Human Resources Committee on June 3rd, 2014

[Kevin Lee]

More can always be done.

I feel that we are on the right track. We are happy with the existing programs and we just want to improve some aspects of them a little.

We really like the direction that the Canada Job Grant is going in. As we have already said, it focuses on participation by employers. If we could add that to the labour market development agreements, it would help us a lot. In general, I think we are on the right track.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I think we have to understand that a lot of things that have been announced do not actually exist. They may talk the talk, but they are not walking the walk, if I may put it that way.

You can talk the talk, but you have to walk the walk.

If you look at the Public Accounts of Canada 2012-2013, you will see that the Conservative government sat on $138 million intended for skills support and job creation. These are amounts that have not been transferred to the provinces. It also decided not to transfer to the provinces $24 million that were supposed to help the underrepresented and lower-skilled groups that Mr. Martin was telling us about earlier.

The government has kept in its coffers $60 million from the budget for labour market support under social partnerships and $8 million to support productivity and competitiveness. In addition, it has invested only 4% of the initial budget in the grant for adult learning and essential skills for cities, aboriginal communities and provinces. That means that an amount equivalent to 96% of the $3.2 million budget has not been spent. Making announcements and listing investments in budgets is all well and good, but the money still needs to actually be spent.

Mr. Golightly, have you noticed that difference between the amount on paper and the amount that has actually been spent and transferred to cities, municipalities and the provinces in order to train workers? At the moment, the numbers do not add up. The government is sitting on the money so that it can achieve a balanced budget.

[Bard Golightly]

No.

I can't say that we were feeling that directly. We don't necessarily see the flow of those funds in a direct route. We do see the inconsistencies and the issues we've talked about today. That could be the result of funding not transferring and not, as you say, walking the walk. That's possible. I don't know that. We don't know that.

What we do see are the mobility issues. We do see that there's clearly an issue of getting the right trades in the right place at the right time. It's a big issue all across the country and not just in the west where everybody thinks it is.

But I couldn't speak to the flow of funding and how it falls into these programs.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

In recent years, we have seen an explosion in the number of temporary foreign workers in the country. Do you feel that this an easy way to avoid training our own Canadian workers?

[Bard Golightly]

I don't think there's a simple answer to that question.

Clearly, particularly in the west, there's a strong demand, as I'm sure you are aware, for temporary foreign workers. There is a job shortage in many areas. It's complicated by the higher-paying jobs in some industries, particularly the oil and gas industry. Therefore, the temporary foreign workers are often finding their way into other positions that simply will not be filled by those attracted to the higher-paying jobs.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I understand that, when there is a genuine shortage, when there are no qualified workers, then someone has to come to do the work. The work has to be done and commitments have to be respected. But there are also a number of cases of abuse with temporary foreign workers working in Tim Hortons or McDonalds. So we are not talking about the same thing. We have also seen excesses with HD Mining International Limited, which is asking workers to be able to read or speak Chinese so that they can use the equipment in the mine.

At the same time, it is not the case that there are 10 jobs open for every unemployed person. The figure is about 1 for every 6. That means that, for every job that goes unfilled because of a labour shortage, six people are looking for work. What do we have to do to train those people so that they are able to get a job, and also to create new jobs? Even if every unemployed person started working at jobs for which there is a shortage, five out of six workers would still be without jobs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

You're way over time, Mr. Boulerice, so I'd ask the witnesses to hold those responses. If you'd care to respond in another round, that's your prerogative.

We will go on to Mr. Maguire.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to the panellists for your presentations.

I was most interested in one of your comments, Mr. Golightly, in regard to you having difficulty getting the right people in the right skills at the right times. Certainly, I think you just outlined the difference in regional differences in employment needs across the country.

I'd like to ask all three or four of the panellists this question. You've outlined some, but what are your most significant changes that you'd like to see in the manner that we can transform the LMDAs between the federal government and the provinces? How can we work with your organizations and how can you work with other levels of government?

[Bard Golightly]

I could start with more of an overarching comment. We really need to keep in mind the potential for career development. While we talk about mobility and the right skills in the right place at the right time, all of which are critical, what we want to do, and it was touched on earlier, is to get these people started. If they can get into career development, they can then take themselves down their own personal career path, and the growth of their families.

