Human Resources Committee on Nov. 27th, 2012

[Kelly Lendsay]

I am going to send an email to Chief Clarence Louie at Osoyoos. He will be so very pleased, because he wants Nk'Mip wine to go across the country.

There needs to be a coordinated approach to investment. The reason I'm leaving early is that I'm meeting with the Minister of Finance's office, HRSDC's office, and people at AANDC. It is about creating more social financing mechanisms. How can you take a dollar of federal money and leverage it with at least another dollar or $1.50 from the private sector?

There has to be more money. It can't only come from government. There have to be leveraged social financing mechanisms. Some call them social impact bonds. I've been meeting with folks in Australia, England, and elsewhere. We have been doing social enterprise for seven years. We now generate more than $1 million of our own private revenue. For every dollar of federal money I've taken, I've generated $1.38. We think that's the way forward.

You heard the lady say that they invested $750,000 in the colleges—Georgian, Ryerson, Mohawk. The investment needs to go into places, as Joe said, such as colleges. For aboriginal people in the college system, the gaps have decreased. We're seeing aboriginal people entering the colleges—not the universities, but colleges—almost at the same rate as their fellow Canadians. This is good news.

There are many other problems about apprenticeship and completion rates that we all know about, and those are important. There is another thing I'd recommend to the federal government.

I'm in good company here. My father was a linesman. There's a difference between my dad and our family and my cousins. I've had cousins who have been unemployed, cousins who have been in jail, uncles who were incarcerated, and I've seen proud families whose members have provided for their families. My dad was an electrician. He died much too young, but now two Métis guys—one is 29 and one is 40—have become electricians with SaskPower.

The federal government needs to realize that when people want role model and mentorship programs—these mechanisms that actually help—they will create jobs in the long run, but it's hard to draw a straight line. I think we've become too focused on showing the final output, which is the job.

Aboriginal people have said you need to be able to talk to people. You need to be able to apprentice them. You need to coach them. You need to educate them. You need to discipline them. You learn these skills. I think there are some very good examples of aboriginal cultures.

Thinking about the cultural aspect, in 2006 or 2007 I was up in Nunavut and I met Nestor. He's the first Inuk to work for Nunavut Power. Seven started the program, and one made it through. We cannot afford these types of completion rates anymore.

My appeal would be for alignment of investments. How are we going to leverage more private sector investment? How are we going to coordinate our investments, not just provincially but across this country with some national strategies?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Lendsay. It's always good to hear from you. You always have stories to back up your point, and that's good.

But Madame Boutin-Sweet, your time is used up.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Kelly Lendsay]

I'm just like the Ukrainians, full of stories.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Very good.

We'll move to Mr. Butt.

Go ahead.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here with us.

This is an important study, because this is ensuring that we have a system, across the country, we hope, that will encourage more people to consider apprenticeship and that will encourage more employers to participate and to hire through an apprenticeship system.

I'm glad Mr. Lendsay talked about the age difference. I hope that some people will see apprenticeship as a second career opportunity. They may be in their 40s, and whatever they thought they were going to do at age 20 isn't the same as at age 40. This is an opportunity for them to retrain and get back into the workforce. That's how I see the apprenticeship program.

Yes, I think we have a challenge getting younger people to consider apprenticeships, to consider the trades. You've all talked about changing parents' mindsets. I'm the father of daughters who are 13 and 9 years old. We're going to have to have the conversation eventually about what their career path will be. A couple of people have talked about how we can get more young women looking at the skilled trades. I think that's a challenge we have as well.

I want to start by asking about the challenge regarding employers and whether any of you have specific ideas of things we could be doing to get more employers on board to participate in apprenticeship programs. Apprenticeship is employment. I think in most apprenticeships—you can correct me, if I'm wrong—the employer pays a salary while the person goes through the apprenticeship program. They are hiring somebody to participate in this program.

What can we do to encourage more employers to participate? We know that 80% of the people in this country work for small business. What do we do? Do you have any specific suggestions for us, things we can look at as a federal government by way of providing incentives or looking at ways to encourage more companies to hire apprentices?

Mr. Chairman, whoever wants to jump in can respond to this. It's probably the only question I'll get in, so I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Okay. Let's see who wants to respond to it.

Is there anyone in particular?

Mr. Burpee, go ahead.

[Jim R. Burpee]

I can't speak on behalf of small employers, because we tend to be all large companies.

All of them become involved, because they all have structured risk management processes. Every year they evaluate their upcoming risks. Labour shortage is always high on that list. They understand the role of training and development of staff. That's why you have the experiences of both Hydro Ottawa and Toronto Hydro linking up with community colleges to provide it.

I'm sorry I can't answer for small business. I can answer for the 20%, not for the 80%, sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Ms. Steeves, go ahead. We'll come back to Mr. Fraser.

[Jennifer Steeves]

Most of our industry is small businesses. Their reality is that they don't have an HR department and they don't think about shortages until they need to hire somebody. A big challenge is that they still look at hiring an apprentice as a cost rather than look at the investment in building their labour supply. They're more apt to pay a guy down the street a little bit more to come to work for them rather than hire the apprentice.

There's a lot around awareness that the labour supply is tight. Small employers don't always realize until they go out to hire that the supply is very tight. Concerning awareness that this is an investment that is going to pay off for them, I mentioned that CAF has done really good work. We've tried to get that knowledge out to employers as well.

As well, concerning the job readiness of apprentices, anything that can be done to enhance an apprentice's appreciation of workplace expectations would help. There's the disconnect between employers and the education training system. Employers generally want to train. They're set up to realize that this is a role for them, but they really need the apprentice to come in on time, have a good attitude, and have communication skills, because that apprentice is going to be in front of the client or the customer at some point. There too we see the importance of the essential skills piece.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

We will conclude with Mr. Fraser.

