Human Resources Committee on March 28th, 2012

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

Do I still have time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Yes, you do.

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

You referred to the aboriginal head start program on reserve. This committee has heard a number of times that a significant pool of first nations, Métis, and Inuit young people coming up are a largely untapped resource. Could you say a little more about why that particular program seems to be successful? What are the elements of it that are making it work?

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

Let's Talk Science does connect with aboriginal youth across all of our program areas and in all of the provinces. In fact, we have our efforts guided by a national aboriginal advisory panel that has most of the national agencies helping us.

With respect to our Wings of Discovery program, I have to say that it was a real surprise. We did have a first nations person as one of the authors, but it was never created to be an aboriginal science program.

When we started to see the uptake in the resources, I asked around a lot, and what we learned was that it was very student-centred. For us, science is the process of learning and engagement, not the content and the outcome.

The communities really liked the fact that it was student-centred, very holistic and integrated, and also relevant, in that it was looking at engaging children in learning about the world around them, the world they actually live in. I think relevance is a real problem throughout the school system; in fact, our research has shown that teenagers don't see the relevance, and that's why they're leaving.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you.

Mr. Shory is next.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses for coming to this committee this afternoon. It will certainly help us to complete our study.

Mr. LeBlond, you talked about the foreign qualification recognition program. I'd like you to expand on how it works. Specifically, you said that you have been successful without any funding from the government. How does it work, and how successful are you?

At the same time, it has come to my knowledge that some foreign students come here for foreign qualification. They complete their courses as technologists, etc., and they have a valid work permit after that, but they are unable to be hired because they don't have Canadian experience. I'd like you to comment on that as well.

[Isidore LeBlond]

The International Qualifications Assessment Service, known as the IQAS, was launched on January 20. Its purpose is to accelerate the movement of foreign-trained people into small and medium-sized businesses—get them in at the entry level and get them working now. It's a pre-screening tool; it is not about licensure. We're not talking about rating their experience.

It's a web-based application. We have built, over the past five years, a database of over 7,500 technology programs in 69 countries around the world, a database we host on our server. We've gone in and validated programs from those 69 countries. If a graduate comes with a proper diploma and if it's in our database, we already know the program. We charge that individual $100 to do an assessment. The assessments are done within a 21-day period. It's not three months or six months—it's done within 21 days.

We give them an e-certificate. It's a PDF file that says, for example, that their credential, if they came from China, is substantially equivalent to a civil engineering technician in Canada. They can take that to a perspective employer.

The Canadian employer who doesn't have a huge human resources department can look at it and understand the situation. The credential might be in Chinese, but the employer can read this Canadian certificate, which is bilingual, and he will know the equivalencies. We're hoping that this is going to address the small and medium-size employers.

With regard to your question about those who are trained in Canada, we hope the co-op registry will allow those students who studied in Canada to apply for some of those jobs to get the experience they need, the kick-starting. If they graduated from a Canadian program, we want to match them up with employers. Employers are going to tell us their demands. I expect to have a huge list from employers with the skill sets they're looking for. If we can get access to the graduates coming out, we will gladly allow them to view the list and let them do the matching.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Let's talk about mobility, because mobility is also important in filling the gaps in each region of our country.

The CCTT had a mutual recognition agreement with some countries—the United States and the U.K., I believe.

[Isidore LeBlond]

That's correct. We represent Canada on two different international accords.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Should such agreements be signed with foreign countries? How beneficial are these agreements for Canadians and for technologists from these foreign countries? Are there any plans to sign more agreements of this kind with other countries? If so, which other countries are on the radar?

[Isidore LeBlond]

Okay. Let me just retrace the steps, then.

CCTT is Canada's signatory on two accords, the Sydney Accord that was signed in Australia in 2001 and the Dublin Accord for technicians that was signed in Ireland in 2002. They validate a student graduating from one of our accredited programs in Canada. Right now we are sitting at 254 nationally accredited programs out of about 500, so it's about halfway.

Any graduate coming out of one of our recognized programs has international mobility rights in any of the countries that are part of the accords. The accords are an international secretariat, essentially based out of the Commonwealth, so it includes Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., Ireland, and South Africa, and now we have Taipei and South Korea joining. There are a number of others that are knocking at the door and want to be admitted at the next meeting in Australia this June, and it's going to expand. The U.S.A. came in two years ago, so they're part of it.

