Evidence of meeting #39 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 construction.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Christopher Smillie  Senior Advisor, Government Relations, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office
Francis Bradley  Vice-President, Policy Development, Canadian Electricity Association
Michelle Branigan  Member, Canadian Electricity Association
Michael Atkinson  President, Canadian Construction Association
Shaun Thorson  Chief Executive Officer, Skills Canada

3:55 p.m.

NDP

Ryan Cleary NDP St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL

Should it take four years?

3:55 p.m.

Senior Advisor, Government Relations, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Christopher Smillie

It depends on the length of the apprenticeship program, but in construction it's usually three or four years, so it should be three, four, or five years, I would say.

3:55 p.m.

NDP

Ryan Cleary NDP St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL

You don't have any advice on how to do that, how to cut that time down?

3:55 p.m.

Senior Advisor, Government Relations, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Christopher Smillie

Well, there are issues in industry with.... All of the apprenticeships are monitored and maintained by a joint apprenticeship council, so you would have employers and the labour providers monitoring the system, but it's not very formalized. I think industry needs incentives to move people through. The joint apprenticeship committee between employers and labour providers tends to be pretty informal. I think those need to be beefed up and maybe there's some public policy way that we can figure out how to do that.

3:55 p.m.

NDP

Ryan Cleary NDP St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL

Can you elaborate on the incentives? What kind of incentives do you envision?

3:55 p.m.

Senior Advisor, Government Relations, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Christopher Smillie

I talked about it in my pitch. I think—

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

Your time is up.

3:55 p.m.

NDP

Ryan Cleary NDP St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL

Oh, I'm sorry.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

That's okay. Go ahead then, Mr. Smillie.

3:55 p.m.

Senior Advisor, Government Relations, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Christopher Smillie

I think we need hard dollars for companies and people who move through the system. People are staying as second- or third-year apprentices because they're making good money and in third and fourth year there is no apprenticeship incentive grant to keep going. There is a graduation grant of $1,000, but a guy can make that in a couple of days with overtime. So there is absolutely a role for public policy to play.

3:55 p.m.

NDP

Ryan Cleary NDP St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL

Thank you very much.

Sorry, Chair.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki

Mr. Butt, for five minutes. We're into the five-minute round.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

I'm hoping I can share my time between the two organizations, but I am going to start with Mr. Smillie.

I understand that back in September your organization hosted a forum in Ottawa on the looming skilled worker shortage in Canada, entitled “Oilsands—Labour Dead end or Skilled Trades Super Highway?” Can you share some of the conclusions that emerged from that forum with regard to skill shortages and the experiences you had with the participants there?

May 16th, 2012 / 3:55 p.m.

Senior Advisor, Government Relations, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Christopher Smillie

Sure. The policy outcomes that we discussed at that forum were the meat and potatoes of my presentation. It was decided that in order to move forward a four-pronged fix was really needed. It included talking about the permanent and temporary immigration system; about labour market development agreements; about making sure that the training system is strong; and about making sure there is good communication in industry, as well as some sort of oversight of the training system, with some sort of incentives for folks to move through it.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

Is the issue that we do have enough of these skilled people across the country, that they're in different provinces and communities but not where the jobs are? Or do we have a problem with just not having people either today or in the future? I know you've done some actuarial work and that you've talked about retirement, etc. So are we having a problem today and in the future as well, that we simply don't have enough trained skilled workers today for all of the jobs that are available across the country?

4 p.m.

Senior Advisor, Government Relations, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Christopher Smillie

Today, I would say that the construction labour market is at 95% capacity. Six months from now it'll be at 110% capacity. So really, we don't have enough people today. Even if we could get everybody to where the work was, it still wouldn't be enough. With the confluence of energy investment we're getting in Canada, the demand side of the equation is huge. Combined with that is the folks who are getting older, meaning those in their 50s and 60s who are going to leave. Who then will do the work?

During the 1980s and 1990s it was difficult for a young person to get into the trades because of the economic conditions. So here we are 20 years later where we have a situation in which there are hardly any young people moving through the system. It's a serious problem today and I would say that my colleagues on the panel here would probably agree that the members they represent are experiencing it today and that it will be worse down the road.

4 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

Well, that's a good segue into asking the Canadian Electricity Association the same kind of thing. Do you see it as an overall problem today, with the mobility issue being of primary concern? Or are we having shortages right now within the companies you're representing, in the specific highly skilled jobs that need to be done for your companies to be successful? Is it that we simply do not have enough home-grown skilled talent right now to do those jobs, regardless of where these are across the country?

4 p.m.

Vice-President, Policy Development, Canadian Electricity Association

Francis Bradley

Yes. I assume that you want me to elaborate. Yes, currently there is—

4 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

Sometimes “yes” is simply a good answer, but I want you to elaborate.

4 p.m.

Vice-President, Policy Development, Canadian Electricity Association

Francis Bradley

Clearly, we're looking at challenges in the immediate future, that is, in the short- and medium-terms—and of course there are some long-term challenges as well. And there are some very specific job classifications where the problems are particularly acute.

Perhaps Michelle, who has been doing the work on the labour market studies through the Electricity Sector Council, can give you a sense of what those are.

4 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

Go ahead.

4 p.m.

Member, Canadian Electricity Association

Michelle Branigan

Particularly in our industry it's important to note that the majority of our workers are extremely high-skilled workers with post-secondary education. When difficulties arise—as we're seeing right now, as three companies have called me in the last two weeks from right across the country because of the extreme difficulty they are having in hiring employees in specific occupations—we can't just slot people in who are ready and fully competent to achieve that role. That becomes not only a productivity issue but also a safety issue within our industry. So it's extremely important to be able to build out.

In our industry, on average, employers tell us that it takes about four years to someone to achieve for full competency within the role. If you look at nuclear operators, you're looking at up to a 10-year window. So when you have a huge cohort rapidly moving toward retirement, combined with the expansion needs of the industry at the same time, we are really running into a very major issue right now.

4 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

I have a really quick question that can be answered really quickly.

What percentage would you say, of the jobs that you're filling today in both of your categories—just a percentage number—would be filled through temporary foreign workers? Is it a high percentage, a low percentage, or a very small part, or are you relying on them more and more because there isn't the domestic trained labour force to fill those jobs?

4 p.m.

Member, Canadian Electricity Association

Michelle Branigan

In electricity, our numbers of temporary foreign workers are quite low: we're looking at about 12%, versus a 19% average within other industries.

Definitely there's a lot of room for us to look into that area, and we're already seeing companies going overseas and trying to get workers as well to come in. There are difficulties around the recognition of different qualifications that we need to look at. This becomes an issue that we're looking to address.

4 p.m.

Senior Advisor, Government Relations, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office

Christopher Smillie

I have a number. The construction workforce has 1.5 million people in it in Canada, and last year, in the 15 specific trades that we represent, 5,400 temporary foreign workers were brought in. So it's very low.