Human Resources Committee on Sept. 27th, 2012

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

I believe I heard from one of you that you follow up with the trained workers as well, so the workers who complete it successfully. What percentage would you say are actively involved in construction work and are pursuing that area?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

At the moment we're waiting for the information from la Construction du Québec, because as soon as somebody has a diploma and is employed with La Commission de la Construction du Québec in different projects in Quebec, they can give us that information. At the moment, I cannot give you the information because I don't have the exact number.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Can you please send it to us when you...?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

Yes, I will.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Even though I heard that you have some communication connection with the construction commission of Quebec, obviously these workers, these tradespeople, most of them, I would say, would get involved with the construction industry in the private sector. It benefits the private sector as well to have all the skilled trades.

During the past five years, has your centre made any effort or had any connection with the private sector to encourage them? They need the workers. Is there any involvement with the private sector, any encouragement, or any financial or non-financial or community-based...any contribution? Have they been approached? If they have been approached, was there any response? If there was a response, was it positive or negative? If there was a positive response, was there any action?

Could you elaborate on that, please?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

I'll give you an example.

At the moment, there is a big construction project called la Romaine, near Havre-Saint-Pierre. Different companies are involved in that project—Hydro-Québec, the different companies building le barrage and other things there—so they're asking us to train the students in different fields depending on which training programs they need.

They tell us their needs and we do the different programs for them. We work with La Commission de la Construction du Québec to know which of the trades we should train them in, and also which projects are coming and in which field there is going to be employment.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Basically they are involved in guiding you as to what trades are required.

Next is whether they are encouraged to be partners in this program, because they are the ones who will ultimately be getting the benefit of these skills.

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

Different things were done to help the graduating students get a job. I'll give you an example. Hydro-Québec gives credits to employers who are going to employ aboriginal students.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Mr. Shory, your time is up, so I guess you won't be sharing.

We'll move to Mr. Cuzner.

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

I won't be sharing my time with Mr. Butt, either.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

Thanks to both of you for being here today. I appreciate your interventions and certainly your success rate.

Just off the top of my head, I think it's probably better than most non-aboriginal institutions. You should be pleased with that.

Ms. McDonald, could you give us a profile? You've been involved with this now for quite a period of time. Give me an indication of the funding, how it's grown, and the genesis of the funding prior to the cutbacks, because I would think that as your organization developed you would have started to realize more about yourself, more about the demands, the opportunities out there. Obviously the funding would have grown, and you were able to do more.

Could you maybe profile the funding over the last 10 years? When did it peak, and when did you start to lose funding trying to do the same things with the same amount of funds?

[Cheryl McDonald]

I wish my finance guy were here, but in a nutshell, the money is distributed at the national level. It's based on different variables of remoteness, language, education levels, things like that, so it's disbursed to the different regions. Quebec gets a certain amount, and what we do is redistribute that based on our communities. There are similar variables to allocate that. Each community receives an annual allocation. The base amount that comes into Quebec has always been fixed. We have no control.

When we started the directional plan, we said wow, we're going to have an opportunity to write a business plan based on our needs, to put in the costs of moving our people from where they are to where they need to go.

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

Excuse me just for a second. You said you've lost $17 million from the base amount?

[Cheryl McDonald]

We lost those amounts because the cost of training has gone up, the demand for our services has gone up, the youth population is increasing.

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

So the amount's been fixed, but just....

[Cheryl McDonald]

It's the demand. Also with McIvor, we've seen new people coming. And with the introduction of the urban centres, there's been a new demand as well. That's what's happening.

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

The funding has been constant. It hasn't grown, just the demand has grown.

When the students come to you, Ms. Desjardins, where are the gaps? What are you seeing when they come to you? Is it life skills? You commented that English as a first language has been a challenge. Is there something that can be done even to increase your success ratio—which is impressive, but before they get to you, is there something you can...?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

Let me try to answer that.

Upgrading is very important before training starts, so that the student gets going and is set up for success.

Let me give you an example. For the surveying course, we really have to ask the instructors to check the mathematical concepts required, the ones the student has to know in order to be able to successfully complete the training. Before training starts, we do three weeks of life skills. That is also when we work on the students' mathematics. Those are services that we provide. And if the students do not have the prerequisites, we also help them in terms of coaching them through instructional development tests.

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

Good.

You mentioned Hydro-Québec as a pretty good partner. What we're seeing is that a lot of apprenticeships aren't being realized, for example, going through and becoming a full-fledged journeyman. A lot of it is in the tracking of that individual after they leave the institution. It goes off the rails there in a lot of cases.

You indicated that you have some good partnerships with industry. What companies out there are doing a really good job, are committed to the same types of outcomes as your organization is? Who can we use as a template to say who's doing it right?

[Mary Ann Desjardins]

When the consortium was set up, various companies signed a memorandum of understanding, including the Quebec Ministère des Transports, Hydro-Québec and TransCanada. Those companies committed to hiring our students when they graduated.

Let me give you an example. It was the first time we gave the linesman course in English. The students who graduated from it all have jobs today. Companies call us at the centre asking for our Aboriginal clients. With some contracts, companies have to hire a certain percentage of Aboriginal employees. Unfortunately, most of the students who have diplomas also have jobs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Mr. Cuzner, your time is up.

We'll move now to Mr. Armstrong.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you.

Mrs. McDonald, I just want to clarify your conversation with Mr. Cuzner. You said the base funding for your organization has not been cut from the federal government over the last 10 years. You've had the same base funding; it's been frozen.

How many employees does your operation have?

[Cheryl McDonald]

We have about 45 spread all over Quebec. There are some in the regional office in Kahnawake and consultants, and we have three to four in each urban service point.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Has that been consistent for the last 10 years or has your employee base grown over the last 10 years? Is it roughly the same?