Human Resources Committee on Oct. 16th, 2012

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

Mr. LaRue, in your opening statement you talked about how youth in particular are not drawn to the skilled trades after completing high school, and the average age of entry into apprenticeship is 25 years. I found that interesting.

I have a 16-year-old son who will be 17 on Monday, and we're talking right now about life after school. Life after school for him is hockey. He wants to be a professional hockey player, and I keep telling him that—

[Jean-François LaRue]

We wish he'd be a tradesman.

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

I still do.

I tell him that he needs a backup plan, so what we talk about is a backup plan. We talk about university and we also talk about skilled trades.

I ask questions. I ask him what he wants to do. What he wants to do, again, is to be a hockey player. I'm all about encouraging him to follow his dreams and maybe play a bit of junior A, which I can talk to Rodger about a little later.

He mentioned to me that maybe he'd play a little junior A—and I was surprised by this—and he also said that maybe he would also get a skilled trade. Now, that shocked me because his mother and I have always groomed him for university because the perception out there is that if your children go to university, they'll make more money and have a better life than in a skilled trade. That's the perception that's out there.

You say that on page six. On page seven, you compare wages, how the average weekly earnings of a skilled trades worker are consistently higher than the average for all occupations over the last decade. As a member of this committee and as a parent, my question is: how do the weekly wages of the skilled trades compare to the university graduate? Answer that first and I'll give you another one.

[Jean-François LaRue]

That's a very good question. I don't have that information at my fingertips. I would presume that university graduates are probably getting higher wages than the skilled trades. I would presume that, but I would have to check that information. I could report back to the clerk of the committee just for that evidence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Sure, please.

[Jean-François LaRue]

Yes, I will. I think it's a very valid question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

It's a fair question, very pertinent to many decision-makers.

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

I would be very interested in the answer to that question because that would come into play in the conversations that I continue to have with my son in terms of what direction he chooses for his life.

Getting back to the original part of that question about youth not being drawn to skilled trades, and the average age being 25, is that because there's a negative perception of skilled trades by youth? Is that because youth see skilled trades as not a glamourous life? I want to get this out as I'm really speaking as a parent. For instance, if my son had a choice between being a welder and being a doctor, I am going to tell him to be a doctor. What would I say if he had a choice between being a welder and being a teacher? I don't know.

Are there negative perceptions, and if so, how do you combat them?

[Jean-François LaRue]

What you're asking about is probably the long-standing issue of perception vis-à-vis the skilled trades. As I said, there are multiple factors. Sometimes youth perceive these, and I think erroneously, as being risky jobs and demanding jobs physically. It certainly would explain why so few women are entering the skilled trades. Sometimes not promoting a lot of career advancement, or not leading to other connected employment can play against them. They can also see the hurdles and the challenges of completing an apprenticeship program, the fact that it's a demand of an industry, that maybe job stability is highly dependent on the state of the economy. There's a multiplicity of factors that can explain this.

There's also culture and history in terms of looking at people working in the skilled trades. It's a challenging environment, and certainly in that context some, what I would say, impressions have been left on the parents. But the economy has evolved tremendously. Technology has evolved tremendously. It was certainly evident at the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum conference, where I met some crane operators and all sorts of individuals who are working with very advanced technology. It's not what it used to be. There's a question of evolution, of communicating that evolution, and sensitizing youth to that reality.

I'm as intrigued as you are about the fact that people start their program, on average, at 25 years of age. It tells me that when they leave high school, in between the time they actually graduate from high school and the time they enter a trade, there is a definite period in which there is a certain reflection that occurs. Maybe some individuals don't necessarily like to pursue studies and they want to explore the opportunities in the labour market. They find out that it's a demanding environment. Maybe with some recognition of their credentials or experience that they've acquired—maybe they worked in construction—by familiarizing themselves with the labour market, they discover that with some certification they can perfect their skills. It is like some of us around this table who work in the administration field who decide to get an MBA later on in our careers to perfect our skills. It can be the same kind of process.

There's a variety of factors that can explain this.

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

I was in Fort McMurray last week, and the average salary in Fort McMurray is $100,000 a year. The average family household income in Fort McMurray is $190,000 a year. At the same time, the companies up there are still starving for workers, starving for skilled trades. What about an advertising campaign targeted at youth, at people my son's age, to encourage them to get into the skilled trades? Alberta's one thing in terms of helping to drive the Canadian economy, but even in Newfoundland and Labrador, my province, we have projects which are just starving for skilled trades. In terms of an advertising campaign, do you have anything up your sleeve?

[Jean-François LaRue]

First of all, there are a few campaigns that have been ongoing. The last one was the Better Jobs campaign. You can see the ad; it focuses on sensitizing people to the prospect of trades through the imagery and the publicity.

