Human Resources Committee on May 16th, 2012

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you.

Now we'll move to Madame Boutin-Sweet.

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

Thank you Mr. Chair.

On this issue, I will try to link a number of points.

Firstly, part of the committee recently toured the East: Newfoundland, Nova-Scotia and Montreal. We met with groups on the occupational shortage study we are now carrying out. Time and time again, we heard the expression “grow locally”, the idea being to train people locally to meet local needs.

Secondly, as we known, the unemployment rate is much higher for aboriginal Canadians than for the general population.

Thirdly, a labour force is needed in the North, in various sectors. Generally speaking, people are needed in the construction sector.

It so happens an ex-colleague of mine brought up the Aboriginal Skills and Employment Partnership. I would like to know if you have already heard of it.

[Christopher Smillie]

I don't know that program specifically, but I am aware of several initiatives, mainly in northern Alberta at the oil sands, where there's a large concentration of this kind of work. Basically, there is a consortium of construction companies that are focused completely on hiring aboriginal Canadians from local communities. It really is a poster child for the practice.

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

The program I refer to is somewhat similar, but brings together the federal government in the form of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, the provincial Minister of Education and aboriginal groups such as the Quebec-based VTC for Aboriginals in Construction Trades. The program focused on the large-scale development projects and was for aboriginal Canadians living in these regions. It worked well from April 1st, 2008 through March 31st, 2012, but came to an end on March 31st 2012. I have here some 2012 statistics. People received training in a number of construction trades.

Here is what is set forth regarding training offered to aboriginal Canadians: 182 pursued a vocational diploma; 305 received health and safety training; 112 took courses in general industry knowledge; and 149 received training in Attikamek life skills. Indeed, several nations were affected. Unfortunately, this program has just come to an end.

Do you think this program, or a similar one, should be rebuilt? Is this sort of program still needed?

[Francis Bradley]

I'm not familiar with the specific program itself; it clearly is something more directly related to the construction trades. But we have seen similar programming, specifically in the electricity area, and some work that Michelle's organization has done, particularly with respect to aboriginal people.

[Michelle Branigan]

Yes, this is a huge issue for us. We're averaging about 2.2% of aboriginal workers within the electricity sector, which is extremely low.

We've just completed a three-year project funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada looking at recruitment and retention of aboriginal people in the industry. It had two pillars. One was to help the actual employers to be able to do that, with tools for recruitment and cultural awareness and how to bring people into the business.

But we also looked at increasing the awareness of aboriginal peoples of the sheer number of occupations and opportunities available in the sector. This is extremely important, particularly as a lot of the infrastructure build takes place in rural and remote regions. It gives an opportunity for us to engage the aboriginal workforce and not have them have to leave where they live. Many times, having to leave their homes, etc., is an absolute barrier for them.

As part of this, we developed two pilot projects.

One was a pre-orientation trades program, which we did in conjunction with an aboriginal organization and one of our employers in Newfoundland. We put a number of aboriginal youth through the process of identifying whether they liked those four specific occupations.

We also have conducted six aboriginal youth camps, and we're committed to doing a lot more of those. They're focused on 10-to-13-year-olds, because it's extremely important to catch them at an earlier age, before they start dropping the math and science, subjects they need to have as they go into our industry. This gives them hands-on exposure to the industry.

The camps are usually a week long. We bring in mentors from the industry to talk about the positions, and the participants get an opportunity to learn what occupations are out there and at the same time to focus in on the need to maintain their schooling.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Your time is up. We'll move to the next questioner.

Mr. Mayes.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Smillie, the last time you were here, I did hear you. I discussed with some of my colleagues and my government mobility across our borders with the U.S. I also was in the U.S. talking with some congressmen about this. They were quite interested and weren't aware of it.

There are border negotiations going on. In part they concern the mobility of labour across our borders. An area in which your organization could help is in pushing on the other side of the border. I think we're doing our part as a government here in Canada. We may not be seeing enough support among those we're talking with.

That's just one observation.

I agree with your comment that there's not enough being done; we have a big problem here. But there have been some great successes, and we've heard so in this committee, in training of aboriginals in the mining sector in Saskatchewan and in the diamond mining in the Northwest Territories.

There have been some great successes with good policy. It's not just a website by the department; there have been some good things done by the government on the need for skills training. But it is such a monumental challenge that we're facing that we have to look at better and more innovative ways.

I mentioned a couple of days ago to our witnesses that the average age of workers who are entering apprenticeships is 26. We need to get people before age 26. One of the innovative things happening in my constituency in the Okanagan involves the Okanagan College's Salmon Arm campus. The trades association and the school district are working together, taking students out of grade 12 and putting them on a project. They build a house right from the foundation. They do the plumbing; they do the electrical; they get a little bit of everything. This has been going on for 10 years. The first ones to complete the first year got their first year of apprenticeship, but also they had six offers of jobs in Vancouver—and I live in the Okanagan. So it's a great program.

My question to you is: is your organization working with those institutions to try to capture the students? One thing we find is that the biggest challenge is that the education system is painting a picture suggesting that you have to go to university to be successful in life. I'm a certified journeyman carpenter, and I can tell you—not that I've done a lot of it—that it's a very rewarding area to work in. In certain situations it can be very lucrative, too.

[Christopher Smillie]

Thank you for your question. I didn't mean to be critical about the Canada-U.S. thing. We're still waiting, and I understand.

In terms of your question, we do work with local high schools across Canada. It's an issue, however. When I went through high school, there were no shop classes. Those are all gone.

There's been a change in the way that some provinces deliver high school curricula. In Oakville, Ontario, where I grew up, it was out of the system. We can go to the high schools and talk, but there is no practical stuff for the kids to do, and so your example is a great one, where a community organization or a community college is doing that sooner.

