Human Resources Committee on May 14th, 2012

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

Okay.

The agreement on internal trade has made mobility much easier once anybody is certified. Red Seal has always been recognized and has been advertised as something related to the labour mobility of a certified journey person. I think that's been helpful in the Red Seal trades, which the majority of apprentices go through for their training.

The agreement on internal trade has allowed for increased mobility between the provinces. I think the difficulty with mobility right now is this idea of apprentice mobility. We have 13 separate apprenticeship systems. Because you're training to be a carpenter in Nova Scotia does not mean that you're at the same stage of your training as you would be in British Columbia, if you wanted to move out there.

The mobility of apprentices has not been dealt with yet. While Red Seal's been effective once you have your ticket, there's still some work to do.

If you've lost a manufacturing job in southern Ontario, for example, and you're a millwright or an instrumentation technician, there are jobs available for you in Alberta. But it's not necessarily easy to transfer your hours on the job and your training hours. You can't just pick them up with you and have them articulated in another province. That is an area where there are still challenges.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Ms. Watts-Rynard.

Mr. Suess, do you have a comment you'd like to make?

[David Suess]

No. Actually, Sarah's addressed that fairly well.

The issue is that apprenticeship is just the journey. As an employer, I'm hiring an apprentice for the journeyperson I need four and a half years out in our workforce plan. So again, we're planning ahead.

Now, as we've heard and as was addressed in the brief, sometimes those opportunities change, so the apprentice is stuck now with an employer in transition. On a regional basis, if southern Ontario's economy goes south in the steel industry, and I want to go finish my apprenticeship in the west, I might find out that I have to repeat my second year of trade school, because they don't recognize it. They consider it different, because it's provincial.

With the Red Seal, once I have it, I'm good. But as an apprentice, I'm left stranded without much support.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Leitch, go ahead.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you to everyone for coming today. We greatly appreciate your taking the time to share with us your thoughts and comments.

I have three questions for you. The first is on the issue of awareness. You made the comment that there is not a great appreciation for younger people who enter a skilled trade or who go to college versus possibly university or who choose not to take post-secondary education at all.

What three specific things should be focused on by private sector employers and/or government to encourage young people to enter the skilled trades?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Ms. Steeves, we're going to start with you and work our way across.

[Jennifer Steeves]

Thank you. It's a good question.

Awareness has to be hit at a few different angles. The employer has to be made more and more aware of the benefit of taking on the apprentice. Too many still look at it as a cost. So to Sarah's point, I know in our industry they still do, or they'll hire the journeyperson over the apprentice.

There still needs to be a lot of work done to communicate the value and the benefit of investing in an apprentice, versus thinking of it as a cost. The second thing that needs to happen is that we need to integrate the communication better. I think when you look at young people coming in, the people who are in front of them day in and day out are their teachers. Their parents may sway them to and from different career choices, but their teachers are presenting curricula, and sometimes aren't able to make the connection of how what they're learning in school is applied in a workplace setting.

If there were more of that, if we could communicate through the people who are in front of those young people every day, which is their teachers and trainers, about making those connections of what their learning and how it's applied.... The other piece to that is to integrate the employer into the equation so that there's more of a conversation and dialogue and a rapport with local schools, with local employers, and those young people.

II you can connect those dots, and I think there are ways to do that in a really efficient fashion that's effective and results-oriented, I think you'll start to see some of these things that just sort of keep on.... We continually talk about young people and if they are going into the trades, and I think if you start connecting those dots better you'll start to realize some systemic change.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Okay.

Ms. Watts-Rynard.

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

I would be in agreement with Jennifer on that.

My thinking is that there has to be a better-managed school-to-work transition period. Certainly teachers can't be expected to understand a career path that they didn't take. So awareness is big with guidance counsellors and teachers.

When I speak to apprentices, they tell me they weren't encouraged to go into the trades, though they can make better money than a lot of their contemporaries who are going off to university. They were still told that this is what you do when you can't do anything else, and it's still seen as the career of last resort. That's not a positive way to respond to the needs of our economy.

I think there is some work to be done. When I say talk about career awareness, I mean let's have an accurate conversation about what opportunities exist, and about how no matter what direction they choose to go in for their careers, there are many opportunities. But to encourage people who enjoy that creative, hands-on type of work, we have to value it the same as we value any other type of post-secondary education.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I'm a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, so I'm in a very male-dominated career set; about one in a hundred are women. We often see that in other skilled trades. We saw that when we were out visiting in Atlantic Canada a couple of weeks ago: in the Irving shipyards there were not as many women as there were men, but they were growing in numbers.

