Evidence of meeting #105 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 chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Mr. Chair, thank you once again for giving me the floor.
I want to make sure you understood me correctly. The reason for this point of order—
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
If you keep interrupting me, I'll never be able to finish, Mr. Chair.
Perhaps you didn't fully understand my motion, but it deals directly with the study before the committee, Bill C-62, An Act to amend the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act and other Acts. We are hearing from witnesses today on the bill. My motion is directly related to what the committee is currently studying. If you feel the need, you can check with the clerk.
As things stand, we cannot proceed with our study of the bill because we are missing key information. We are talking about several hundreds of millions of dollars, and we don't know exactly where that money is or how it has been allocated.
The reason for my point of order is this: I want more information about the billion dollars that the government is content to let slide. We need to know exactly where that money is coming from, how it is being allocated, and whether it will be possible to make up the shortfall.
In short, my motion is tied to the bill our committee is studying.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Mr. Blaney, I apologize, but you're continuing to debate your motion. This is not a point of order on this issue. We are looking at clause 1.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
I would like to go back to Mr. Warawa, who had said he would like to debate the turnaround, if possible.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Mr. Chair, I am not debating my motion.
What I'm saying is the motion I tabled is directly related to what we have in front of us, and this is exactly what is at stake here. That's why this motion, I feel, is receivable. I ask you to reconsider or make the appropriate decision, which is—
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
—the fact that this motion is relevant to the subject we have in front of us this afternoon.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Thank you.
Mr. Warawa actually has the floor, and I would give it back to him.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Mr. Chair, I'd like you to come back to my point of order.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley—Aldergrove, BC
Thank you, Chair. I'm quite sure that I have colleagues beside me who would also like to speak to this. I hope you will permit them the same privilege that you've given me. I do appreciate it.
We are now under proposed subsection 1(1), which provides a definition of “essential service”. The existing definition, under subsection 4(1) of the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act, says:
4(1) The following definitions apply in this Part. essential service means a service, facility or activity of the Government of Canada that has been determined under subsection 119(1) to be essential. (services essentiels) essential services agreement [Repealed, 2013, c. 40, s. 294] mediator means a person appointed as a mediator under subsection 108(1). (médiateur) National Joint Council [Repealed, 2017, c. 9, s. 4] parties, in relation to collective bargaining, arbitration, conciliation or a dispute, means the employer and the bargaining agent. (parties) public interest commission means a commission established under Division 10. (commission de l’intérêt public)
National Joint Council means the National Joint Council whose establishment was authorised by the order in council dated May 16, 1944.
Chair, the new provision, proposed under Bill C-62, is that the very clear definition of “essential service” will be changed substantially. The new provision would say:
1(1) The definition essential service in subsection 4(1) of the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act is replaced by the following: essential service means a service, facility or activity of the Government of Canada that is or will be, at any time, necessary for the safety or security of the public or a segment of the public. (services essentiels)
Chair, I'm trying to understand where we are and where the government wants to take us in Bill C-62.
I think the definition that we have right now is actually much clearer, and it's important that legislation be clear, that we as legislators understand what it is, and that arbitrators understand what the intent of the legislation is.
For example, on the government web page, Government of Canada Guidelines for Essential Services Designations, under the heading “What is an essential service?”, it says, “...an 'essential service' is defined as 'any service, facility or activity of the Government of Canada [that] is or will be necessary for the safety or security of the public or a segment of the public.' ”
Chair—surprise—that is the exact wording of Bill C-62. Should the government make the changes to their website prior to the passing of Bill C-62? I think not. That is a concern, but they have already made those changes.
It goes on to explain, “Examples of government services or activities that may be considered essential include, but are not limited to: border safety/security...”.
Chair, I have heard again the importance of clarity and definitions, and this is the foundation...a definition of what we are talking about. In terms of border safety and security, we are seeing problems at the border. The fact is that I had a border officer approach me who did not want to be named because he works for the Government of Canada. He was very concerned that there are people being moved from our ports of entry to deal with the influx of illegal immigration and refugees who are going between the legal points of entry.
Is that an essential service? I believe it is, but that essential service is being pressured because of decisions of the government to advertise on Facebook, Twitter, and whatnot that you can enter Canada illegally and then move to the front of the line. I don't think that's fair, and I wish the government would change their messaging on illegal border crossing.
