Human Resources Committee on May 28th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, sir.

Now we have, from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Luisa Atkinson, director, first nation housing. The next seven minutes are all yours.

[Luisa Atkinson, Director, First Nation Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, honourable members.

It's a pleasure to appear before you on behalf of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. CMHC is pleased to contribute to the committee's work. We share the desire to maximize opportunities for Canadian youth to succeed in the workplace and in life.

CMHC's mission is to help Canadians meet their housing needs. We want every Canadian to live somewhere that feels safe and feels like home. A home is a refuge and a launchpad.

Research has shown that safe, stable, affordable housing plays a role in a whole range of socio-economic outcomes, including better educational outcomes and employment prospects.

Better housing makes for better students and better workers and better citizens. Better homes make for better communities. It makes sense if you imagine the challenge of planning your future when from day to day you face uncertainty about having a roof over your head. Imagine the difficulty in getting and maintaining a job without having a stable home base.

Today I want to tell you about a specific CMHC program that is showing positive returns on many levels. It could be considered a model in giving youth opportunities for experiential learning and pathways to employment.

For almost 20 years, CMHC has been partnering with indigenous organizations to help in the transition of first nations and Inuit youth from school to employment. CMHC's HIIFNIY program is targeted to indigenous youth needing assistance in overcoming barriers to employment. Through this initiative, unemployed youth between the ages of 15 and 30 gain valuable experience and on-the-job training in the area of housing. This could include administration or office positions, or jobs in the areas of maintenance, construction, renovation, and tenant relations. These paid internships can last from eight weeks to two years, depending on the project.

This experience allows youth to feel a sense of pride that they are contributing to making their communities better places to live while at the same time having an opportunity to test and consider a career in housing.

CMHC provides wage subsidies to indigenous organizations, which then offer their time to sponsor and train the interns. Through 2016-17 and 2017-18 budget allocations, approximately $13 million in federal funding has been committed to this program, creating close to 1,300 internships for indigenous youth. The goal of HIIFNIY is to help youth pursue long-term employment in the housing sector. The young people involved in the HIIFNIY program aren't just building much-needed houses, they are building confidence and community.

I have an example to give you. For example, in Naujaat, Nunavut, the internship organized through the Repulse Bay Housing Association gave young adults the chance to learn how to work with tenant files, do maintenance, carpentry, and inventory. According to Gloria, the housing manager who oversaw the work, the youth gained valuable skills and work experience, and it helped to provide for their families as well. Two of the interns went on to get jobs with the construction companies that built two 10-unit buildings in the community.

CMHC believes that indigenous youth need to be part of the conversation on housing and how it affects their own communities. We are supporting indigenous communities to develop housing solutions that meet their unique needs, and part of this is building capacity in future housing leaders. That's why we include youth in several forums on housing across the country.

At a recent Winnipeg forum, a housing manager compared the involvement of a young person with the building of an actual house. He said if you have built a good foundation, that house is going to stand up for years.

Capacity building programs like HIIFNIY are especially important as the Government of Canada makes efforts to close the gap in living conditions between indigenous people and non-indigenous people, and to facilitate self-determination and advance the recognition of rights.

This approach is key to the distinction-based housing strategies currently being co-developed by Indigenous Services Canada and national first nations, Inuit, and Métis organizations. CMHC is proud to be playing a supporting role in this work because we know that better housing outcomes lead to positive outcomes like providing a foundation for youth to get a positive start in the workforce.

That concludes my opening remarks, Mr. Chair. I would be pleased to answer any questions at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Now from Volunteer Canada, we have Paula Speevak, president and chief executive officer. The next seven minutes are yours.

[Paula Speevak, President and Chief Executive Officer, Volunteer Canada]

Thank you.

Hello. I will address everybody in English, and can answer questions in both languages.

All of our documentation is available in English and in French.

To begin with, I just want to thank you for considering the very important topic of how our experience in the community helps build our capacity in general. Volunteer Canada has been doing a considerable amount of work on both youth engagement and skills-based volunteering. I thought I would give an overview of both of those areas and share with you some of our insights.

