Human Resources Committee on May 15th, 2014

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Is there a direct connection right now between your small and medium-sized businesses, in terms of putting out their labour market needs with some of the provinces and the deliverers of these LMDA programs? Are you specifically connected right now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

I'll have to interrupt. We're over on the time.

You could maybe save that for another round of questioning, or it could come back up in another round.

Now we move on to Mr. Cuzner, for five minutes.

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

Thanks very much, Chair.

I'm not even sure what the question is that I'm going to ask, but I'll figure it out as I lay it out here.

Ms. Moreau, your organization is a national organization. I think it sort of spades out a lot of good information.

The reality in New Brunswick and P.E.I. is completely different than it is in Saskatchewan and Alberta. In light of the LMDAs being bilaterals with the federal government, and that flexibility, you're wanting to address the issues of that specific province. Do you see benefit in trying to find out and determine the “why” as to...?

Anecdotally, you can see the why in the service industry. The guys who own the DQ and the McDonald's in Fort McMurray are having trouble because their wage rates don't comply with the cost of housing.

Your organization doesn't try to get to the why. Do you see any merit in trying to pursue that? Or in fact do you try to source that out when you do your surveys?

[Monique Moreau]

To the why for.... I'm not sure I follow the distinction between the Atlantic and your example.

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

We're hearing now—and, again, it's anecdotally—that in Atlantic Canada, even in the service sector, they're losing people. Because of the changes to EI, they're being frightened out of the seasonal industries. We know that 53% of the regional GDP in Atlantic Canada is generated through seasonal industries. That's a very different “why” than in Fort McMurray, and I would think in many other areas of the country.

[Monique Moreau]

I think I catch your drift.

To speak to the seasonal component in particular, we carefully monitored the announcements made on changes to EI. I believe they were announced over a year and a half ago or so now. We were waiting to hear from our members. We expected a significant influx of calls from members in seasonal industries, or from other areas of the country that had benefited to this point from the way the employment insurance program was structured for those individuals.

We had a few phone calls, but not massive amounts. In fact, the people we heard from the most were urban landscapers, that kind of job where they're downtown and they are required to go within a radius of their home to find work. That work is available to them, where it's not necessarily available for individuals working in seasonal rural employment in Atlantic Canada, as you mentioned.

We don't have a study on that number yet. We have incorporated some of that into our studies of this training survey that I referenced in my presentation, and that will be coming later this year. From our perspective, anecdotally as well, we take our mandate from our membership; we were waiting for an influx of calls on those changes, but they never really came.

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

You didn't get them from Atlantic Canada?

[Monique Moreau]

We did get a few, but out of 109,000 members—

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

In Atlantic Canada?

[Monique Moreau]

—we didn't get as many as we had anticipated getting.

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

But, do you have 109,000 members in Atlantic Canada?

[Monique Moreau]

There are 109,000 across the country, I believe. Atlantic is...I want to say, 10,000 to 15,000 members, if you add all of the provinces together. I'll have to verify it. I can get those numbers for you, though.

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

Okay.

If I could, Ms. Peirce, a couple of other presenters had identified the fact that EI eligibility.... I think the example you gave was strong—the young lady who came off maternity leave.

Do you see a place there where the training should not necessarily be attached to a person receiving EI benefits? Do you think that training dollars should be available to others outside of that?

[Cammie Peirce]

Yes, I would say that training dollars need to be available to everybody, but I do think that the solution is recognizing the fact that we need to improve EI eligibility as well.

My focus was on improving EI eligibility because, based on our numbers, the number of unemployed workers who are collecting at any given time is four out of 10, which is dismally low, and that is reflective of a number of things. One is the number of hours that it takes to qualify and how difficult it is today to get those hours, especially if you're working contract jobs. Young people coming out of school working a contract job or a part-time job don't acquire the hours at the same rate either.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much. That's the end of that round.

We go on to Mr. Maguire for five minutes.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, presenters, for your informative presentations.

Minister Kenney, when he appeared before us last week, talked about the training for the sake of training, and I've seen it. I've worked with the organizations. There are funds going into different mechanisms across the country. Some of them do a really good job of trying to prepare people for getting into the workforce by developing, for example, a really good resumé.

