Human Resources Committee on Oct. 16th, 2012

[Jean-François LaRue]

This is certainly an idea I will bring back to the department for consideration.

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

The next question I have is along the lines of the target audiences you have with respect to the advertising you might be doing. Ms. Bertrand mentioned reaching out to guidance counsellors, parents, and others, which I think is fabulous. I know you're doing some really great work in making sure high school students are becoming more aware of what's going on.

Are there any initiatives that target younger students in grades six, seven and eight? We know that's also a time frame during which they're starting to make some decisions. Are there some programs that you're working on or are already implementing that target that younger group of students?

[Monika Bertrand]

No, we're not doing that. This is something that we really need to work on with provinces. It is not something the federal government can do alone. We cannot step into grade schools and start promoting certain careers.

We have heard many times from Canadian experts and experts around the world that we need to start doing this earlier, so we are looking into possibilities for working with provinces and maybe putting on an event. We haven't quite figured it out, but we're discussing that very issue.

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

That's excellent.

The next question I have is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

I think Ms. Racette has a comment.

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

I'm sorry about that.

[Micheline Racette]

I didn't mean to interrupt.

Building on these comments, this is an area in which provinces indeed are active. Some, such as Alberta, have implemented initiatives to expose youth, in the secondary school system or even earlier, to the trades through job shadowing or mentoring. The idea is to give them early exposure and increase awareness and to get to them in order to help them make informed future choices about their careers. Alberta offers just one example.

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

That's great. Thank you very much.

Do I have a bit more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Yes, you have another minute or so.

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

One of the items you brought up in your opening statement was about challenges and what the barriers are. You mentioned in general three or four items, whether it be a dangerous work site, the issue of wages and what young Canadians think, or parental perceptions and culture. I would like to ask you for a few more details with respect to that.

I recognize that a dangerous place of work may be different in the perception of a young woman than that of a young man. There may not be a perception that a hospital operating room is a dangerous place, but I can tell you that if you contact hepatitis, it's a lot more dangerous than standing on a work site on a given day.

Are there some specifics around that dangerous work site component, or around the issue of parental perception, that might give us some direction about what we should be asking our next set of witnesses concerning the barriers that exist for young Canadians considering apprenticeships?

[Jean-François LaRue]

There are five specific factors that I referred to. One factor is whether or not sufficient work for the individuals will be available in the long haul, not just for the next five to ten years. People are very self-conscious about this. There are the financial barriers in terms of the cost of apprenticeship or whether there will be sufficient income, but again this is perception-based. Another factor is they're sometimes receiving better and more competitive job offers elsewhere that you wouldn't expect, that may not be trade related, but the contractor who employs them has certain specific needs for individuals who are generalists to develop those skills due to a particular project. Then there's the employer participation in terms of supporting the apprenticeship. Sometimes some of the barriers that are fairly unique are essential skills needs where individuals have numeracy and literacy challenges that need to be overcome.

I would leave it at that for now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Your time is up.

Does anyone else have a comment?

Go ahead, Ms. Racette.

[Micheline Racette]

I would simply like to add that you may wish to hear from the Construction Sector Council of Canada. It has, I believe, looked into the issue of how to attract women to the building and construction trades and looked at the issues and barriers specific to work sites and the culture. That may inform the study you're undertaking.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Cuzner, go ahead.

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

Thank you all for being here today and for your presentation. I'm going to try to knit this together.

Regarding the comments about making sure that young people are aware of trades and the potential opportunities by pursuing trades, we're seeing growth in the numbers. For young people who registered between 2006 and 2010, there's fairly substantive growth. There were about 320,000 individuals in 2006 to 430,000 in 2010. That would show there's growth in people becoming more aware of the trades. But still the completion ratios of those trades aren't as strong as they should be or as anybody would want them to be. About 20,000 individuals completed their apprenticeship in 2006 and 36,000 individuals completed it in 2010. Your reference was that about 50% complete their apprenticeship. I would question if it's that high. There has to be a myriad of reasons. As you said, it's very complex. When you look at provincial responsibilities it's very complex.

Who is measuring why these young people aren't completing the trades? Where do we go to find those measurements and the myriad of reasons they're not being completed?

[Jean-François LaRue]

This is certainly an area where there's a lot of interest.

The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum was one area that conducted a lot of research. HRDC conducted a lot of research into that issue; we conducted a fair number of surveys. This is why this morning in my speech I mentioned some of the reasons that explain this. This is a long-standing issue. This is not new. This is why the government has acted early in its mandate by introducing grants and benefits for employers in terms of promoting, encouraging, and providing a way for the system to support people entering into trades to complete it.

As I said, there are a number of factors at play. As an economist I call it noise in the data. You don't see the completion rate increasing but at the same time we know that it's not because they don't become full-fledged apprentices that they're not working in the industry.

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

You're talking a lot around it, the noise around the answer sort of thing.

This is where the problem is. We're losing people from those trades. In terms of your comment on trying to link apprentices who are halfway through their program and that job ends and now they're looking for another experience, that's a really neat program. I can see that being of benefit, but there has to be somebody out there, whether it's the federal government, one of the councils, or whatever, that is trying to identify for example the four main reasons that people aren't completing their apprenticeship.

[Jean-François LaRue]

I can mention....

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

Both Germany and Australia were faced with statistics similar to those for Canada. They did a whole restructuring of their apprenticeship programs a number of years ago. Do you look at the types of programs and initiatives those countries have undertaken?

[Jean-François LaRue]

We certainly do. I don't necessarily have one readily in mind, but we also know the reasons from the surveys we conduct through Statistics Canada. I can mention some of the reasons here. Certainly finding and keeping continuous work is one of the aspects that is a problem. Finding an employer who's committed to the apprenticeship program is another. Seasonality of work is another factor. There is the aspect of receiving a more lucrative job offer while they're on training. Certainly numeracy and literacy are issues. Obviously, there is the issue of labour market conditions. These are the main factors.

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

Then you build your strategy around that.

[Jean-François LaRue]

We build it around those obstacles, and that's why the programming is directed the way it is.

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

Do you think that we need a restructuring because of the lack of success? Under 50% is not great. I guess if you were a starting pitcher in the major leagues it would be good and you would be making lots of money, but when you are trying to train young people it's probably not as good as it should be.

Does the system have to be restructured, or is there tweaking or other things we can do within the system? Do you think it needs a major overhaul?

[Jean-François LaRue]

There are three aspects to your question.

In answer to the first one on whether it needs a major overhaul, no. I think we have a solid suite of programs addressing every single aspect of the apprenticeship question. Could we do better? We're certainly monitoring and identifying our priorities every year and trying to work within the envelopes that we are being provided.

Certainly targeted initiatives and innovative practices are things we, the Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship, look at and work on with the provinces and the various stakeholders involved to try to identify innovative practices in order to attract and retain those workers.

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

I'm going to try to get two more questions in here.