In the past, we've looked at skills-based volunteering as a way for someone with professional experience or a specialty in education to share that experience and skill with an organization. More and more, though, we're looking at skills-based volunteering as a way of transferring skills. It could be someone with some skills and experience having the ability to share that with a non-profit organization or a community, but it could also be someone who wants to develop those skills. As well, it could be somebody who can coach somebody else who wants to develop those skills. When you think about the different combinations of skills-based volunteering, we're really talking about transferring skills at the same time as building the capacity of organizations and communities.

One of the things that we are very careful about in terms of skills-based volunteering—and the colleague before was talking about some of the interviews that had been taking place with youth who were looking to volunteer as a way of gaining experience—is to promote and facilitate the transfer of skills without exploiting people. As we all know, youth and people in work transitions are very concerned about gaining experience. At the same time, we need to be careful not to undermine the paid workforce and not to take advantage of that desire to gain experience.

Youth aged 15 to 24 have the highest volunteer rate in the country. Sixty-six per cent of youth aged 15 to 19 volunteer, and there is a myth that people volunteer in that age group because of mandatory community service programs in high school or community service learning in universities. Actually, 80% of youth are volunteering because they choose to on their own. There may be those other benefits.

When we look at generations of volunteers, we see that the incoming generations are much more goal-oriented, value higher education, have a sense of mobility, are at ease with technology, are quite autonomous, and have multiple roles in communities. How this plays into our choices of volunteering means that we're volunteering for many reasons. We're very lucky here that Statistics Canada, in the general social survey, tracks volunteering and gives us insight into how people volunteer at different stages and ages. We know that people look for volunteering because they want to help in the community. That's the top reason. When we look at the second reason people volunteer, that's when we start to see the differences between the generations and between the different age groups. For example, it is true that many younger volunteers are looking at volunteering as a way of gaining experience and developing skills, while older adults may look at volunteering as a way to stay connected and prevent social isolation. We all have personal goals. In the past, I think we believed that to volunteer, you needed to be altruistic and only want to help community.

What we learned over time is that we all benefit from volunteering. There is always something to gain, so having a reciprocal relationship means that we could attend to our own personal goals and growth at the same time as helping community. Someone might be interested in a population that they care very much about. Perhaps it is older adults. Perhaps they're interested in a locality and investing in their neighbourhood. Perhaps it has to do with a skill or an opportunity. There are many lenses through which people look for volunteering.

On the idea of looking at volunteering and experience gained as a way of bridging to employment, one of the things that we have learned is that the language we use when we describe a volunteer opportunity doesn't always lend itself to people seeing those skills as transferable, nor does it lend itself to employers seeing those skills and competencies as transferable.

What we're doing is training within non-profit organizations on different ways of describing opportunities. I'll give you an example. If I tell you that I have volunteered to help run a bake sale, you might think of cooking, baking, and recipes. But if I told you that I purchased supplies, I did promotion, I trained part-time shift workers to staff the bake sale over a three-day period, I dealt with cash, etc., then you may see some of those skills as transferable. One of the things that I passed around to members of the committee is some position descriptions that are written in that fashion. First, you'll see that there's a title which is trying to be descriptive and also something that you could see linking to employment. There's the goal, there are skills required, but there's also skills developed. The terms that we're using come from the National Occupational Classification system, so that one could easily transport and see transferring those skills to employment. Again, if we're talking about leadership, motivating others, logistical arrangements, those are things we could relate to as transferable skills for employment, and they absolutely come from many volunteer experiences.

This tool that I've passed around really illuminates the way in which we can make that bridge. The other thing is to talk about transferable skills that many times come from life experiences. If somebody is, for example, stamp collecting as a hobby, they may not realize that this requires organizational skills, an interest in geography, and perhaps some visual aesthetic in terms of display. There are all kinds of skills that come from many things we do in life.

We'll also see some cards that I've passed around. It's something that we're doing in the non-profit sector. The idea there is looking at how someone presents themself. If someone comes and says they're a gardener, you might think the most obvious thing is to ask them to tend the garden in the nursing home, but what if they want to expand their skills? You see that they like to be outdoors. Perhaps they know nature well and they can take a group of youth on a nature hike.