In Germany, for example—I think I talked about this in October—they have a decision-making process whereby you're either going to university or you're going to learn a trade. It's very regimented. As a result, they have a very successful system: there's a big supply of skilled workers. So it's really about our country, which goes to your comment about everyone having to go to university.

We're getting folks getting apprenticeships after they go to university. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, but we need to get to them sooner—I would say even before high school. We should be introducing folks to this in elementary school. This is not something the committee controls, but provincial governments have the jurisdiction over this sort of thing. This is what I'm talking about when I say the federal government has a role in determining some of these policies rather than just being the writer of cheques in LMDAs.

These LMDAs can be used to address some of these practical things. Now, it's not as easy as I make it out to be, but these are some of the things I'm trying to get across, including that we should be doing it sooner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Mr. Mayes.

Does either of you, Mr. Bradley or Ms. Branigan, have any comments on that?

[Michelle Branigan]

I would agree wholeheartedly. I think we absolutely need to be getting to them at a younger age. It's extremely important. A lot of the sector councils, the Electricity Sector Council included, have worked with the Toronto District School Board over the last number of years, and developed curricula where they partner with schools and bring in companies to talk to the students about the jobs.

You may be familiar with the high school majors who get credit for studying curricula that focus on a specific industry, whether that be energy, with electricity incorporated into it, or construction or policing, etc. That is being added to the application form. If they then go to college, their application will get pushed to the top of the pile.

We would like to see that fantastic initiative in Ontario moved across the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Mr. Bradley, any comments? No? Okay.

We'll move then to Mr. Cuzner for a round of five minutes.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for being here today.

I'm going to ask each group about apprenticeships. If I can throw out two questions, you guys could then respond.

There are two hurdles. We're seeing young people taking training courses, but they're not completing their apprenticeships. The success rate is abysmal. I would think that if they get into your industry, their chance for success would be far greater.

I'm going to ask you to comment about how many apprentices your organizations bring in over a period of time. What are the success rates there? Are they beyond the norm?

Mr. Smillie, the other question is about the lack of mobility. Red Seal does a really good job for the journeyman, but many of the young people who take training in some communities don't get any recognition of their credentials when they go to other provinces. What's your organization doing to help with that mobility?

Michelle, or Francis, you might want to comment.

[Francis Bradley]

Yes, I'll comment in terms of the context, and then Michelle can go into some of the specifics.

As I mentioned earlier, while we're facing a very significant infrastructure build over the next 20 years, in the order of $300 billion, we as an industry built up our infrastructure a generation ago. So, many of the companies saw a significant reduction in their workforce from the early 1990s for a period of about a decade and a half.

We went through a period when there were very few, and, in some companies, no, apprentices moving forward, one, because of the infrastructure build they're looking at, and two, because of the generational change in staff. Apprenticeships are now probably one of the top if not the top issue for people in human resources within the companies. That's a significant change from where we were a decade ago, but it's a reflection of the infrastructure challenge we're facing.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Would this have happened over the last four or five or ten years?

[Francis Bradley]

I would say that it's really within the last 10 years that in many regions we've hit the wall in terms of our built infrastructure. One of the other pieces we could get into, if we have the time, is all these predictions about what the future's going to look like and what infrastructure build we need to put in place. They're all based on a business-as-usual case. As we all know, business will not be as usual on a go-forward basis. We're looking at a future that's going to be characterized by electric vehicles and smart grids and so on. Not only do we have a challenge in terms of renewing today's workforce, we know that tomorrow's workforce is going to have to be even more skilled than the one we have today.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

That's in terms of the apprenticeships.

[Francis Bradley]

It's also in terms of the success rate.

[Michelle Branigan]

I agree with you. There has been a lag in completions of apprenticeships. We are seeing that. In a lot of situations, what we're hearing from our employers is that as a result, they are taking them out of the apprenticeship stream they're in to do specialized work. If they can go to an organization that is desperately seeking apprentices, they will actually take them out, and they will make more money, because they will go where the money is. They end up staying with that company and working in a specialized trade. But they don't actually finish their official apprenticeships for maybe six, eight, or 10 years at a time.

I have some statistics. Actually, this is from the Registered Apprenticeship Information System. We looked at the figures. These are the latest figures available. We looked at 2008. We looked at some of the skilled trades in our industry. Registrations were over 69,000, and completions were 5,670. That's a huge gap.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

We're getting them to the water, but....

[Michelle Branigan]

I know.

As Francis had mentioned, the skills requirements of employees now are drastically different. If you look at a system operator who manages the flow of power back and forth through the grid, now we have electricity coming in from solar panels, for example, from small business and homeowners. There's a very different skill set required to manage that ebb and flow, back and forth, than there traditionally was in the past. That has a huge impact on both the training needs of those who are coming through at the moment and on those people who are expected to replace those retirees in the next few years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Cuzner. Your time is up.

You wish to make a comment, Mr. Smillie. Take your time.

[Christopher Smillie]

Actually, I have a success story, and it is getting better. The Red Seal people, and actually the provincial jurisdictions and the licensing boards, are getting better at recognizing hours worked in other provinces. It is actually getting better. Some of our locals in Windsor, where there is high unemployment, have been training to Alberta standards. Those folks can go to Alberta and work, and their hours count towards their status in Ontario and they can go forward. It's not perfect, and not every province has an equivalency agreement for training hours. But for most certified trades for which both provinces require a licence in both trades, it's actually working. You can work in Alberta if you're from Newfoundland, and it goes toward your licensed trade back east. It's getting better. It's not perfect. It's approved on a sort of case-by-case basis.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

It is bilateral.