Evidence of meeting #103 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was students.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President-Elect, Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada
Sure.
One of the advantages of paid co-op work terms is that because students are earning an income and they're going to work for an extended period of four months, sometimes back to back for 12 months, they will consider relocating for work. That does provide an opportunity to take student talent from the institution they're learning in to other communities.
That's one of the tasks—
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Are there many employers or associations in the communities that are rural or éloignées that do ask for those types of programs? What is the participation? Is it high?
President-Elect, Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada
In terms of some statistics, in the Northwest Territories, we have 1,590 work terms reported. That's a significant quantity.
One of the jobs of the staff at our post-secondary institutions is to go out and talk to employers, to promote. Really that's an opportunity to expand the reach, to expand the resources to connect with employers and let them know these students exist.
Liberal
Director, Innovation Policy, Mitacs
I would quickly add to that. There are institutions in communities, large and small, right across the country and there is a lot of outreach happening in some of those smaller communities. I think part of the beauty of work-integrated learning experiences is that we can take students from institutions and extend that to communities maybe where that institution is located.
As a very quick example, we have a very significant-sized project in Cornwall, Nova Scotia, that is taking close to 100 interns over a period of three or four years. We're definitely seeing interest from those rural and more distanced communities.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Fine. Thank you.
Mr. Snider, does the Canadian Chamber of Commerce know if there are any small and medium enterprises in remote or rural areas, or even enterprises in urban areas, that have expressed a desire to take part in this with co-op students?
Director, Skills and Immigration Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
I would say you are right that there is a challenge having to do with that both in terms of the size of the businesses that are involved and the distance to institutions of higher learning. We see a number of challenges that face those. It's common to a lot of small and medium-sized businesses.
Awareness is a big one, simply knowing that these programs exist and what kind of commitment is involved. That's one of the things we emphasize. I would say that Waterloo is a gold standard at this. They make sure that they can navigate the process of applying either to funding or to the programs themselves with universities, ensuring that this process is as streamlined as possible to minimize the amount of administrative and regulatory burden on the businesses that want to take on these students.
You're right. There is a challenge there, and there are a number of pathways that can be used to address it in terms of outreach, streamlining the process, and providing the resources to take on students.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Ms. Fannon, in your presentation, you mentioned wanting to do research on the capacity of enterprises to take on co-op program students. Did I understand you correctly? What I understood is that this concerned research on bilingualism. Did you mention that?
Past President, Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada
Thank you.
What I was saying is that we have recently established a bilingual national statistics database. We're collecting data on the location, the employer, and the salary of all of the students who participate in co-op work terms in Canada.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Do you also gather data on the language of work in the programs that are offered?
I'm asking the question because organizations like the Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française and the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne are scouring the country for minority community French-language positions for francophone students.
I'm curious to know if you gather that information.
Past President, Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada
That's a great question.
I don't believe we currently do, although we are looking at adding additional fields to our database. That's a great suggestion.
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to follow up on previous points you made, Ms. Bowkett.
Regarding the 100 interns in Cornwall, I'm curious as to what was driving that. Could you expand on that a bit more? It's in Cornwall, Nova Scotia. You made a reference to it.
Director, Innovation Policy, Mitacs
Yes, that is a project we have with—and of course, now that you have me on the spot I'm blanking on the company's name, it's “something Seaplants”—
Director, Innovation Policy, Mitacs
It's Acadian Seaplants, yes, thank you very much. They have a research facility based there. We sat down with them and talked about their research program and their research needs, and we put together, basically, what we call a cluster project so that they can have access to interns over a number of years—three or four years, I believe it is.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Okay, so how would that compare...? Obviously, it's very successful. I know the company well. I know the owners of the company—
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
—but I wasn't aware that they were participating at this level.
Briefly, if you could, what were you able to put together that makes this work successfully? I'm interested in the longer duration.
Director, Innovation Policy, Mitacs
The internships per se will all continue to be four months in duration. This is an example where we have used them, basically, like Lego blocks. They can have five in one year, or spread five out over two years, or build it all together. I'd have to get back to you with the details on what the actual research out there would be.
Director, Innovation Policy, Mitacs
No, that's the way we've designed our programming. We can have projects that have a single internship, and that's it. We can have projects that have two internships, five, 10. We can really build them and stack them to meet the needs of the industry partner.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Okay.
This question would be generally for anybody who may want to comment. Over the past decade, have you observed any trends? I'll go to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce as well, representing business, but from the academic side have you observed any trends that occur within this scope, that are leading you to do a different analysis now? That's for whomever wants to respond.
Dr. McRae.
Executive Director, University of Victoria, Co-operative Education Program and Career Services
Yes, or did you want Patrick from the chamber to answer first?