I wanted to make that overarching comment and I'm sure my colleagues will hopefully fill in some of the gaps.

[Sean Reid]

I'll just say that the main two points for us would be to tie the employer as much as possible to this, and at a minimum, don't let this be a barrier to mobility. If we can find ways to facilitate mobility, we should do it. PCA is ready to play an intermediary role between the provincial and the federal government on this issue as we have done before on the job grant. So we'll partner with you as we can.

[J. Craig Martin]

I would echo those comments. Employer engagement and mobility are two big issues that need to be addressed.

One of the things around mobility that is important is to recognize that people may start their training in one province and finish in another. They may be halfway through a program and they need to move because they need to become an apprentice, and the agreement should recognize that. Right now, there is a tendency that you have to do everything in the province that you started in, your training, your apprenticeship, and your first job. If we could figure out ways to engage industry, the training institutions, and the unions to figure out how to best make that work, I think that's critical to seeing more success and more value for the dollars that are invested in these programs.

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

Mr. Martin, I think you referred to the national curriculum as part of setting up a new means of.... Would that add to the mobility as well?

I'd also like further comments, because I'm really interested in the whole area of this mobility to get people to where the jobs are. If you had your way, quickly, what would your suggestion be as to how to set that mobility agreement up?

[J. Craig Martin]

I think when it comes to a national curriculum, we recognize that the provinces have jurisdiction over training. But at a federal level, the federal government can encourage and set requirements for provinces to work together on certain basic...what I'll call creating a level playing field for training. Let the provinces, as I mentioned, have flexibility to deal with unique issues in their local industry, but set a criteria, which means that if all trades are working to a national criteria, then that sets the basis for mobility. You can still say, if you come to my province, we're looking for specific skills, but at least that basic trade certification or qualification is recognized.

That can set an environment where mobility becomes less of an issue, where if you want to have someone start in one province and finish in another, there would be no questions either from the EI level, from the college level, or from the employer level in terms of knowing what we're getting. That's why we would strongly encourage that national baseline of curriculum for each trade. In welding, that's what our industry wants and we're really pushing it. We're actually working with educators to create that.

[Sean Reid]

I'll add that I think the standards are important. The Canadian Home Builders' Association mentioned looking beyond simply Red Seal to non-Red Seal trades as being another issue. I think the steps the government is taking right now on apprenticeship harmonization is an important issue.

The internal trade discussions that are starting to happen at the federal and provincial levels will probably be a very useful vehicle for rooting out some of the more hidden barriers to mobility and certification recognition that exist in those provinces. We're on the right track here when it comes to regulatory barriers, we just need to keep at it. If we can find new initiatives like these grants we've been talking about today to facilitate further, that'd be great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much.

That's the end of that round. I'm going to end the first hour here at this point, committee members, for two reasons. Number one, we have a motion to deal with at the end of the meeting, so we'll be adjourning the second half of the meeting a little early to deal with that motion, perhaps 10 minutes early. I want to do it for that reason.

I also want to just take a moment, myself, to thank our witnesses for being here, for taking your time, for serving your industries.

There was one comment I wrote down that you made, Mr. Reid, and I thought on many different levels it really hit home for me. It's a simple phrase, and you called it “matching of talent to tasks”. As a former employer myself, contractor, there's magic that happens in the workplace when you find an individual who has talent and you give them the right task. I think that's what we're driving at here. We're trying to do more uncovering of the talents of individual Canadians, wherever they may be in this country, to match them with the tasks that are out there for them. I appreciate that comment on many different levels. It surely resonates.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

We'll suspend for five minutes and resume.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. We're continuing this hour with our study of the renewal of the LMDAs.

Joining us now from the Department of Employment and Social Development, we have Ms. Mary-Lou Donnelly, the commissioner for workers, from the Canada Employment Insurance Commission. Welcome. We also have from ESDC, Ms. Nancy Amyot, policy adviser for the Office of the Commissioner for Workers, from the Canada EI Commission. Welcome. Joining us by way of video conference from Regina, Saskatchewan, we have Mr. Carlo Bizzarri, the program manager with Ignite Adult Learning Corporation, along with Lindsay Manko, the assistant manager of Ignite. Welcome to you.

