Evidence of meeting #30 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Robert Henderson  Executive Director, BioTalent Canada
Grant Trump  President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada
Alain Beaudoin  Director General, Information and Communications Technologies Branch, Department of Industry
Shane Williamson  Director General, Program Coordination Branch, Science and Innovation Sector, Department of Industry

3:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

We'll call the meeting to order and continue with our study of fixing the skills gap, addressing existing labour shortages in high demand occupations, and also addressing barriers to filling low-skilled jobs.

We have with us today, Robert Henderson, an executive director with BioTalent Canada; and Grant Trump, president and chief executive officer of Environmental Careers Organization of Canada.

Gentlemen, I understand each of you will present, and then we will have rounds of questioning by each of the parties.

With that, whoever will be the first to start—I guess it will be Mr. Henderson—go ahead and make your presentation.

3:30 p.m.

Robert Henderson Executive Director, BioTalent Canada

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

BioTalent Canada is pleased to be included in your discussion here today.

We're addressing an issue that is very pertinent to the biotech sector, or the bio-economy as we like to call it, which includes industries that stretch from health, medicine, and pharmaceutical manufacturing, to agriculture, medical device, nanotechnology, and even food processing.

While the bio-economy is growing rapidly in areas like agrifood and sustainable development technology, the huge pharmaceutical industry remains a massive contributor to the Canadian economy but is facing huge economic challenges.

Nonetheless, recent estimates conclude that the bio-economy contributes no less than $86.5 billion, or 7%, to the total of Canada's gross domestic product.

BioTalent Canada is a national not-for-profit sector council currently funded primarily by HRSDC and led by a volunteer board of industry leaders. We provide skills development and human resource information and tools for job seekers and employers in the bio-economy.

Like many industry verticals, labour market research has shown that Canada's bio-economy companies continue to need skilled, job-ready people. Due to the vastness of the sector, the skills that are in demand range from the highly specialized to those used in lower-skilled jobs.

Through commissioning our own research, we have conducted the only national studies in Canada that are exclusive to human resource issues in biotechnology. In our most recent labour market surveys, we learned that more than 80% of biotech companies in Canada are small to medium enterprises, which means that most of their time is spent innovating, and there is often no dedicated human resources department. Research also indicated that 34.4% of the companies were currently facing skills shortages, and 32.5% had active vacant positions to fill.

In turn, BioTalent Canada identified potential talent pools, including persons with disabilities, aboriginals, internationally educated professionals, new graduates, and retired and retiring workers. While dealing with labour gaps directly affecting persons with disabilities is not BioTalent Canada's specific mandate, of those companies surveyed, research indicated that only 21.9% have hired persons with disabilities. In other words, persons with disabilities is a labour pool whose full potential is not currently being realized in Canada's bio-economy.

BioTalent Canada has developed tools and techniques to bridge the skills gaps identified by those labour market surveys. Our 2009 study, “Generating opportunity”, showed a need in the biomanufacturing sector that was specific to skills gaps in positions that required less training.

The problem was two-fold. First, it was found that industry could not find people with the skills they require, and secondly, skills from potential candidates were not recognized as being relevant to the biotech field. Our solution to this was the successful launch of our biomanufacturing skills transfer program, which kicked off in February 2012.

We found that the area we referred to as biomanufacturing—that is, manufacturing related to biomedical devices, agricultural biotech, bioenergy, food processing, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals—lacked skilled workers. In the companies surveyed, 30% of the biomanufacturing positions were vacant. Also, in the recent downturn, we knew there was an available labour pool of unemployed and displaced traditional manufacturing workers in southwestern Ontario region, particularly Kitchener and Waterloo.

Our biomanufacturing program identifies, recognizes, and matches traditional manufacturing skills with the desired biomanufacturing skills. BioTalent Canada then helps these workers connect with industry. Our goal is to transfer 100 unemployed manufacturing workers into jobs in biomanufacturing by the end of 2012.

What has worked best for us is to try to look at skills gaps with a pragmatic approach. For the biomanufacturing skills gap, for example, we took an entirely new approach and looked at areas of the economy where economic conditions resulted in a glut of certain skills—in this case, manufacturing. Then we mapped the deficiencies necessary for those workers to transition into the bio-economy—in this case, biomanufacturing. This skills recognition is a unique approach to addressing competency gaps and a departure from the credential recognition commonly applied in other industries.

From a governmental perspective, with federal funding being cut from all sector councils in 2013, the federal government has effectively put the responsibility for sector skills assessment and corrections squarely in the hands of private industry. While we're working toward the transition, it is quite possible that there will be no national organization like BioTalent Canada to act as the skill-set watchdog for the national bio-economy. There's a real risk that there will be no national vision on sector skills in the future, and no watchdog to ensure Canada's approach remains consistent and competitive with the skills approaches implemented in other countries in the international sector.

This abrogation of sector skills responsibility could pose a real risk to Canada's continued competitiveness for internationally educated immigrants, and for investment in human capital to drive the robust Canadian bio-economy.

