in Canada's North”. I believe that's the reason we are here today.

The Centre for the North was established in 2009 and runs until 2014. It's supported by industry and government via aboriginal organizations and academia. I believe it to be the only balanced matrix of dialogue on the challenges facing Canada's north.

We have about 50 investors in this initiative. We look at three overall themes: sovereignty and security, thriving communities, and economic development. We'll also be looking at international best practices to see how Canada's policies and recommendations compare with those of other countries.

Once we finish this initiative, we will have looked at a variety of issues pertinent to Canada's north. We will have looked at impact analyses and recommendations, and we will have made sure that we consulted with stakeholders across the north so that everything is prioritized.

In other words, if you have competing public policy priorities but limited human and financial resources, as is often the case in the north, how do you get the most bang for your buck? What do you need to do to produce the most impact for the aboriginal and non-aboriginal people who live in the north, to create the most successful economic sustainable development, and to make sure that Canada maintains its influence on the international scene when it comes to developing its Arctic and sub-Arctic areas?

This initiative not only focuses on the three territories; it also focuses on the northern jurisdictions of the seven provinces.

Our report on building labour force capacity in Canada's north is one of several reports that we have published or will be publishing in the next couple of years. If you log on to our website, you will find our mission and vision statements as well as our brochure and all the reports we've put out. We are funded upfront, so everything can be downloaded.

Our report on labour force capacity has been very well received. I can only echo what our Suncor colleagues have already said: it's all about education, employability skills, and job-specific skills.

The north faces an interesting paradox. There seems to be tons of room for labour force engagement, but not the necessary skills to fill the positions available. It's something that industry, governments, and the organizations involved in labour skills development bump up against. The real question becomes, what do you do?

One of the things we've heard about over and over again is the need for stable and sustained funding for the education of younger students and for ensuring that trade skills development programs are available. That is really important. The building of public-private partnerships in this area will be paramount.

The mining companies are pulling their weight. They have their fair share of programs aimed at advancing economic activity, and IBAs in the north are being negotiated to further skills training and education. It's like building a school. But how do you attract teachers if you can only employ them on a year-to-year basis?

We see a lot of competing priorities when it comes to building sustainable economic development in Canada's north. If you don't pull the people along from a very early age, you will not be able to realize the economic development potential that we see in Canada's north.

I will wrap up by saying that our report provides a number of examples. It is empirically based. The Conference Board of Canada does evidence-based research. We will be happy to speak to some of the examples we have encountered by reaching out to entities in the provinces and the territories.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that presentation.

We'll move to Ms. Crowder.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you very much, both our guests by video conference and our guests here, for your presentations.

I'm sure you're aware by now that what the committee has heard consistently is education and training, education and training. It's a consistent theme from almost every witness who comes before us.

I've got an article here called, “The skills for our success”, and it's actually based on some work that was done in Australia. It is dealing specifically with apprenticeships, but it talks about a couple of things that they did. They invested in pre-apprenticeship programs. They encouraged prospective workers to enter the skilled labour market later in life, and that's often the case in aboriginal communities, that they're coming back to the workforce later in life. They had a single, nationally organized and recognized system with government-run vocational education centres. And then they go on to talk about the government making a 43% increase in funding for science and research in innovation, and that filtered down to skilled workers who made their new ideas profitable.

This same report also quotes the fact that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business indicated that 34% of companies feel they have a shortage of skilled labour, and 38% said their businesses had already missed an opportunity because they couldn't access labour. And in the same report, it quotes the Conference Board of Canada, which cited a report on Dofasco for its ability to create clear and easily accessible training paths into skilled trades.

I wonder if the Conference Board of Canada could comment on what you see that gets in our way of making that long-term sustained investment in education and training—and it includes the K to 12 system, because, as others have pointed out, if they don't graduate then you can't get them into trades and certificates, and other programs.

What prevents us from doing that?

[Heidi Martin, Research Associate, Leadership and Human Resources Research, Conference Board of Canada]

I think a lot of our participants in our study definitely noted the importance of getting kids into education and making them stay in education as one of their main focuses.

Many of the participants cited lack of infrastructure in the north as an issue, and especially in northern schools, and especially in schools on reserves they noticed a lack of quality of education. So some of the participants cited that they found that some of the students coming out of high school weren't coming with the equivalent of a grade 12 education. So going into the trades just wasn't a possibility for some of these students without a lot of remediation. They found that they were spending a lot of time there.

That's what the participants were telling us, that there are a lot of pre-employment issues to begin with before they even had their individuals coming out of high school. Some of the participants were investing in overcoming those infrastructure barriers. Cameco Corporation, for example, in northern Saskatchewan has invested heavily in an online high school—

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

They appeared before us.

