Human Resources Committee on Oct. 27th, 2011

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I just want briefly to ask if there is a better way. Obviously, if there is a shortage that means that.... I know that in our first nations there is overpopulation. They are the fastest-growing demographic.

Is there something the government could be doing better to ensure that Canadians are trained in order to fill some of that shortage?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Just a brief response, from anyone who wants to respond.

Mr. Friend.

[Gary Friend]

I can only make the comment that my experience in my own industry and my own business is that domestic training of skilled workers is not meeting the demand that I'm facing today, and I don't see it doing it in the near future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much.

I see Mr. Keddy's interest has been piqued by some of the testimony here, and he'd like to take a round of five minutes.

Mr. Keddy, go ahead.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our witnesses.

I'm not usually a member of this committee, but the testimony I've heard here today is quite fascinating and it raises a number of challenges that cross provincial and territorial borders and is of fairly significant interest to me. I have a point to make, and then I have a couple of questions.

My point is that somehow in the mix across this country of ours we have allowed our youth, our kids in their formative years, when they're being educated, to think that not all work is meaningful. I think that's a fundamental societal change that we really have to struggle with and come to grips with, because all work is meaningful, and it's as simple as that.

I understand the difference between the challenges in residential construction and industrial. But your suggestion, Mr. Smillie, was on points for education over experience, or was that Mr. Friend?

I think that's an excellent recommendation. It makes a world of sense. Our red seal program works well for skilled trades because it allows transferability of skills from one end of the country to the other. It does get caught up in a little bit of jurisdictional red tape every once in a while, and that needs to be worked out. But if we're looking at foreign credentials especially, would you elaborate a bit more on that?

Part of the problem for writing the red seal test is that, number one, you can't write it just anywhere in Canada, you have to go to where the test is given. With the ability to interface with electronics today, and with computers, it shouldn't matter where you are in the country. You should be able to write that exam online or face to face with someone who is going to grade it.

Do you want to comment on that? There are two different issues there.

[Christopher Smillie]

Sure, if we can come up with a way to give more people the opportunity to write the red seal program in different ways, let's do it. As long as we can ensure the integrity of the test and the integrity of the test-giving system, let's do it. There is a practical component, so that would need to be done under supervision. But I'm with you on that.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

I want to pick up on the comment about points for education over experience. In Canada you can challenge for your red seal. As long as you've worked your number of hours, you can write the exam for your red seal. Why wouldn't we allow any skilled tradesperson from outside the country the same right to simply write the test, so whether you're a welder or a pipefitter or a carpenter or a steelworker, you can challenge for your red seal?

[Gary Friend]

That would make sense to me. Any chance to give access to verify the trade capabilities would certainly be a help.

[Christopher Smillie]

I agree. I want to make sure that it's not simply the ability to pass the test, but that the candidate or the person actually has the associated competencies that are being tested. So we need to make sure that the hours are verifiable with past employers; we want to make sure those hours are comparable to Canadian hours. I don't have any issue. I promote openly that we should be offering the red seal test in the U.S. weekly, and whenever else in missions across the world.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

So we'd put a regulatory system in place. You'd have clear criteria. I think it's 6,000 hours, isn't it? Maybe it varies in different trades. So if it's 6,000 hours or if it's 8,000 hours, or if it's 10,000 hours, you have verification that those hours are legitimate. It's probably, Mr. Smillie, as you said, easier to do in the U.S. than it is in other countries of the world. First of all, you don't have that language barrier.

But at the same time, we need skilled workers and we need them wherever we turn.

The other thing Mr. Patry mentioned was the fact that Quebec is not a member of the Canadian Home Builders' Association. Those are the types of barriers that prevent skilled labour from moving. Somehow or other, surely, in this day and age when everyone's crying for skilled workers, we can find a way through this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

It's phenomenal we can't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Keddy. We'll perhaps take that as a comment and move on to Mr. Cuzner.

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

Thank you all for being here.