Witnesses, as some of you may know, being here in the earlier session or listening in, you have up to 10 minutes for your presentation.

So why don't we begin with Ms. Donnelly?

[Mary-Lou Donnelly, Commissioner for Workers, Canada Employment Insurance Commission, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

It is a pleasure to be here today to provide you with some views from the stakeholders who represent workers in Canada.

It is indeed an honour and a pleasure to be here with you today before the committee in regard to the labour market development agreements. As commissioner of the Canada Employment Insurance Commission, representing all employees across the country, both unionized and non-unionized, one of my responsibilities is to bring forth the view of my stakeholders to government, that is, to identify the opinions and concerns of workers as government develops policies and delivers programs related to employment insurance and the labour market. It is in that context that I am with you here today.

I'm pleased to see that the committee has undertaken to study the transformation of the LMDAs at this time, and that round table sessions are also currently taking place around the country regarding the LMDAs. Much has changed in the Canadian labour market since the introduction of the LMDAs in 1996, and it is our responsibility to ensure that these agreements remain relevant to the reality of workers and employers.

I have the opportunity in my role as commissioner to meet regularly with my stakeholders across the country on a variety of issues pertaining to EI, and I can assure you that workers, unions, and advocacy groups are very interested in these consultations.

I think the key word here is consultation. People like to be part of the decision-making. They like to have their voices heard, and it's important to note, and I believe the committee members are fully aware—I'm sure everybody has told you but it doesn't hurt to repeat this—that the moneys that fund all EI programs come not from the taxpayers, that is, not from general government revenues, but rather from the EI premium payers, workers and employers only. So this is not taxpayer money; this is EI premium payers' money. That being said, it is crucial that the people paying into the fund have a say in how these funds are rolled out and managed.

In discussion with labour stakeholders, it is clear that consultation is key. To that end, the labour side feels very strongly that labour market partners forums be established in all jurisdictions, with representation from government, labour, employers, education training providers, and community organizations. In my former life, I was an educator in the public school system and I was very involved with education and with teacher unions. We called our stakeholders “partners in education”, and that was everyone from government to school boards to unions to communities to parents, and to the students themselves.

We recognized the importance of hearing everyone's voice, and that is what a labour market partners forum would accomplish, listening to each other, understanding each other, and from that, making the best decisions possible. These types of forums need to be ongoing, of course, especially since our market can change very rapidly. We always have to be listening and establishing these forums in each province and territory, which is one way of doing that.

Now, we do recognize in this vast country of ours that provinces and territories are unique, and as a result of that uniqueness, it isn't one size fits all. But we can learn from each other and we must be provided the opportunity to work together so that we can take advantage of best practices and identify our similarities and our differences, as well as our individual and national needs.

I'd like to comment as well on the collection of labour market information. We have to do a better job of collecting solid information concerning general skills and labour shortages. I have met with several groups who have expressed to me that there are plenty of skilled workers in Canada, yet they need to have the relevant information to inform them. We need to correctly identify the skills gaps in regions and industry, and we need to have reliable information provided to all concerned. When Stats Canada is telling us there are 6.7 unemployed workers for every vacant job, we need accurate, detailed, and solid information on the job market.

One question that is presented at the round tables is around the expansion of eligibility for LMDAs. Keeping in mind who funds the EI account, it is important that LMDA programs benefit those who have paid into it. Currently, eligibility to LMDA programs requires a certain number of insurable hours, which vary according to the region in which one lives, based on the unemployment rate in that region. Many of my stakeholders have indicated that they are in support of expanding this eligibility to EI premium payers. This would qualify more EI claimants to take advantage of the LMDA programs and supports.

So I will reiterate what the CLC and Unifor propose, that eligibility for LMDA programs be extended to a national eligibility program of 360 insurable hours for unemployed or underemployed workers to access training. This would help address the gap for many part-time workers who are not currently eligible for EI, yet who do pay EI premiums.

As well, we are recommending that the EI part I benefits be extended to the full duration of the LMDA training program.