[Norm Fraser]

It is pretty much upon the same theme that I want to elaborate.

One thing we need to do is recognize that most of the apprentice programs that have been developed are homegrown. Individual utilities or companies saw a need and went out and acted on it. We still face the barrier that we have to get into the schools and convince the kids that these are actually very good jobs. They require highly skilled people, people who can have a job for life, essentially. Employers are still looking at this as a seller's market for labour.

We need to get into the schools early and nationally to convince our kids that these are good jobs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you.

Would you give a very short intervention, Mr. Lendsay.

[Kelly Lendsay]

I promise, Ed.

I have three things I would offer Mr. Butt.

First of all, I don't think everybody is an expert at training. We should do a better job of supporting those employers who say they would like to do training. It would be very good.

We should look at tax incentives. Maybe there is a top amount of 125% of training investment deducted in terms of your payroll taxes. Something around tax incentives would definitely encourage those employers who are good at training. Then they wouldn't mind if their employees are raided and they lose them because there has been some cost recovery.

There could be shared training pools. Small employers could contribute to training pools that could be supported by federal or provincial dollars.

Another suggestion is to look to what Quebec does. I don't know the exact numbers, but I think Quebec collects something like a 1% after tax of net profit. It goes into a training fund. You either spend it or lose it. You should check the facts on that. This country is going to have to create their training funds like Quebec has done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Okay, thank you for that intervention.

Mr. Cleary, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am the MP for St. John's South—Mount Pearl in Newfoundland and Labrador, so my question has to do with the megaproject of Muskrat Falls.

Ms. Branigan, you mentioned how the electricity industry employs 108,000 highly skilled workers and that we need to recruit another 45,000 new workers by 2016. That's a lot of people. We have aging infrastructure.

Mr. Burpee, you talk about expectations of 156,000 construction trades jobs each year for the next 20 years. At the same time we have baby boomer retirements. In Labrador we have a project that is worth more than $7 billion. We have direct and indirect employment of 18,400 person-years in Newfoundland and Labrador. Across Canada, on the person-years of employment, the expectations are over 47,000 person-years. The peak employment during the construction phase in 2013 is 2,700 jobs.

To get right to the point, we have a megaproject in Labrador at Muskrat Falls. We also have the construction of the power line across the Cabot Strait, from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia. Do we have the workforce to build the project and to keep it running? Do you see any red flags?

[Michelle Branigan]

I have actually spoken to some of the people in Nova Scotia lately. They don't have a difficulty so much with attracting people into the company, for example, to work. I spoke to the CEO there. His frustration lay in the fact that he had people who he had brought in, and he was training them for three, four, or five years. Now he is actually losing them to Alberta, even though he had put that amount of time into actually training them. They are basically going where the money is because of the high salaries that are out there. That was his immediate concern.

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

I'm sorry to interrupt, but do you think there would be a concern about salary competition between places like Alberta and Newfoundland?

[Michelle Branigan]

That's the anecdotal evidence that we're hearing. Companies are actually losing people because of that. It goes back to the point that Kelly made, where on that plane that goes out every day, there is a ton of people from out east. I've been on that plane twice, as well, in the last couple of weeks.

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

I'm on that plane twice a week and it is filled with people on shift work going back and forth to Alberta.

What do we do about that? How does a fairly new employer during construction and once the project is running compete with employers in Alberta who have been around for a dog's age and are paying better wages? How do you do that?

[Michelle Branigan]

We discussed this a little bit this morning. It comes down to demonstrating the value added. There are individuals who don't want to uproot families, for example, or spend six months away from their family because they are consistently having to go out to Alberta. It's ensuring that there is a good salary. But it's not all about salary. It's about culture of work, too. It's understanding that these are long-term jobs and not just something that is going to be a one- or two-year construction fit while that manufacturing and development is taking place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

I think Mr. Burpee wishes to have a response as well.

[Jim R. Burpee]

Within the 156,000 total jobs, which is not just construction but supporting the engineering and the supply chain, your 2,700 jobs you referenced would be in that. That project was included in the estimate when the Conference Board of Canada did it.

In the construction industry, a lot of that work in the transmission lines will be done by experienced contractors who work across the country and draw on a pool of resources from across the country.

There are issues from time to time. Even within the oil sands, you could see four or five years ago when too many projects were going above what the infrastructure could support. They got into competition with each other, and labour prices went up and they were making promises, whether it was bonuses or overtime, or what not.

The construction industry tries to manage it the best they can, but if the total demand is all up at the same time, the law of supply and demand, when it comes to construction, comes into play.

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

Mr. Lendsay, I have a quick question for you. I guess a key for this project in Labrador is to tap into the aboriginal workforce.

[Kelly Lendsay]

Yes. Going to the women's position that was put forward, there are leaders such as Michèle Audette, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada. There have been aboriginal women in construction in these programs. I think we need to look to that.

I'll tell you what I think the reality is, not just for Muskrat Falls, but for projects across this country. I remember being up in Fort McMurray and going to Earls restaurant. It closed at 9 p.m. because they couldn't get enough labour. There will be slowdowns in this country. It's a productivity issue. Projects will simply be delayed or not get started or they will stop and start because of labour. I think that reality is kind of scary for people. I'd offer that to you.

I'd love to make some connections to people such as the Native Women's Association of Canada. That's her own territory. She is from there.

How do we align those communities with those job prospects you're talking about?