Human Resources Committee on May 6th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Mr. Eyking, five minutes.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the guests for coming here.

Mr. Buy, my first question to you is about your experience over in Europe and the European model. I know a little bit about what the Dutch are doing for the young people, getting them into the workplace, but especially the German model, and you mentioned that.

What I understand about it is the federal government is quite involved with the education process, and they really start when the students are young and help them go through their path of career. At the end of the day, by the time they're 20 years old, many of them are really ready to work, and they know their occupation and the industry knows that they will get good-quality young people. It seems like in our society here in North America our young people between the ages of 18 and 28, they are floating around at different jobs. Really, I don't know if the right guidance is there, and I don't know if it's because of our federal-provincial system.

But can you explain a little bit about that whole system they have out there and exactly how the federal government is involved? And what happens right at the classroom level—at grade 10, for instance—and how does it transpire that someone in grade 10 becomes one of the top engineers for Volkswagon or whatever? How does all of that work?

[Serge Buy]

I'm not sure I can give you all the explanations, especially not in the limited amount of time we have here today. What really struck me was that we had young 14- and 15-year-olds talking to us at one point, saying, “I have chosen this career. I have chosen this company. I am working here. I am proud. I am learning and working in this company.” It was in Siemens. It was in STIHL.

In Canada, you talk to 21-year-olds and they say, “I'm trying to find myself, and for that I'm getting a political science degree.” The government is supporting that process for our public institutions. We're not going to change that in Canada. I think we're far beyond the ability to change that. It would be a complete rethink of our educational system right from the get-go.

As you know, the provincial governments are very keen on making sure that the federal government is absolutely not involved in education. We saw that with the training issues. I don't think the federal government can go to a provincial government and say, “Can we talk about elementary schools?” That may create a few other constitutional issues.

It absolutely has to start early on. The one thing that is extremely important is the role of the employers, and the role of the government as well, in instilling pride in people in various professions. Minister Diane Finley, whom I met last year, talked to us about professional skilled trades, so skilled professionals. You gain skills, but you're a professional. It's not because you're a plumber that you're not professional.

Let's make sure that there is pride in those professions, and maybe the kids will go and do other things. Right now, I think the parents are telling them, “You have to become a lawyer. You have to become a doctor.”

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Let's think about that for a minute. Let's look at, for instance, the Montreal area. Let's look at a company like Bombardier, which is expanding and needs certain skill sets. You mentioned how the companies are also involved with the process in Germany. Should our companies be stepping up to the plate? Is there an avenue for them to step up to the plate and say that they're going to need so many fitters or engineers, or whatever?

Montreal has a capacity of young people coming on stream. Is there a way maybe we can localize or deal with companies to help that happen with companies that really have the horsepower in our country to expand and have that potential? Is there some sort of pilot project or something we can do with companies?

[Serge Buy]

I think the Canada job grant program is a good part of it, where we actually make sure that the companies are involved in the training and retraining. I'm extremely disappointed that in Quebec the federal government abdicated its responsibilities and basically gave the money to the Quebec government. We were told initially that the Canada job grant program would be implemented, as is, throughout the country. I can tell you that our members had prepared work with companies that needed training, and our members are now shut out of the process for the Canada job grant. That's immensely disappointing.

But we strongly believe that the companies should be involved and can be involved. And you see the gentleman beside me, which shows that the private sector is involved and making those decisions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much. That's five minutes, Mr. Eyking.

Now we're on to Mr. Armstrong.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

I'm going to pick up a bit on that, Mr. Chair.

Serge and I were over in Europe on that tour together, and you were talking about the young people whom we saw in Siemens and in STIHL. One of the things I found remarkable was the difference in respect for the trades. We call it the parody of esteem. Do you want to elaborate? You touched on it, but do you want to elaborate on that, on how trades and skills over there have an equal value with more professional and more academic degrees?

[Serge Buy]

There's a historical focus over there, where you had professional groups and professions that started centuries ago. You have the unions, you have the employer groups, and you have the governments—the state government and federal government—working together. It was quite interesting to me to see the unions setting out the way the training would be done with the post-secondary institutions. I shouldn't say union, I should say professional groups. They were involved in that. Then you had the employers who were setting the minimum conditions that you would need to meet to be in that profession. Then you had the governments also working on the funding of that.

The pride was there, and the pride had been instilled from years before. The young people involved in this learned that you if you get a job at Siemens, it is fantastic. You had people competing for jobs at Siemens. When we visited STIHL manufacturing, one of the gentlemen in charge of the training program was telling us that he had thousands of applicants for a few positions only because people knew about how great it was.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. McLachlan, do you want to comment on that?

[Manley McLachlan]

Sure. We've been wrestling with this in British Columbia for quite some time. Your description of society's attitude towards the trades is very real. What we're saying is that we will have to, in some manner, engineer a cultural shift that puts the carpenter on the same plane as the architect.

We're seeing this now in British Columbia where, just in the last week, the provincial government has launched a 10-year skills plan. They have a blueprint and are literally talking about re-engineering the education sector from K to 12 through post-secondary education and onwards.

I believe there are four elements that we need to consider in all of that discussion. The first one is relevance. Does it make sense for our universities to continue to train, in the example of Ontario and British Columbia, well over 2,500 teachers a year, when in B.C. there are only 800 job openings? So is the training relevant?

Second is revenue, and it's revenue for the colleges and the universities, but it's also personal revenue and it ties in with the relevance.

The third element is having successful graduates. If we're not producing successful graduates in any element of our system is that reasonable? Does it make any sense?

The fourth element is responsibility. And so it's all our responsibility to make sure that we have the successful graduates, that we have the revenue being generated, and that the training that we're offering people is relevant. It isn't just the colleges and the universities and the trade schools' responsibility. It's parents and employers.

So part of the cultural shift is going to be a big challenge. I've often said that if you had a universal garage door opener and were to drive through any subdivision in Canada and opened every garage door, you would be hard pressed to find tools in most garages today. I'm a little bit older. I grew up with my dad who had tools and we did—most of you folks probably did that. But I would suggest that doesn't happen today and that part of our challenge is this notion that if you're going to be successful you must have a university degree. You don't need a master's degree to be making coffee in Starbucks.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thanks.

I'm running out of time, but just quickly, one of the recommendations that could come from this committee is that when we transfer money to the provinces, we ensure that the money is able to support the trades, that it is able to support the individuals directly, and that it involves employers so that they are involved at the front end and that jobs are connected to it at the end. Would that be a goal we can look at as we move forward in the LMDA negotiations?

[Manley McLachlan]

Certainly.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Serge.

[Serge Buy]

Yes. I would be careful just to mention trades. I think there are skills as well. You want to be careful on that. At one point we're going to have way too much of one and not of the other.

On any construction site you have an engineer and you have the technicians and you have the people doing the work, so you have a number of people involved.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

And the number of facilities in Germany was broader. There were about 350 different types of occupations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

That's it. The time is up. We're away over time on that one.

Gentlemen, thank you for coming in today. We appreciate your coming and assisting us with this study with the information you've given us today.

We'll now recess for a short break while we go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]