This brings me to another expansion of the program, and that is increased funding to the LMDAs. Currently, upwards of $2 billion are committed to the LMDAs annually. Yes, that is a significant amount of money, and yes, government has committed to a balanced EI account by 2017. Certainly, as commissioner, I support a balanced EI account, with transparent accountability so we can avoid finding ourselves in a deficit situation.

However, government is projecting surpluses of the EI account over the next several years, so I think we need to ask ourselves this question. Would this money be better spent supporting LMDAs, and thus expanding the program? Labour stakeholders are in support of increasing the funds for the LMDAs. The EI Act allows for up to 0.8% of total insurable earnings, which translates roughly as $4.4 billion, to be spent on LMDA funding, yet we are currently only using $1.9 billion. Because there hasn't been an increase of this amount since the inception of the LMDAs, the same amount of dollars in 2014 does not go as far as they did in 1996.

Investment in training has very positive spin-offs, resulting in long-term attachment to the labour force, a goal on which we can all most likely agree.

The last point that I will highlight is the issue of labour mobility, or apprenticeship harmonization. This is an issue that is constantly presented to me by my stakeholders, and I understand this issue as it was certainly an issue in my other life, in the education world, which resulted finally, after many years, in a labour mobility agreement within provinces and territories that enabled teachers to be qualified to teach across Canada, regardless of where their training occurred.

We need the same in a broader trades occupation, not just those within the Red Seal program. Currently, as I understand it, the Atlantic provinces and the western provinces have an apprenticeship harmonization agreement that does enable mobility for tradesworkers if they choose to relocate. But this needs to be a national harmonization so that our labour market is ready and able to respond to labour market needs across the country, not just locally or regionally.

Thank you.

I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

We now move on to Ms. Amyot.

You're not going to speak, I'm sorry.

On to Ignite, and I'm not sure which of the witnesses is going to present, but please proceed.

[Lindsay Manko, Assistant Manager, Ignite Adult Learning Corporation]

Thank you very much.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for inviting us to this committee to present our views. I'd like to reiterate a little bit of what the last speaker said, the sentiment that we are glad that this is becoming a national conversation. However, the information we are presenting today is coming as more of a case study. We understand that we are a small, localized organization in Saskatchewan. Nonetheless we do feel that our 20 years of experience within the labour market industry will help provide you with a better picture of the overarching localized issues that some areas are facing in the provinces.

I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Lindsay Manko. I am the assistant manager at Ignite Adult Learning Corporation. I'm here with Carlo Bizzarri. We are a small yet mighty organization here in Regina, Saskatchewan.

The demographic that we work with is generally categorized as the vulnerable populations within our society. We work with youth at risk who would be categorized as more or less unemployable. They have few or no skills appropriate for our current job market in Regina, due to a number of personal setbacks and issues. Accessing the system in the first place to take advantage of the EI funding is an issue.

Specifically we have over 20 years of experience working with this demographic here in Saskatchewan. Our model is predicated on the marriage between business and not-for-profit. Our model essentially means that if you're coming to work in Ignite, you're getting paid to attend classes to gain and garner that training. You're being paid; however, we are a not-for-profit model, so we understand that in order to gain skills that make you employable, specifically soft and hard skills, you need to practice those skills and we provide that setting.

I'd like to talk a little bit about what we've seen as creating long-term success within our program in Saskatchewan. We have over 500 graduates who have come from a number of demographics, but essentially have not been—I want to really highlight this—successful in accessing meaningful, tangible, long-term employment within our community. So they went through our training process and then have garnered long-term, tangible experience within our employment sectors.

Our program actually runs for a seven-month period. Long term is long term. It takes a long time to make tangible change within your life. A lot of issues that we see—addictions, housing, child care—are not something that's going to change overnight. Going through a program that is short-term, we haven't had the success rates that we would expect for somebody going through a long-term program of about seven months. That's something we'd like to highlight.

Also, we want to talk about this marriage between soft skills and hard skills. It was quoted before. You were talking about making sure that you tie talent to task. If you've never had a chance to garner talents or had an opportunity to really realize what you're good at, because you've been involved in the youth justice system or you've been involved in the foster system, which has effectively not delivered what you necessarily need to become an able-bodied, working young adult, it's hard to access the system.

