Evidence of meeting #34 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 technology.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
François Lapointe NDP Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Yes, but since it's a BlackBerry, I know you'll agree it's not a problem.
Just a quick point in English and then I'll switch back to French, please.
You didn't have time in your conversation with Mr. Butt. You were about to say that there's a process that, two years ago, took three weeks, usually, and it's slowing down. You didn't have time to explain. Could you tell us what it was?
Director, Government Relations, Research in Motion
To be honest with you, I don't know why it has slowed down.
Director, Government Relations, Research in Motion
Yes. Labour market opinions, where we need to get someone in, a temporary foreign worker, relatively quickly to work on a project. In fact, we've tried to keep on most of the LMOs we've hired and have them become Canadian citizens afterwards because of their high scholastic talent. A while ago it used to take three to four weeks to get an application processed and now we're looking at 16 to 18 weeks.
NDP
François Lapointe NDP Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Sixteen weeks? Do you have any clue why it has tripled like that?
NDP
François Lapointe NDP Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Okay, thank you.
I am going to continue in French.
For all sorts of reasons, Research in Motion has had some difficulties over the past year. I even heard some people say that the main problem is that the product is too good, and people keep it too long—it is that good.
But let's go back to today's topic. Is the difficulty of finding qualified personnel a part of current problems? If so, to what extent does that contribute to Research in Motion's current problems?
Director, Government Relations, Research in Motion
You make a very good point. It's one of the problems we're having. We're finding that people aren't upgrading their devices quite quickly enough. They're holding on to them for too long. It's a good problem and it's a bad problem, as well.
We've definitely had some challenges in the past. It just goes to show the highly competitive nature of the tech industry in the current climate.
The smart phone industry is very similar to politics in that you can't believe all the news you read every day. Not necessarily all the stories are true.
We've had some problems in the U.S. By the way, the U.S. is only a small portion of the world's smart phone industry, but unfortunately it has about 80% of the public opinion globally in terms of where the industry is going.
There are places, such as Indonesia, where later on this year probably we'll have 10 million subscribers. In India we're growing by leaps and bounds. In fact, over 60% of our sales are overseas.
The problems we have haven't been a barrier whatsoever in terms of attracting talent. We're in the same predicament that a number of companies in the Waterloo region are facing. We currently have over 3,000 tech jobs that we're trying to fill. That plays a factor in terms of what's going to happen. Am I still going to have a job? That's human nature. We haven't found that it has been an issue in terms of attracting talent.
It's highly coincidental, but I received an email that we have a new program inside RIM where we're offering money for new employees that we can recruit, as employees are ready to hire people. That's good.
NDP
François Lapointe NDP Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
There is a program in my area, in La Pocatière—Rivière-du-Loup, that works very well in small towns. There are long-term development agreements between certain local businesses and local colleges—CEGEPs, as we call them in Quebec—for young people between 16 and 19 years of age. These agreements work very well because they are small scale agreements. For instance, if Bombardier works on the creation of a laser robot, the tests are carried out in part by CEGEP students who are studying computer science and IT technology.
This works very well where there is integration. In this case, young people benefit from the program, because they want to live in the region. In bigger centres, in companies like Research in Motion or university departments, would this type of small scale but very effective agreements be something that could be considered? Are there such programs already? Is enough being done? Could this be a possible solution?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology Association of Canada
Maybe I'll answer the question on a slightly different slant.
I know about the program you're talking about in CEGEP on Bombardier. It is important to have those things largely because the technology sector tends to grow by clusters. There's no such thing as a national cluster.
The Waterloo region is a cluster for mobile devices and mobile computing and applications. Montreal is for digital media. Vancouver is for digital media. Ottawa is for telecom. These clusters are important. In terms of the schools and universities and the private sector in those areas, the more they cooperate, the stronger they get and the talent pool gets built. That's how to attract other talent of a similar type to those clusters. It is important to have that. It is a program that can be done in various places. Typically they are very successful whenever they're done.
NDP
François Lapointe NDP Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
How do we translate that to a bigger town with a bigger university and bigger companies?
Director, Government Relations, Research in Motion
That's the great thing about the tech sector. The size of a community doesn't matter. It's a great equalizer.
If you look at Kitchener—Waterloo, Waterloo, when school is in session, is only about 120,000 people, and the whole area is a little under half a million. It's creating that system.
I would want to start even earlier than the 16- to 18-year-olds.
We get a lot of people who come to the Waterloo region and ask what's in the water, what's the secret to success in terms of everything we're doing. It's that everyone works together, from industry to colleges. Conestoga College, the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, we're all working together. It's not what issues we're facing. It's a different conversation. The conversation is about how to get around an issue. I think it's one of mindset and working together. We'll work at one issue, maybe two issues. Once we get those done, we move on to the next one. We're working together cooperatively.
In terms of a program you mentioned, where Bombardier comes in, we go into the schools. We think it's a great idea in terms of getting new ideas from the students and showing them what they can do with the technology. The size of the community, if that's your question, doesn't matter. The tech field is a great equalizer in terms of not only large urban areas but also rural and remote areas.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki
That's a good point.
Thank you, gentlemen, for a very interesting presentation. We appreciate it very much.
The meeting is adjourned.