Given the numbers that you presented to us today and the need out there for employment in some areas, because it is varying across the country in regards to the need right now, what would your organization think, particularly Ms. Moreau's in regard to the CFIB, about getting involved with your and like organizations to ensure that the labour market development funding is getting to the right places?

[Monique Moreau]

I think that speaks to our last recommendation, which is to ensure that they're publicly accounted for. Right now we don't have a very good method of tracing where the $2 billion goes. We know that it goes to the provinces, and we know it goes to programs. But it's measuring the impacts of those training programs....

For small business owners who pay over half of the EI premium, it's important to them that they're able to say that they see where that money is going. It is a tax for them. It is an insurance program for the employee, but for the employer it's a tax. It's revenue neutral. They have to pay it, whether they make any money or not that year, and it's mandatory. For us that makes it a payroll tax. It is money that they don't necessarily link to the individuals walking through their doors every day looking for work.

I think it's important that we maintain some of the training programs that are successful, but that we innovate a bit and we look at some of the other programming that's available and ask whether it's serving the purposes it's supposed to serve. Is it connected to the labour market? Is it connected to what the needs are of employers across the country, and especially small business owners?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Yes, thank you. I want to expand on that. I come from an area that has a reasonable shortage of employment, I guess at this particular point. We have good training and community colleges and universities across the country. The point there, I guess, is to look at your own presentation here today, chart 6. There's on-the-job training required by over half the companies in Canada, or half the small business groups, SMEs, in Canada, which we know drive about 80% of the economy. How do you see the Canada job fund fitting into this?

I've had good presentations. From my perspective people are saying, if we as a business can actually have a chance to put funds into a training program like this that fits into the needs of what universities or particularly community colleges and trade schools are already offering, it will be a very good opportunity for us to know that the employee is going to come back and work with us. Can you just expand on that or give us your view of how you see that working?

[Monique Moreau]

Is it the Canada job grant, you're speaking to? I think it's important that SMEs get a chance to, as you say, speak to some of the initiatives available to them. We are cautiously optimistic about that program. I think as long as the grant is easy to administer, has low red tape—as the member indicated earlier—and reflects the realities of running a small business, then it really could have some legs.

We're not necessarily in a place right now.... Maybe a forum for employers, employees, and stakeholders, as Ms. Peirce mentioned, is a solution, but connect the jobs available to Canadians right now and the training that individuals are getting in colleges and universities. Make sure that they meet in the middle, because that's not necessarily the case right now.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

I have just another quick question, if I could, Mr. Chairman.

What do you think we could do to have greater opportunities for a mobile workforce? You mentioned maybe there's some interprovincial needs there, and I wonder if you could expand on how you think we can have a more mobile workforce to meet some of the demands that vary across the country.

[Monique Moreau]

As a country, we do so much to negotiate free trade agreements externally and to smooth barriers to do that, but we don't do enough of that internally. It's a long-standing problem in this country. Internal mobility is a problem for a variety of reasons. I don't want to expand too far away from the LMDA discussion today, but it is something that I think we need to address, as a country, if we're going to encourage individuals from one coast to move to the other.

Professional associations have a role to play in this in recognizing the work and making that easy, limiting the amount of red tape in order to encourage individuals to move and to seek out new opportunities in other areas of the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much.

That's the end of that round. Now we'll move to Monsieur Brahmi for five minutes.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Moreau, as you probably know, we are like small businesses too. I've noticed that, since the last reform, we've been getting resumés that have nothing to do with the advertised jobs. That makes for a lot of useless work, just because Service Canada tells beneficiaries that they can avoid having their benefits cut off if they send out five resumés a week.

Have you noticed this phenomenon too? Have your members been dealing with this situation for the past year too?

[Monique Moreau]

Yes, some members have called us to complain about the phenomenon you described, that is, people with no real interest in the available job applied just so they wouldn't lose their benefits.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you. So we're not the only ones. I just wanted to confirm that. That's perfect.

Ms. Peirce, with respect to the renewal of the Labour Market Development Agreements, you said you were hoping for greater mobility.

Were you talking about greater geographical mobility or greater mobility within a sector or profession? If you were talking just about geographic mobility, don't you think there should be limits to that? Canada is a huge country. It might not be appropriate to ask people to move to another province.

Can you tell me exactly what you were talking about?