Really what we're here to talk about is being the advocate on behalf of that vulnerable population and how they access the LMDAs if they don't have the skills to get the job in the first place.

I know that there are portions within the current suggested scenarios that state that if you lack essential skills or have a low level of literacy you can still garner help from this program. But what we have experienced is that a number of the individuals who come into our program actually have undiagnosed learning disabilities and because they don't have the basic essential skills to access a formal system, it's harder for them to gain the employment to get access to these different things.

Again, I'm just speaking from our personal experience. I'm in the classroom every day from Monday to Friday working with individuals, and I'm not speaking for every organization, but this has been our experience.

Also, more in-house training for employees—we've talked about how we're going to be transferring the Canada job grant funding directly to employers, but if our employees can't access the employment in the first place, how are they going to access these funds directly for training in specific areas? Ultimately, our goal is to help individuals who are undervalued and don't necessarily have the soft skills—reliability, accountability, dependability, independence—that you need to work in this Canadian job market. They're essentially just going to become a continual debt load in the future for us. So, yes, we commend you guys for doing long-term planning and considering these different areas, but we just want to advocate on behalf of the vulnerable populace that we work with directly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much. You still have time left. Do you care to say anything further, or is that your presentation?

[Lindsay Manko]

I'll pass it to my colleague, Carlo Bizzarri.

Would you like to add anything?

[Carlo Bizzarri, Program Manager, Ignite Adult Learning Corporation]

Yes, I want to add to what Lindsay said that we think of these individuals as employees. The habit of being accountable is something they have to pick up—showing up, being responsible, and doing work. That's how our program is set up.

In other words, they learn the life skills not by listening to a lecture but actually by doing. When they don't show up at eight o'clock in the morning for work, they are being penalized; there are consequences. They have to punch a clock in the morning. If the clock says that they have come in at 8:30, that means that their allowance or their wage has been deducted accordingly.

The important step is to bring these young men and women to a point at which they become independent and self-supporting. The process of doing that is not an easy one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll proceed to our first round of questioning, with interventions of five minutes.

Madam Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thanks to both of the presenters for coming before us.

Recently there have been many reports about high unemployment and also the high number of temporary foreign workers. I'm sure that's not news to anybody. But the alarming figure that came out was that 39% of Canadians looking for work were giving up on ever finding a job. So there is that malaise and the danger that comes with it, when you have a large number of people withdrawing from even entering the job market.

Yet we know that there are quite a few restrictions on how funds can be used for skills development. At this time, we have an historic low for EI access. All kinds of restrictions have been put on it. We don't have time to discuss that here, but fewer than four in 10 of the unemployed are actually eligible to collect EI. Because of this, access to training becomes really restrictive. Can you comment on this?

Also, can you comment—and this is directed to you, Mary-Lou—on the consequences of such limited access especially for Canadians seeking longer-term employment opportunities? How do you think access could be improved?

[Mary-Lou Donnelly]

Thank you very much, Jinny.

I'll tell you that the facts you have cited are certainly correct. My stakeholders are well aware of that, and we have conversations around those issues consistently.

This is one reason that labour feels very strongly that access to EI has to be relaxed. It's so different across the country, depending on where you live, but the fact remains that if you lose your job in Toronto, you have still lost your job. If you lose your job in Port Elgin, you've still lost your job; you're still without a job as well.

The other thing is that many of the people who lose their jobs are part-time people. It's very difficult for part-time people, and they are often—not always, but often—some of the most vulnerable people, as our other guest this morning just pointed out. They don't have access to EI, so they don't have access to the training programs; yet they are still paying into the fund.

We feel very strongly that there should be a relaxation or more flexibility. We have an opinion on EI overall, but I'll just stick to the LMDA part for today. Especially for the LMDA training, there must be some flexibility so that more people can take advantage.

This is not to make the LMDAs a be-all and a catch-all for every problem out there, but this is the reality. They need to have training. They get into a vicious cycle such that they go from one part-time job to another part-time job and can never get out of that cycle. They can never collect enough hours.