Chair, the next one on the list of essential Government of Canada services is Correctional Service Canada. For our federal institutions that are an essential service, it is extremely important that we make sure anybody who is serving federal time in a penal institution is kept locked up, and that it is properly supervised and managed.
Chair, under the Correctional Service we have minimum, medium, and maximum security institutions. In our riding, we have all of them. These are all for sentences that are for two years and more. Two years less a day would be served in a provincial or territorial institution.
When I say they are in an institution during a warrant period, during their sentence, if it's less than two years, then it would be provincial or territorial, but we're dealing with much more serious crime, usually an indictable offence. There are summary and indictable convictions. I won't digress about Bill C-75 that wants to make youth terrorism a summary conviction with a fine instead of being a serious indictable offence for which they could do some federal time if appropriate, but the Correctional Service is essential to keeping Canadians safe.
The next one is food inspection activities. How important is it to make sure that the food in Canada is healthy and good? It is essential—I think we would all agree with that—so they have to know what is the definition of an “essential service”. Chair, the clearer we make that definition, the better.
On accident safety investigations, I was involved with that at a provincial level. It is very important when we have an accident, through Transport Canada, that accident safety investigators be available and be available now. When we have a serious plane crash where somebody has died, there has to be an investigator, so again, that is an essential service. It is critically important that we know what the definition is.
The definition on the government website also goes on to say that income and social security.... My responsibility, Chair, is income security for seniors. All of this means it is really important that we know what the definition of “essential service” is.
Chair, at this point, I think it is important that we support the existing provision because it's clear. It's more specific, and I would not support changing the definition under Bill C-62 proposed subsection 1(1), but I look forward to hearing from my colleagues.
Thank you.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to propose, Chair, that we move on to the next point of business. We have witnesses here of experiential learning, so I'd like to propose that we move on and hear our witnesses.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
4:25 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
It is almost unanimous.
We will move on to the next order of business.
Gentleman, I apologize. You can go. Thank you very much.
We will suspend.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Welcome back, everybody. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are getting started again with our experiential learning study on pathways to employment for Canadian youth. This hour is specifically dedicated to volunteerism, and we're very pleased to have with us via video conference, as an individual, Wolfgang Lehmann, who is associate professor in the department of sociology at Western University. Welcome.
Also joining us is Luisa Atkinson, who is director of first nation housing at the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Welcome to you, and to Paula Speevak, president and chief executive officer of Volunteer Canada.
Each of you will have seven minutes for opening remarks followed by a couple of rounds of questions from my colleagues. First up we have Mr. Wolfgang Lehmann. The next seven minutes are all yours, sir.
May 28th, 2018 / 4:30 p.m.
Dr. Wolfgang Lehmann Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Western University, As an Individual
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and distinguished committee members, for giving me the opportunity to speak today about my research and how it relates to the issue of youth transitions and the role of extracurricular experiences or experiential learning experiences in this transition.
Today is about volunteering. I'm not an expert on volunteering, but some of my research has links to it. Volunteering is an important part of our lives in Canada; I think we can all agree on that. It brings individuals and communities together.
Today in my seven minutes I also want to highlight a few problems that arise when we instrumentalize volunteering as a central aspect of how young people transition from education to employment.
As undergraduate degrees have become more common, employers, and also admission committees to graduate and post-graduate programs, increasingly look at other things that can distinguish one candidate from another. Volunteering, preferably in leadership roles and with organizations related to one's career goal, has become one of these ways in which young people can gain distinction on the labour market. Other ways to stand out from the crowd are through job placements, internships, having studied abroad, and so forth.
This sounds like a very reasonable way of making hiring and admission decisions, no doubt about that. After all, you want to hire and admit people into your programs who have gained some experience in the field and who know what they are getting themselves into. Yet there's also a somewhat darker side to this process, as the research I will be presenting and some other scholars' work suggests.
I'm going to start with a study in the U.K. that was published in 2009 by a group called the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions. Their report shows a somewhat troubling situation. It shows that although university enrolment has increased over the last few decades and become much more diverse than it used to be, at the same time the chances for low-income or working-class students to succeed in a professional career has declined. It's now harder for low-income or working-class students to become lawyers or doctors, at least in the U.K., than it was 20 or 30 years ago.
It's troubling, because such findings challenge our hope that success is based on merit. One of the key reasons for this development I've given in the report is the increase in the importance of unpaid work, such as volunteering and internships, in gaining access to professional opportunities.