Can I interrupt just for one second about the online piece? In that study or another study, and I can't put my hands on it right now, we had the Department of Industry before us talking about the fact that in broadband coverage—except that this study specifically says “in the north” and that's just simply not true—there are big pockets where high speed isn't available. And I know one of the solutions—Cameco specifically talked about this—is online delivery.

Did you get any feedback about the broadband aspect of it?

[Heidi Martin]

Well, certainly in the literature review we did come across some documentation saying that broadband is just a problem, in that it's one of those overlooked issues of infrastructure. We tend to think of hospitals, roads, and airports as infrastructure, but broadband must be a component of infrastructure development in the north.

So yes, we did come across, especially in the literature review, communities that just weren't even able to take advantage of the opportunities that had already been invested in, because of that lack of broadband infrastructure.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Do I have time still? Okay.

Could you make a quick comment on just-in-time training?

[Heidi Martin]

Yes, just-in-time training is a fantastic technique that a lot of our participants use. And really what they do is they see an open opportunity—an open job opportunity—and they develop their training specifically directed towards that opening.

What that creates is an automatic link between investing in education and investing in my personal education and my personal training, and boom, I've got a job at the end of it. We saw that with the Northern Manitoba Sector Council. We saw that with Det'on Cho Corporation in Yellowknife, and across a lot of the organizations that we spoke with that really focused on that just-in-time training to make that direct link.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you. Your time is up, but I'm wondering if Ms. Strom or Ms. Glover has comments on these questions. If so, this would be a good time to make them before we move to the next questioner.

[Cathy Glover]

I have a comment on online education. One of the more successful programs was developed by Sunchild First Nation. I'm not sure if the committee is familiar with the work they have done. It's a central Alberta community that has looked at an online module program geared to aboriginal youth. The program has been delivered across the province.

We've found that when the program is being delivered in a remote community like Fort McKay, north of Fort McMurray, we still need a teacher in the classroom. The classroom might operate with about a dozen young people. Often these young people are coming back after some years out of traditional high school and they might be in their early 20s. But they still need a teacher or facilitator to keep them on track. Using culturally appropriate online resources has been successful in these communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you.

We'll move on to the next round with Mr. Harris.

Go ahead.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to our presenters.

I am a visitor to this committee. I find it interesting because we're studying pretty much the same challenges on the natural resources committee, where we're doing a complete study on Canada's north. The problems you're talking about are very familiar.

Suncor has built relationships with first nations communities for many years. Everyone talks about the socio-economic benefits of getting first nations communities involved with local resource development. But simply hiring a number of first nations people at a wage they probably never saw before is not going to be a huge benefit if they don't have the skills to help their community deal with the new-found wealth.

I know Suncor has been involved in forging relationships and developing a workforce. Have you seen this challenge of new-found money going into communities where there wasn't a proper preparation for that intake of funding? It can create other problems if it's not a complete package that puts all the benefits together and makes them work.

[Cathy Glover]

You're asking about communities that are receiving a significant royalty cheque and the money is being distributed to all community members in one shot?

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I was speaking more of rural and remote communities that all of a sudden see a company or two come into their area. They take advantage of labour jobs, but those labour jobs even at that level pay well in Canada's north. To have this new money come suddenly into their community, unless there's some preparation done, can cause more problems than benefits.

[Cathy Glover]

I would assume that to be true. I don't know. We've been in those communities for 40 years, so we've been working with them for a long time. We are working with the communities on economic sustainability. Between us, Syncrude, and other industry players up there, we have employed almost all the employable individuals from local communities. There are lots of individuals in those communities who do not want to work for our industry but want to start their own businesses. The community as a whole wants to understand how it can be economically sustainable in the long term. One way is to build businesses that are suppliers to us. We spend millions of dollars dealing with aboriginal businesses in the north. We've chosen to work with communities to develop their own economic sustainability.

I'm not sure that answers your question, but I don't know that I'm in a position to talk to that.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Does your relationship with these rural or remote communities, particularly first nations, involve an important plan or program? Are you working with community leaders to prepare residents for the influx of some pretty big dollars, and to ensure that these dollars will be spent in a way that's beneficial to the community?

[Cathy Glover]

Yes, we're doing it through the economic development piece, through the employability, and through working with other organizations, like the Banff Centre, to build capacity. I don't think there are as many of us working directly with chief and council on business management and direct capacity development. But we would work with them if they came to us and wanted us to support them in that way.

[Arlene Strom]

I think that's fair. In these communities we're working with, anywhere from 5% to 7% of our labour force are first nations members. We work with them on initiatives. For instance, we have a business incubator in Fort MacKay, where we help to develop and nurture new business, and then to support the first nations communities through their own businesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

All right.

We'll now move to Ms. Moore.

Go ahead.