Do you know of specific firms that have programs that encourage young women to enter into the trades, and what would be a best practice that you think could be adopted by other industry leaders in order to encourage young women to enter into skilled trades?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Your time is up, but we will get the parties to conclude by answering the question, if you could.

Mr. Suess, go ahead.

[David Suess]

There are many school-to-work programs, and I know as employers we support those programs.

For the under-represented groups--and I'll speak to women in trades--again, it's the school-to-work. The successful ones are where you've engaged—I'll speak to women—the young female in their secondary school years, you've given them some opportunity to come in to work and they understand the job, what they're getting into, and the commitment ahead of time.

As an employer, it gives us a chance to shop before we buy. And they get comfortable with the job and the environment.

I think one of the things is no matter how hard we try, the work environment is not always the most conducive to some of the under-represented groups. I know as an employer, it's something we focus on a lot. Jobs can be dirty, and when you're down in the middle of a shutdown at two o'clock in the morning and you're covered in grease, that's not for everybody. It's not just a gender issue there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Does anyone else wish to comment on that?

Ms. Steeves and then Ms. Watts-Rynard.

[Jennifer Steeves]

Thank you.

To Dave's point, I think the school-to-work transition piece and job readiness piece are really important. I think what happens is that a lot of people—I'll use our industry as an example—only think of the occupations they see when they drop their vehicles off. They talk to the service adviser; they maybe talk to the service technician, the collision guy. But they don't see the back end of the operation, the parts side of it, which is huge.

Women who have gone into our industry have done very well. In fact a lot of shops really like having women as service advisers because they're very good at communicating. A lot of women are dropping their vehicles off. They're pressured. They have to get the kids to practice.

I think the more young people, including women, are exposed to that workplace and the various occupations that are a part of an industry—and you could even take it a step further, to the occupations that intersect within other industries—I think the more they may have an interest in pursuing a skilled trade or occupation they hadn't thought about previously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

We'll move now to Ms. Watts-Rynard. Go ahead with a short response, if you could.

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

Absolutely. I'll just say that in terms of best practices, I've heard of many. There are programs in Nova Scotia. There's a women building futures program that is located in Edmonton. The YWCA also has some programs.

I think the best practices we see are introducing women to the trades and then supporting them as they go through the process to connect with an employer. They are also giving opportunities for the women to come back and report if they're facing a problem or obstacle. They have the support structure in place.

These are still male-dominated careers, and some of that additional support from an outside group is helpful for women.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that response.

Now we'll move to Madame Boutin-Sweet.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you.

I would like some clarification about something, so first, I will ask a question, and then I will give the rest of my time to Mr. Cleary.

I am wondering about employment insurance and apprenticeship, specifically.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Hold on for one moment. We'll give you a second to get the earpieces unwound, and then we'll start again to make sure you get the translation.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Can you hear me clearly?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Ms. Steeves, we'll wait for you to get your earpiece on.

Okay, start again.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

I was saying that I would like something clarified and will then give the rest of my time to Mr. Cleary.

I am wondering about apprenticeship and employment insurance.

Are apprenticeship costs never covered, or sometimes covered?

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

The EI is paid when somebody goes to technical training. They're eligible to receive employment insurance benefits. In their first year there's a two-week waiting period, the same as for anybody applying for employment insurance, and in subsequent years there's no waiting period.

The problem is that the processing time has caused some problems for apprentices. I've spoken to a number of apprentices who found they were without income for those weeks, which does not motivate them to go back into technical training. It's just one of those barriers that they face on a fairly regular basis.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

What happens if the person in training is a young student? Will they receive EI benefits during their training even if they were not working before the training?

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

An apprentice is an employee, so they have always worked ahead of time. They are eligible for EI. They're not considered a student; they're considered an employee. They're not eligible for student loans, but they are eligible for employment insurance.

It's a little bit different in Quebec because that apprenticeship system is different. It puts all of the training time at the beginning and then someone goes into employment. The Quebec apprenticeship system is different from the other 12 systems. All of the 13 systems are different, but Quebec is somewhat different in that way.