It's more of a one-way street: we're seeing more international people coming to Canada than Canadians going abroad. It allows Canadian graduates to join these multidisciplinary engineering teams—the Lavalins, the Bombardiers. Their credentials are recognized. If those companies want to bid on jobs around the world, their credentials are already validated. It's helping Canadian companies compete abroad, so it's a big advantage.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Did the Government of Canada help CCTT to conclude these kinds of agreements, yes or no? If no, did the Government of Canada in any way help you to finalize these kinds of agreements among foreign colleges or universities?

[Isidore LeBlond]

The first answer is no, the government has not helped yet, and yes, we're open for discussions. Travel is expensive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much, Mr. Shory.

We'll now move on to Ms. Hughes.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Thank you very much. It's a great presentation.

There used to be a time when we used to see lots and lots of job fairs. I'm not saying there are none now, but there just doesn't seem to be as much focus as there used to be. We do have a lot of people who are unemployed. I'm just wondering if there's an outreach going on there. Is there something that the government could do in the way of outreach? Could they say, “Okay, you are unemployed. Here are some of the skills that you have. Do you know it's actually connected to science? Here's what you could do to move yourself a little bit closer into this field where there is a shortage.”?

I'm just wondering if you see a connection in that at all, because you talked about the registry that you're creating. I'm just wondering if this would be a way to tap into it, because there are people out there who do have the skills and may not recognize this is something that could be an open door to them.

[Isidore LeBlond]

Absolutely. I think that's one of the avenues we should be pursuing to match people who don't have jobs, but who certainly have the skill sets, with employers. Absolutely. That registry doesn't exist today, so we're going to be pushing the envelope starting on April 1.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

There is one other thing I wanted to ask you, Mr. LeBlond, and then I'm going to go to Mrs. Schmidt.

Between 2007 and 2009, a number of studies on labour markets in the field of engineering and technology were done by CCTT, Engineers Canada, and HRSDC. I'm just wondering about the results. Were specific recommendations provided? I'm just wondering, because I'm assuming that some of them may have been followed up on and some of them may not have been.

[Isidore LeBlond]

You're correct. That study was commissioned and supported by HRSDC. It was co-managed by Engineers Canada and us. It contained a number of recommendations in terms of immediate ones and a longer-term vision. The better part of the short-term ones have been acted upon to various degrees; the longer-term ones have not, because most of them involved serious capital. More dollars were attached to them.

A lot of it was going back and working with industry, trying to engage the employer groups. We and Engineers Canada are so wide that we were supposed to be dealing with all our 14 sectors equally, but it's hard to deal with the IT sector without letting go of somebody else.

The long and the short of it is there are a lot of key action items still on the table and under discussion, and it's part of the ongoing.... It's probably got a shelf life of another two years to achieve some of those. We're not going to achieve them all.

It was great research and a great paper. We put on sessions in Atlantic Canada, in southern Ontario, and in western Canada, and we were well received by industry. They said, “You're on the mark. Here's the track. What are you going to do to help us address the skills shortage?” That was the thing that came back to us.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Just to recap on that, it is critical to follow through on those long-term recommendations. Even though it may require some capital, the problem is that if we don't invest in those long-term recommendations, we won't be able to move the economy forward. Sometimes there's a detriment there. You do need to invest to keep the economy moving. If you keep cutting back, then you may end up in a worse position than what you usually are.

Ms. Schmidt, if you had two key issues, what could the federal government do in order to move the agenda forward on this particular file?

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

I think part of it is moving from a regional to a national vision and understanding how to scale things. How do we take what we know is working in smaller spaces and make it work at a much larger level or with new audiences? I'd be thinking about scaling and about not being timid to move into the whole domain of talking about learning being a continuum of life and not something that happens at the end of a university degree.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I agree with starting them young. I mean, my son got involved in sciences through a YMCA program, and he's now doing his master's in biomedical science, so I really appreciate that.

[Dr. Bonnie Schmidt]

If there's an opportunity to have a round table on a national vision for it, you'll probably find that it will begin to align people's efforts. Right now it's so disparate; there's no clear national definition of what an innovation culture looks like, what kinds of skills we need, and what kinds of attributes are there to help align all the different groups' work to try to work together and achieve that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Your time is up.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I was out of questions, so that's perfect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

There you go.