Human Resources Committee on May 9th, 2018

[Kristine Dawson]

I'd like to say that co-ops mimic the labour market in that there is a competitive aspect to the job search.

Students apply for jobs. They have agency, in that they can choose which positions suit their maybe desired career goals, but they do have to compete for those. They're interviewing. Employers are selecting them. In the end, the student decides to accept or decline an offer. With that, student engagement in the job search process certainly does play a role. There are times when students won't complete work terms, but I think most co-op institutions have resources in place to support the students to help ensure success wherever possible.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Okay.

That is what I want to understand, because there are many programs, degrees, or certificates that have practicum placements. With my degree, that's what I had to do. I found it very difficult. I had to find the placement, and the placement was unpaid.

Also, then, there is the bureaucracy within that. I am a social worker, so where do you go for that? To a non-profit? We see a lot of students who go into a non-profit and are actually not practising. They're not learning the skills they need to go out and to all of a sudden be given a caseload or to be going into social services to start apprehending children. They aren't given the opportunity to actually practise the skills to do that.

I'm just wondering about it. What are some ideas to approach that situation, especially with social work? I believe that it's such a valuable profession. There are so many different branches within it, and they can work in so many different areas. What could we do to make it easier, for example, for social workers to find a placement, let alone a paid placement?

[Kristine Dawson]

If I could speak to that as well, I think one of the proposals that we were recommending was financial support for not-for-profit and community organizations. That's one of the challenges. We see that historically there are certain industries that typically are familiar with paid student employment and paid co-op work terms, and then there are others that traditionally do not pay their students.

I think this is where support to create systemic change, in the expectation that all students providing productive work to an employer should be paid.... That's where I think there could be some leadership provided in making that systemic change.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you.

For my next question, I want to follow up on Madam Fortier's question regarding rural and urban areas. What was your statistic with the territories?

[Kristine Dawson]

There were 1,590 work terms during the period we were reporting on.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

How many of those students actually come from urban areas and are urban students? It is somewhat disadvantaging to the people who actually live in the rural areas.

I'm just wondering if you have statistics on that.

[Kristine Dawson]

We don't have them readily available, but that is something we could follow up on with the committee to see if that's available in our statistics database.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

If you don't mind, that would be great.

I have one quick question for the chamber. What types of programs or incentives does the chamber believe would help with small and medium-sized businesses to encourage the hiring of students?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

A brief answer, please.

[Patrick Snider]

I think the short answer is the most accessible ones possible. The ones that have a very long lead time or have detailed application forms are the ones that create the most barriers.

Simpler is better, such as things that are a simple claim tax credit, something that operates within the existing files that they need to submit. Anything that streamlines the process and reduces the burden of paperwork around the process is ideal.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

That's perfect. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

MP Sansoucy, you have three minutes, please.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you.

Monday, I visited an enterprise, and this is what the owners said to me. They are in a cutting-edge sector and have clients from all over the world. They had to set up their own training centre, because the university graduates that they hire are one or two years behind as regards their leading research.

That same day, the newspaper Les affaires, quoted an interview with the CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada:

In ten years, at least 50% of jobs will require different skills than today's, said Mr. McKay, who quoted a study on the subject published by the RBC in March. In order to adapt, all workers will not necessarily have to be coders, but will instead have to depend on “essential” human skills, he feels. Among the skills of the future are social perceptiveness and critical thinking, for instance.

Basically, he was asking for a stronger link between universities and enterprises, and he urged enterprises to hire employees who have less experience, and to provide placements.

I've given you the business point of view. In your opinion, how do universities see these positions taken by entrepreneurs?

[Judene Pretti]

I would say that one of the things we see as a benefit of the alternating model of co-op, where students are in academic terms followed by work terms, is that they have the opportunity to do that, to see what's happening in the real world, so to speak, and then to come back into the classroom and connect that. Sometimes it means that they're challenging their professors with respect to what they see actually happening. I think that's one of the beauties of the model of alternating between school and work.

The other thing I would say is that for our employers, even in small and medium-sized businesses, who figure out the process of transitioning projects and roles from one student to the next—because typically they're hiring students year-round, not just during a summer term—it gives them the opportunity to create that stream of pass hand-offs. Usually our co-op students are creating manuals that the next students can pick up and run with.

There are lots of techniques that all of our schools can share with employers to help lower the burden of taking on students.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you.

I would simply like a clarification.

Ms. Dawson, you spoke about Canada Summer Jobs. There has indeed been an increase in the budget. However, for this summer, the number of weeks has been reduced.

Did I hear you say that in your opinion an eight-week job with Canada Summer Jobs is not sufficient?

[Kristine Dawson]

Yes. The eight-week length of time for a summer job might be ideal for a high school student or someone who is transitioning from high school to post-secondary, but most post-secondary breaks between the fall-winter semester and the subsequent fall semester are 16 weeks.

The typical length of a co-op work term is 16 weeks. What we sometimes find with the Canada summer jobs program is that employers will only be funded for eight weeks, so students will have to search for work either beforehand or after. Or they'll sometimes have to work unpaid for that employer for the weeks leading up to when the payment occurs so the work term can count.

Typically, co-op programs require work terms to be at least 12 weeks long in order for a student to earn academic credit. That eight-week funding length creates barriers for organizations that really struggle to have the funds to employ a student for the full summer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of the second round of questions.

I'd like to remind our members of future business.

On May 23, it will be the main estimates. We'll be joined by all three ministers for that time. On May 28, we're going to be working on the Bill C-62 clause-by-clause for the first hour. For the second hour, it will be volunteerism and witnesses in continuing this study. On May 30, we are going to hear from witnesses around entrepreneurship.

First of all, I want to say thank you to all of the witnesses here today. I've seen this on the calendar for a little while and I've been looking forward to it. I really do appreciate all of you being here today and contributing to this study.

Dr. McRae, I look forward to welcoming you to the Waterloo region and wish you the best of luck in your role.

Thank you very much, everybody.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Chair, I have a question before we adjourn.

Is the meeting on the 23rd going to be televised?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Yes, of course.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

That's good.

On the motion from the NDP to adjourn debate, when are we going to be dealing with that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We can discuss that in business when we want to bring that forward.

It's up to the mover. That's not up to me. Or it's up to the committee, I should say.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Can we discuss it now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Sure. We are going to be out of time here shortly, but—

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

We have seven minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

It was adjourned for today, so I don't think we can bring it back today.