To my knowledge—and you might correct me—we do not have data comparable to that in Canada. This is where my research can be of interest. I want to start with a small caveat. I do small-scale, interview-based research rather than large data analysis. I'm not making a claim that what I'm telling you right now can be generalized to all young people transitioning from education to work, but I am quite confident that the findings I am telling you about are of relevance and reflect the experiences of the young people I spoke to, and others who find themselves in similar situations.
In my study, I have followed about 40 young men and women over the four years of their undergraduate studies. They were all the first in their families to attend university. They all came from low-income or working-class backgrounds. All of them, it turned out, had incredibly high ambitions. Coming to university, they all wanted to end up in professional employment, and pretty much all of them ended up doing extremely well academically, at least those maintained in the study.
Yet, in the final interview I did with them in the fourth year of their undergraduate studies, they began to express to me very serious concerns about the ability to turn their academic success at university into later occupational success. The study participants spoke about not having the financial means to work for free as volunteers or unpaid interns, but also realized how important that has become to gain access to the kind of employment they were looking for. They also talked about lacking the right kinds of connections to get into those kinds of places in the first place. Perhaps you will allow me to give you a few examples.
Here's an example of a young woman who did exceptionally well at university. Throughout all her four years her goal was to go to medical school and become a doctor. In the end, that did not happen, but I'll come back to that. This is what she told me during the interview in her fourth year. “People that have more money have such an advantage in terms of what they can do. Like, they can just volunteer with the professor in a lab in the summer, and spend their whole summer doing that.... And then there's people like me that can't do that because they have to work 60 hours a week to pay for school. I was going to volunteer in a clinic in Nepal in second year, a whole bunch of my friends from residence went there to go do medical work; they loved it. And then I ended up not having enough money to go. Which is all right, but when I'm applying to med school or grad school, it gives those people who were able to do those things in the summer a leg up, so when I'm writing my med school application, I don't look as good.”
This was a very common observation throughout the data. For a lot of these young people, the need to make money limited and affected their ability to work for free to gain that work experience that is now becoming so important.
At the same time, the work experience they did gain—for instance, as supermarket cashiers, on roadside construction, in retail in the mall, and so forth—was never seen as relevant for the kinds of jobs, careers, and graduate programs they wanted to get into.
Similarly, the study participants spoke about not having connections in the career fields to which they aspired, and therefore did not know how to find the right opportunities. Again, I will give you a little quote from a young man who wanted to become a dentist. He was looking for volunteer opportunities in a dental office at the time we spoke, in his fourth year. This is what he said. “I would love to get into a dental office and volunteer just to be a dental assistant, just to be in the back cleaning tools. I'll clean toilets, I just want to be in the building. My one friend works with his dad's best friend in the summer and he sees every procedure and gets to do everything like that, and that looks really good on a resumé, doesn't it? I can't see me getting that opportunity, and I've been hounding dentists all over.”
These are just two examples that I'm giving you to highlight the disadvantages that arise when access to career and further education is strongly tied to extracurricular experiences, such as those gained in relatively exclusive forms of volunteering or work placements. In fact, I did manage to reinterview 20 of those 40 young men and women five years after they graduated, just a few years ago, and found out that out of the 20, only one ended up actually fulfilling his goal and going to medical school. Nobody else went to medical school or law school. Instead, people ended up either staying in graduate programs and doing criminology rather than law or found employment elsewhere. Many actually shifted their goals and rather than studying medicine became nurses. Nursing was a big shift in goals, I found.
Nobody made the case in those follow-up interviews that these changes, these shifting career goals, were the result of the types of disadvantages I mentioned, but they did tell me that they found that going into nursing was not only cheaper, which was a big issue for them, but that it also made it easier to get placement opportunities in a nursing or public health postgraduate program. Those who went to academia felt that maybe that would be more meritocratic than the other options they had initially considered.
Does that mean that employers' admission committees should not reward volunteer experiences? No, I wouldn't say that. I think volunteering is important. Volunteering in a legal aid office, or a law firm, or a school, or a hospital does offer important information, not just to employers, but it also helps young people to clarify career goals and gain very useful first-hand experience.
The point I'm trying to make, however, is that maybe we need to do a better job of levelling the playing field for young people to get access to such opportunities.
In conclusion, if you want professions to reflect the diversity of the populations they serve, we need to be aware of these types of potential barriers.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.