I would say that if we were to consider a number of broad-based actions for promoting trades to youth, an awareness campaign would be one of the pillars on which I would build a potential, if I can call it so, strategy or action plan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you. Your time is up.

Did anyone else wish to make a comment?

Ms. Racette.

[Micheline Racette, Assistant Director, Trades and Apprenticeship Division, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

I would simply like to add that the issue of the influence of parents and educators on youth is a subject that the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum has looked into and researched. They could very well provide you with insight into their research and tell you more about their hearing that very few youth are being encouraged by their parents to enter the trades. This is an area they have looked into and have done considerable outreach as well, to try to influence attitudes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

What was the group you mentioned?

[Micheline Racette]

It's the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, or le Forum canadien sur l'apprentissage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

All right.

Did you have a comment, Ms. Bertrand?

[Monika Bertrand]

I would just like to add that the Government of Canada is a supporter of Skills Canada, from whom I think you're going to hear at some point. That is an organization devoted to promoting the skilled trades and technology.

As I said, we strongly support Skills Canada and the skills competitions. This is about making the skilled trades more visible to students, to educators, to parents, to businesses, and rewarding students for their work in the skilled trades through the competitions.

Right now we're working with Skills Canada to put a digital focus on the competitions. What that does is it highlights how the trades have advanced; how each and every trade has a strong digital component to it. Be it welding or you name it, there is a digital aspect to it. You will see in the competitions this year and next a digital theme. There will be many activities around the digital component in the trades.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for that comment.

I have been at some of those competitions. They're well worth taking in. They certainly broaden knowledge and understanding and bring some of that to the students where they are.

Ms. Leitch, go ahead.

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

Thank you very much for taking the time to come this morning. It is greatly appreciated.

I have a few questions. One follows up on what Mr. Cleary was speaking about with regard to advertising.

From the standpoint of the advertising the Government of Canada is doing, what percentage of it is done in partnership with industry? It is one thing to encourage young people to enter the trades and to target specific high-demand trades. Having lived in Fort McMurray, I can understand where Mr. Cleary is coming from.

Are you doing it in partnership with industry? Are you encouraging industry to do its own independent advertising? Obviously, we want the individuals who have jobs available to be doing that advertising, if they need the people. They're industry leaders. They should be stepping up and taking on their responsibility of trying to encourage individuals to come to their firms.

Who are you working in partnership with?

[Jean-François LaRue]

In regard to partnerships we work mainly with the provincial and territorial authorities through the Red Seal program. These are our main spokespersons. Apprenticeship is a provincial responsibility, so clearly part of the conversation has to go through them.

Through the work of the Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship, we do a lot of stakeholders meetings. We meet with industry representatives, and they can be the CHBA, or the mining industry, or the Canadian Standards Association. We're in regular contact with these various players. Certainly the issue of apprenticeship is an area of interest.

As to whether we have leveraged their contribution for the advertising campaign, I'm not aware that we did, but this is certainly an interesting suggestion.

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

In line with that, you talk about what some of those barriers are. I think we're quite aware of what some of them are, whether it be young women who are concerned about a dangerous work site or not knowing what the actual wage is. I spend a fair amount of time in my own riding of Simcoe—Grey going to high schools and asking students whether they know what a welder makes on the job. No one has a clue; they're not even in the ballpark.

Why don't you include those wages in your ads? If you want young people to know about them, why aren't we telling them?

I know that we're Canadians and we like to be couched in the way we approach things, but why don't we tell young Canadians that the average income for a welder or carpenter in Fort McMurray, Alberta is $120,000 a year? Young people will respond to that, because they want to know that there's economic security.

Maybe you do that, but I've never seen it in one of your ads.

[Jean-François LaRue]

Actually, I haven't seen it either; however, whenever an awareness campaign is carried out, when we put skilled trades in perspective and discuss value we make the point that these are rewarding career choices. I don't know that you'd actually put in an average dollar salary. We have the communications experts to tell us whether this is a good idea or not. I'm not an expert in that field.

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

I'm not either, but I deal with students, or at least I used to every single weekend. Whether in my MBA class or in my medical school class, it didn't matter; they always asked what they were going to be making.

[Jean-François LaRue]

Yes. I agree.

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

We may just want to communicate to them directly and tell them what they could potentially make, because then they'll actually open their eyes and say that maybe they should be considering this as a career opportunity.

I know it sounds rather crass, but I think it's a way of encouraging young Canadians to at least open up the pamphlet and say, “Maybe I should be considering this. I might get my hands a little bit dirty, but maybe I should consider this.”