Thank you.

3:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

Thank you, Mr. Henderson.

Mr. Trump, go ahead.

3:35 p.m.

Grant Trump President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada

Thank you very much.

It's my pleasure to be here to represent ECO Canada, Canada's sector council for the environment industry. We are an industry-initiated, industry-led, not-for-profit Canadian corporation with a mandate to ensure an adequate supply of people with the appropriate skills and knowledge to meet the environmental human resource needs of the public and private sectors. We believe in forming partnerships, identifying labour market issues, and then coming up with labour market solutions.

We've been in existence since 1992 and are one of the oldest sector councils in existence. We develop recruitment and retention programs for individuals and employers as well as for government—federal, provincial, municipal, and aboriginal—and educational institutions, in order to ensure that the environment sector will reach its full employment and economic potential. We have published over 50 labour market intelligence reports, and those reports are used all over Canada and are considered to be the source of environmental human resource information in Canada and in some cases worldwide. We currently have over 178,000 members in our organization, and we are very well known and respected.

You should be aware that environmental employment is a significant employer in Canada. Over two million Canadians have environmental employment to some degree. That's 12% of the workforce. Some 682,000 work in environmental employment more than 50% of the time, and that's 4% of the Canadian workforce. Over 318,000 organizations employ one or more environmental professionals. That is 17% of all organizations in Canada. We are the thread that pulls a variety of organizations together. We're in urban and rural areas, including Canada's north. With respect to employment rates prior to the economic downturn, environmental employment was growing at a 60% faster rate than employment in the general Canadian economy. Even after 2008, we are growing at average rates of 7% annually, compared with 1.5% for the Canadian economy. We're involved heavily in the STEM process—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—and about 37% of our individuals are from that area. About 40% of our employers hired during the economic downturn, but a full one-third of them said they have difficulty finding people with the appropriate skills and knowledge.

The environment sector is going through an evolution. It's moving towards what we're referring to as the green economy, and we have to be ready for that expansion. Some 37% of all individuals in the environment sector have a university or college diploma, implying that 63% do not. We have applicability with highly skilled professionals as well as lower-skilled people. The Canadian Wind Energy Association, CanWEA, estimates that 70% of all jobs in their industry will require entry-level workers, such as skilled trades and labourers. This will also be critical in building construction, renewable energy, environmental remediation, recycling, and green manufacturing. We certainly do cover the entire gamut.

We believe in national occupational standards documenting what people do in functional areas of employment. We believe in building a common language and logic, which we currently do not have, with respect to the green economy and environmental jobs. We're working on that in partnership with a variety of other organizations.

One-third of all environmental workers today are over the age of 45. About 4% of environmental workers are already beyond retirement age. Some 14% of environmental workers will reach retirement age in the next 10 years, creating 100,000 vacancies. We have predicted that this year there will be 40,000 new environmental jobs in Canada. How are we going to fill those jobs? We're going to fill them with youth, transitioning workers, immigration, and aboriginal people. Of those individuals, 30,000 to 35,000 will come from the current post-secondary educational institutions. However, a good number are going to have to come from a variety of other activities. ECO Canada has built solutions. Those solutions are based on attracting young people to environmental careers and making them aware of the environmental activities that are going to lead the future. They are our leaders of the future. We have a green high school program that has, in one year, been in contact with over 42,000 students and teachers.

We also have a Canadian Environmental Accreditation Commission. We are actually accrediting universities and colleges across Canada, and we're the only organization in Canada to actually accredit university undergraduate and postgraduate programs. We have a Canadian Centre for Environmental Education that offers full-blown baccalaureate and master's degrees, 100% online, with no residency requirements. We are Canada's largest aboriginal trainer as well, and currently we have 466 aboriginal people working on contaminated sites cleanup in northern Canada in combination with the federal contaminated sites action plan.

We believe that the environment and the economy go hand in hand, and according to the University of Massachusetts, clean energy investments compared to fossil fuel create 2.6 times more jobs for people with college and university degrees, 3 times more jobs for people with some college, and 3.6 times more jobs for people with high school. We are going to work in partnership with a variety of organizations as we move forward. We believe that ECO Canada is an agent of change, and we will be ensuring that we're able to meet our employment and economic potential.

Thank you.

3:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

Thank you very much, Mr. Trump.

You had mentioned immigration. Did you have a comment to make about how you thought it might be utilized or better utilized?

3:40 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada

Grant Trump

Immigration is certainly a project in which we're very keenly interested. We have created partnerships with several provinces across the country. We're actually offering an immigrant bridging process in partnership with local immigrant-serving organizations, where we offer a 180-hour classroom process to tell new immigrants about the ethical conducts of work, and to give them the ability to work within Canada. This is not language requirement or technical. We're assuming they're coming in with that.

We have an immigration portal on which we have some 120 occupational profiles, as well as a variety of other tools that immigrants can use in combination with our ECO Canada job board. We are Canada's largest electronic job board. We post approximately 120 new jobs every month on that site.

3:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

Thank you.

We'll start with Ms. Crowder.

3:40 p.m.

NDP

Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

Thank you very much for coming before the committee today.

Mr. Henderson, you mentioned the impact of cuts to the funding for sectoral councils. Mr. Henderson and Mr. Trump, are both of your organizations going to be affected by funding cuts to sectoral councils?

3:45 p.m.

Executive Director, BioTalent Canada

3:45 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada

Grant Trump

Yes. We will be affected by that, but ECO Canada perhaps will not be affected as much as some other councils, as we do have alternate revenue sources from services that we provide within the private sector.

3:45 p.m.

Executive Director, BioTalent Canada

Robert Henderson

I will say that BioTalent Canada is not quite as advanced in terms of our other revenue sources, though the good news of the cuts is that at least 18 months was given, so that we could make some transition to see if the organization can make a fundamental shift to a different funding structure.

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

My understanding from your presentations and other material is that both of your organizations do things like provide labour market information, and I want to refer to a Conference Board of Canada report called “Skills and Productivity Action Plan for Canada”. In terms of increasing the supply of skilled workers, one of their key recommendations for government, communities, unions, partners, and parents is make labour market information more accessible. It seems to me that in terms of planning for the future, one of the most critical pieces of information needs to be around labour market information.

Mr. Henderson, could you comment on that specifically? Then I'll go to Mr. Trump.

3:45 p.m.

Executive Director, BioTalent Canada

Robert Henderson

Oh, I totally agree. I think the sector councils' main raisons d'être were to provide Canada, and the federal government, with accurate and timely labour market information run by organizations of industry experts. My fear is for those sector councils—not just from the biotech sector, though obviously that's the one I'm concerned with—that will not be able to make the transition.

It will be the industry associations for those certain sectoral industries. They'll be very hard pressed to be able to take up the load, and I think that's going to be very difficult for them in a lot of ways.

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

And my understanding is that the sector councils not only pull together employers, but they also pull together labour representatives and other organizations that have an interest, and I think that's a really important piece. It's a way to facilitate those partnerships that can take that broader view. Is that correct?

3:45 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada

Grant Trump

It absolutely is, and I believe that there are three main audiences for this labour market intelligence, or labour market information. One is, of course, that individuals who are potentially coming into the field, or those who are already there, can find out the changes that are going on with respect to where the jobs are, and how the competencies are changing.

The second audience is governments—federal, provincial, municipal, and aboriginal—who are going to make investments in policy on activities related to employment.

Thirdly, there is the academic community itself. The academic community, as most of you know, has a very long lag time, typically six to eight years before they can develop new programming. To keep pace in this fast-changing society—where change is the rule, not the exception—it's absolutely critical that they have the best labour market intelligence in order to be able to develop new programming in a timely fashion.

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

May I have your comments, Mr. Henderson?

3:45 p.m.

Executive Director, BioTalent Canada

Robert Henderson

If I could add to that as well, I absolutely agree with you, Grant.

Also, along with that, in coupling with another government agenda, is the immigrant-serving agencies and immigrants who are coming in, as this is going to become a more and more competitive field for Canada. Having proper and correctly conducted labour market information is not only going to be important to serve that agenda, but also to maintain Canada's international competitiveness in terms of the way other organizations examine their own sector skills. There has to be a concerted and consistent approach to this across many verticals.

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

I have time, Mr. Chair?

3:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

You have another minute.

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

Thank you.

I just have a comment about the labour market information. If we don't get this right, we're going to be making investments in programs, services, and policies that simply won't.... We've already seen substantial skill mismatches out there between what people are getting their training and education for, and what jobs are available.

Mr. Henderson, you raised a very interesting point around the skills transfer, where available workers no longer have work in their particular fields, or maybe a surplus of workers. What kind of money is available to assist or help with the skills transfer?

3:45 p.m.

Executive Director, BioTalent Canada

Robert Henderson

Currently, our bioskills recognition program is funded by the foreign credential recognition program of the department of HRSDC. There are moneys there that we have been tapping into.

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

You said foreign credential recognition program, but what about the manufacturing workers in southwestern Ontario? They won't be eligible for foreign credential recognition.

3:45 p.m.

Executive Director, BioTalent Canada

Robert Henderson

No, absolutely.

In those skills, that was actually through the sector council program. While our core funding is being cut, there are still project funds that we've been told are going to be maintained by the sector council program for LMIs, occupational standards, etc. For a program like this, we don't know because the new program hasn't been rolled out yet.

This program that we are currently conducting in 2012 is under an existing grant from the sector council program. Those are the moneys of what used to be a $70 million sector council program, which is now being effectively reduced to, I believe, $40 million. Grant?

3:50 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada

Grant Trump

$25 million.

3:50 p.m.

Executive Director, BioTalent Canada

Robert Henderson

$25 million. It's a moving target. It's between $25 million and $40 million for the coming years.