Human Resources Committee on Feb. 7th, 2013

[James St. John]

There is no question. We're still relatively new. We're just in our third year right now, so we're still learning. We're still implementing new ideas. We just added the education component less than a year ago, but we found it made a huge impact, so we're still trying to get our feet under us with what we're doing. We're well on our way, and once we have worked out all the kinks and the bugs, yes, we would like to see this go across all the provinces.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

You have about half a minute, so if you're okay, we'll just move to the next questioner.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Very quickly, was there any involvement of the Government of Ontario in the program?

[James St. John]

The government started the program with the $51 million that was given to the Youth Challenge Fund. We received $272,000 as a start-up from that, and since then we have received $100,000 from the MTCU for a pre-apprenticeship aspect. As well, the MTCU aboriginal division gave us a little bit of money to include aboriginals in our program. Aside from that, it has been all paid for by the building trades affiliates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Caron.

We'll move to Mr. McColeman.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in.

It's a fantastic model.

With acronyms I get lost. What is MTCU?

[James St. John]

It is the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Okay. On your connection with the province, in the sense that it has the formal responsibility for education—this being part of perhaps the ministry, then—what has been its reaction to your success?

[James St. John]

For Hammer Heads specifically, they have been impressed that some of the youth we are dealing with are youth who really haven't been given an opportunity like this in the past, and people are very shocked by our outcomes, especially with the youth that we're targeting. Of our 107 from a priority neighbourhood, 41 were living in Toronto community housing. At every one of our intakes, we try to take a youth out of a shelter and put him or her through our program, so people are impressed that we're able to have the results and success that we are having, considering we are not trying to attract the top youth who did well in school. Essentially, we are going after the opposite youth, and we're still having success.

We're not yet as popular as I want us to be. Hopefully that will come with more success.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

I'm more interested in the reaction, just generally speaking, in the unionized and the non-unionized construction industry, in that this appears to be a model that works. It could work inside a union. It could work outside a union environment in many ways. Have you had any feedback from people in the broad cross-section of the construction industry?

Where I come from in the world, the unionized construction industry doesn't play a major role in my community. It's non-unionized. Have you given any thought to how we could make this a model that could work in different environments?

[James St. John]

Yes, definitely. One of the things we've been doing is going to the developers. The developers aren't necessarily union or non-union, but the developers want to make an impact in their communities. We've been reaching out to the developers and saying, “Listen, you're going to build a brand new building, and you're going to build a complex over here, so can we tie some apprenticeship opportunities to that?”

The developers want to make an impact, so slowly but surely.... Tridel that has come on board in a big, meaningful way. Concert Properties has come on board in a big, meaningful way. They themselves are writing it into their RFPs for their subcontractors to ensure they're bringing on local youth.

Yes, I think it could go across the board, especially if we can engage not only the government but also the developers. We've been trying to do that on our own.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Are you familiar with the Helmets to Hardhats program?

[James St. John]

Very much so.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Tell me how it connects or aligns with what you're doing.

[James St. John]

It's very similar. In the Helmets to Hardhats program, people serving in the military and coming out of the military can find a career in construction. Both in the United States and in Canada, the building and construction trades obviously support our veterans, and this is one of the fine ways whereby we can open the doors and have our veterans and people from the military come in and have a secondary career in construction.

It's a model that's very similar to the Hammer Heads program, in which we're dealing with the youth in the same manner and giving them opportunities that aren't readily available for them.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Right.

Now, there was a brief mention of pre-apprenticeship training. How large is that need?

I'll give you an example. In my community, I represent the largest first nation in Canada, the Six Nations of the Grand River. The federal government partnered with the Niagara organized, unionized people, and we started a program called Pipe Dreams. It's directed at aboriginal youth, to get them involved in the trade of welding. It gives them pre-apprenticeship training. They're flowing through about 60 individuals every six months. It gives them a taste of the trade and enables them then to go on to employment in a pre-apprenticeship manner and take their apprenticeship after that.

Do you see that this could be the next logical step for this program, in that if you had the resources, you could bring in larger numbers of people? I say “larger numbers” because, let's face it, the model is fantastic. I ask myself what this could be, potentially: how large could it be?

[John Grimshaw]

Can I just comment on that briefly?

I believe you mentioned the Six Nations. With Six Nations' cooperation, we did a program through the Hamilton and Brantford building trades. It was modelled after the Hammer Heads program because we recognized what a great concept it was. We went to the Six Nations and asked them if they had somebody who could work with us, somebody from their youth employment agency that they had set up there.

They actually screened the applicants, and we set it up exactly the same way. They had to come up to a central area to get picked up by a bus. We actually ended up buying them a bus for them to do the next phase of it. They would take them to the different training centres for the different trades—ironworkers, pipefitters, whatever trade it was—and again, it was very successful. These were people who probably would never ever have had this opportunity without that kind of thing.

Could it be done either union or non-union? Yes, absolutely.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Yes.

[John Grimshaw]

The bottom line is that is that the unions tend to be more organized and more coordinated. It's easy for me to call up James or Steve and say, “Look, how about if we get together and do this program?” I don't know that there's that kind of a network—

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Grimshaw.

The time is up, but I think Mr. St. John might want to make some comments in respect to that.

[James St. John]

Totally.

You know, John and Steve...and actually Peter happens to be an electrician as well. The pre-apprenticeship works for some fields. For our program, we want to give the youth an opportunity to try all the different trades out there so that when they graduate after the 12 weeks, we've had them assessed by the professionals and we've linked them to the trade that best suits them. When their skill sets, their aptitudes, and their mechanical abilities match the right trades, then we can have the retention and success rates that John alluded to.

In our situation, I think it makes absolute sense. A lot of the youth don't understand how many different trades exist. A lot of people don't understand how many trades exist. Giving them the opportunity to try an abundance of trades so that they can find the trade that best suits them—that's perfect, in our world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you.

Mr. Cuzner, go ahead.

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

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

We've heard very worthwhile testimony here today.

Once a tradesperson reaches the Red Seal level, then the degree of mobility across this country is excellent. The trades have come very far over the last number of years in that realm. However, it's been really frustrating; we've heard from employers and from apprentices themselves that while they're going through their apprenticeship, it's really frustrating.

We had a case in Nova Scotia that you're probably aware of. An apprentice had gone out to Alberta, which is not uncommon for Nova Scotians—we're sort of a foreign worker breed ourselves in Cape Breton—and when he came back to Nova Scotia, they wouldn't recognize the hours he'd worked in Alberta. I mean, that had to really frustrate him.

What you guys have, Mr. Grimshaw, in that joint apprenticeship committee is a common sense approach. I think there's great fairness in it. The employers see the merit in it. The apprentices see the merit in it. If you're a Red Seal worker and you're charged with the responsibility of bringing a young guy along as an apprentice, then I'm sure you'd appreciate knowing that this guy knows a certain degree before he lands on the job.

Why can we not take that template, apply it in some kind of a national program, and have a national approach to addressing developing apprentices, trade by trade or whatever? What you guys are doing is good. Could we broaden the scope of that plan?

[John Grimshaw]

I don't know why you can't. I'm sure you could do that. It's a matter of organization and being able to put the right parties together in order to do it.

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

Who are the right parties? That's why we're here. This is what we want to get to here. Who are the right parties? Is it the provincial labour ministers? Is it the provincial unions? What role does the federal government play? Can the federal government lead the charge on that? Where does it have to come from?

If it's everybody's problem, then nothing gets done. What we want to do is help this thing along, so how about some advice? Who do we charge this with, and where do we go?