I read my Cape Breton Post this morning and I saw Cliff Murphy's picture front and centre before I had my coffee in me. They just signed a big deal with the construction industry in Nova Scotia.

How have things changed? I remember driving up Route 4 in my riding and there was a big sign along Route 4 saying “Foreigners stealing our jobs”, “Rodger Cuzner is making us stay home here while foreigners are stealing our jobs”, and it had the IBEW stamp on it and the whole nine yards. I recall getting e-mails and phone calls from Fort Mac, where foreign workers would be on site. That maybe had a little bit more to do with CLAC and some of the union stuff.

So here we are today and you're saying that we need these workers, that industry in Canada needs these workers. Could you square it around for me? Is that a change in the philosophy of the trade unions now? What has evolved over the last number of years so that we're on this side of the argument?

[Christopher Smillie]

What has evolved is the striking reality that we're under contractual obligations to provide labour to employers and to large energy clients, and if we can't supply, someone else will. So the temporary foreign worker program is a supplementary HR strategy. It's not a fix-all. It's a band-aid to not bringing in the right types of people for the right number of years, or training the right number of young people 10, 15, or 20 years ago.

So that program can bridge us, but it can't solve the problems. In the trades that I represent today, last year there were 5,000 temporary foreign workers admitted to Canada to fill shortages, so it really is a small number when you're looking at the industrial trades. It's difficult in regions of the country where folks are unemployed and don't have access to get there. If the people in your riding have the training and are really willing to go to Alberta, there's work for them. I don't say that in a derogatory sense in any way. If the people are trained up and they really want to work, there's work.

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

The frustration, I think, comes in usually with third-year apprentices. They're saying that those opportunities are out there, and it's just this gap between being in a position to be recognized as a red seal worker. And I think the unions have probably done a pretty good job in the last five to six years to take over some responsibility in training these guys up as well.

Is that your view as well?

[Christopher Smillie]

That's the reality we're living in, so we've had to do that, because this is a market economy and we have contracts that say we have to provide labour to these companies.

Look, I can't speak for every member in our organization--

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

Yes.

[Christopher Smillie]

--but what I can do is give you an overall sense, organizationally, of where we're moving. It's a reality that this is here and this is here to stay until in Canada we get it right, letting in the right numbers of folks with the right qualifications or training enough of our own young people.

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

Regarding the back and forth with the United States, you identified that you have a number of centres down there that are now doing red seal training but that they're not allowed to test; they're not allowed to offer the exam. Where is the barrier that says they aren't allowed to do the red seal testing?

[Christopher Smillie]

The testing for the red seal is determined by the Red Seal Secretariat. They determine who, where, when, and why, and it is administered by HRSDC. It's an opportunity.

I know the four gentlemen who run the Chicago building trades in the greater Chicago area. They represent close to 400,000 folks in that state alone. They're currently experiencing 30% unemployment. What an opportunity for Canada to be able to say “This is what we can do as a good neighbour. We can put you to work where our industry is almost completely tapped out.”

This time next year, the industrial construction sector will be at 120% employment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Okay, we'll have perhaps three to four minutes of questioning, simply because we'd like to break and we have some budgetary items to look at.

Mr. Daniel, you can have a few questions. Go ahead.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Just following up on this temporary worker thing, are you actually managing to fill that gap with the temporary workers? Obviously 5,000 doesn't seem to be able to cut the mustard there, really.

[Christopher Smillie]

It's a “just in time” system, and we're almost out of time.

When you look at the energy sector, you're looking at four or five big projects going on in Alberta, which require 10,000 folks per project. You look at Newfoundland, which has offshore oil and gas. You look at Point Lepreau in New Brunswick, which has 6,000 or 8,000 people on the ground right now.

If you look at the convergence of those things and at Ontario, which might or might not ever build a nuclear reactor, there are jobs for 10,000 people for 10 years. So if you put those things together between now and 2017 and you also look at the demographic numbers in here, you have a bomb.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Do you apply the same sort of scrutiny to the temporary workers that are coming in?