Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.
CCTT, as it's known, is a national association that was formed in 1972 and represents the interests of over 512,000 applied science and technology workers in this country. We don't represent just one profession, but 14 different sectors, ranging from architectural, building, bioscience, civil engineering technology, chemical, electrical, electronics, forestry, and the last one is this thing called IT. However, of that number, only 18.3% of our workforce are women.
Applied science and engineering technology workers represent the backbone of Canadian employers competing in the global economy. Since 1980, fewer than one in 20 young people has attended university. Canada has done a great job with the promotion of the skilled trades and apprenticeship programs; for that, we say kudos. Maybe it's time to look at the middle group.
We are pleased that our work on National Technology Week, and more specifically GoTECHgirl, has attracted your interest. We are very aware of the skills gap and existing labour shortages in high-demand occupations in Canada.
For me to address this properly, allow me to define the role of technicians and technologists. Architects, engineers, and scientists represent the researchers, innovators, and conceptors. Technologists, on the other hand, co-design, build, plan, manage, and integrate systems. Technicians draw, assemble, troubleshoot, and operate those systems. We need all three groups for Canada to succeed. Simply put, we do not have enough of them today.
We promote a number of different technology professions as rewarding careers, and we do that through post-secondary education at colleges, CEGEPs, and polytechnical institutes through a number of different programs. Some people argue we have made it too complicated for the young folks of today. There are too many choices. That will be a question for another day.
Consider that after two or three years of practical learning, a graduate can be job-ready; that's really what separates the community colleges from the universities. The average starting salary last year was $54,560 for a college graduate in this country. That's not a bad wage.
Over the next few years the number of young people entering post-secondary schools is going to continue to decline. Based on our numbers and a joint research project we did with Engineers Canada, the 15- to 19-year-old cohort peaked in 2009. That was three years ago. We're already on the downslide. The decline is going to continue. The latest forecast, according to some economists, is that it's going to continue until 2020. It's a serious problem in terms of not having enough people to enter the workforce.
The strength of the Canadian economy requires gender balance within Canada's skilled workforce. Our message is clear: how can Julie or Sally or Francine think about a career as a water quality technician or biomedical engineering technologist if she doesn't know these jobs exist?
The CCWESTT is a great example. From May 3 to May 5 this year, the Canadian Coalition of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades, and Technology—hence the long acronym—is hosting their biannual conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our GoTECHgirl program would like to take part in this event yet again, but the lack of funding is holding us back from sponsoring students and mentors, people we think should be allowed to go.
The timing of the event is also questionable. It precludes young women who are in their first year or second year of college from attending because on May 1 they're entering the summer job market. The conference is the first week of May. We see a disconnect.
We did a high school survey last year, carried out in four cities—Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Halifax—involving young women in grades 9 through 11. Our findings were that, number one, the majority of young women do not have a good understanding of what applied science or engineering technology careers are all about. Therefore, how can they possibly aspire to make a career selection?
Number two, fewer than 42% reported hearing anything about our National Technology Week. More than half expressed negative perceptions of engineering and technology occupations. Young women do not have a large pool of role models to choose from.
Lastly, parents don't encourage their daughters to study math and science in high school, therefore limiting future career choices.
So what are we going to do about it?
Our National Technology Week and our GoTECHgirl campaign are registered trademarks. We have a national outreach program to educate and inform, and a special one that's called “Influence the Influencers.” That would be mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, teachers, guidance counsellors, social workers—anybody who could possibly assist someone to be able to make that choice.
Just to show you a small example of that, a few years ago we approached the Bank of Montreal to provide us with some limited funding. On the back of an RESP contribution envelope, the Bank of Montreal kindly, ten years ago, put “This is for your university”. After a lot of lobbying, we convinced the Bank of Montreal to change it to say “This is for your post-secondary education”, knowing that young kids today have to make a choice. It's a small point, but it's an effective one.
We make extensive use of social media. Coming from the age of “if you can't beat them, join them”, that's where the kids are, so we have to be there. We sponsor day camps, technical day camps, on Saturday mornings at colleges throughout this country. For Sally to get in to go from 9:00 a.m. to noon to try something, get her hands dirty, take a computer box apart, solder an electronic circuit board, anything at all—we do a number of things—and get a bagel and an orange juice, the only ticket required for admission is they must have mom or dad there. Why? We need to convince mom or dad to at least let them experience it.
Those camps are working, and the program is expanding. Do we need it to grow? Absolutely. Do we need more resources? You betcha. That's why we're here.
I have five points for you.
First, we must do more to educate and inform Canada's youth, especially those of visible minorities and the aboriginal workers, of the many different career choices available.
Second, on January 19 we launched our international qualifications assessment program, without one cent of government money. That is a new foreign academic credential recognition service for newcomers to this country. We want to fast-track them. We know they have skill sets. We're providing them with an e-certificate—an electronic certificate—that's stored on our server and that every employer can validate, so no one is going to be copying in fraud. We host it, we keep it. It's an approach.
Employers are our biggest direct targeting campaign. They are demanding a national approach to the skilled workforce, so we're responding. CCTT, on April 1, is creating a national co-op registry for applied science and engineering technology programs. Think of it as a speed-dating site for job applications; if an employer in Calgary has openings, and if somebody from Nova Scotia would like a three- or four-month co-op application, we're going to match them up. We're going to host it. It doesn't yet exist; colleges have been phoning to tell me we have to do it, so we're going to do it.
We welcome the opportunity to work with the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association, and the Forest Products Association of Canada. We have partnered with Skills/Compétences Canada and others to address the skills shortage. We have to be working in sync, because we're all competing for the same Sally and Francine.
Last but not least, there's the paradigm shift. Over the next 25 years, the number of Canadians older than 65, myself included, will more than double to 10.4 million. Employers will need to be more flexible and creative in how they look into bringing senior workers—and I'll qualify “senior” by saying 60 and over—into an organization. Like it or not, people will be required to work longer.
Success stories happen when the public and private sectors collaborate to attain a common good. Our current situation in Canada is not unique, compared to other countries. However, how we deal with it will be the ultimate test.
Thank you. Merci.