In closing, what I want to say is that volunteering is absolutely a vehicle for developing skills, for sharing skills, and for building capacities of individuals, organizations, and communities. The sensitivity has to be with the organization, so that they can make those experiences positive and not exploit or take advantage of people looking for opportunities. At the same time, they're making sure that when people come to volunteer, there is a passion and an interest in what the organization does in addition to the personal goals of developing skills, so that we have that mutual, reciprocal relationship.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

First up for questions, we have MP Falk, please.

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

Thank you all for being here today and offering your knowledge and experience to us in this sector of experiential learning.

When I was in university, we had an opportunity in one of my classes to have 5% of our grade if we did 20 hours of volunteering. It was an easy 5%. I volunteered with numerous organizations within the city and doors opened up for me. I volunteered at the local sexual assault centre and they were willing to give us training for volunteers to take a phone at night. Here I was, a university kid, taking calls from people who were having flashbacks. This was a great experience for the real world, when I have somebody in my office who's having a traumatizing flashback. It wasn't mandatory that we had to volunteer 20 hours, but an optional mandatory. It was great and it led to all these different opportunities for many of my classmates.

I did have a couple of questions. I had a professor in university who said the most you're ever going to volunteer is throughout your degree, and then you'll find that it'll go down. I'm wondering if there's truth to that, or if you notice that there are more students in university who do volunteering as opposed to people who have a family or are in the workforce?

[Paula Speevak]

Did you want me to take that?

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

It's for whomever.

[Paula Speevak]

One of the things we track is volunteer rates. We ask, for instance, whether a person volunteered in the last 12 months. Youths 15 to 24 have the highest volunteer rate, but when you think about the overall average of Canadians, 44% of Canadians 15 and over volunteer, which is already a high rate. It does fluctuate. It goes down a bit between the ages of 25 and 34. That's the period of time where there is often preoccupation and focus on career development, housing, partnering, and all kinds of other things.

It picks up again...in fact if you have school-aged children in the home, then your volunteer rate has risen. The other thing is that over time, the number of hours increases. So older adults, about 36% of those 65 and over, volunteer, but they volunteer an average of 223 hours a year. On the flip side of that, the youth, who have a 66% rate, will volunteer about 110 hours a year. So that makes sense in terms of time.

The other difference is in the kinds of things people choose, as well as the personal benefits people report.

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

Thank you. Does anybody else wish to answer?

[Dr. Wolfgang Lehmann]

If I may, in the 15-odd-years that I've been writing reference letters for students and looking at student resumés, I haven't seen a single student who has not volunteered. They don't just volunteer at one place, either; they volunteer at 20 places. These resumés are astounding. It's quite different, and it's a generational difference. When I was a student, all you had to do was get through school and move on, and this has changed. What I see in students volunteering is a range of volunteer opportunities that seem strategic and instrumental, and others that are clearly not, others that are similar to your experiences

All students know that, and I would certainly say that's true, but I'm also sometimes worried that this massive amount of volunteering that at times happens alongside paid work and worrying about getting excellent marks to get into postgraduate programs is taking a toll. We are seeing something of an epidemic of mental health problems at universities that I'm sure you're all familiar with, and I can't help thinking that some of that may be related to the overextension in volunteering, paid work, and just chasing the top marks in order to get into postgraduate programs. That seems to be something that's unique to the last 10 years or so.

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

I know I found some of my toughest times were working, volunteering, and going to school. I also had a baby when I was going to school. I had a very supportive husband who was great. It was very taxing, but I find those moments to be character-shaping, and those experiences help us a lot once we get to where our goal is and where we're planning to go.

We had some witnesses a couple of weeks ago who mentioned the trend of students going to university, receiving a degree, and then going into the trades because they cannot find work. I don't know if any of you would know this, but do they use the skills they've acquired volunteering while doing their degree when they go into an apprenticeship or trades program?

That's kind of a broad question.

[Dr. Wolfgang Lehmann]

I'll attempt an answer. I don't know because we don't follow people, track people, in that way. We don't know how skills are being used. I think it's correct that universities have become important feeder schools for colleges—not just in the trades but also in the diploma programs in colleges. What I hear from a lot of students who do that is that they get the applied skills that they don't get at university. So they might take a sociology program—if I speak about my own discipline—and then go to college and do a diploma in human resources management or something like that.

There seems to be, though, a sense that those transferable skills the previous speaker mentioned are not always clear to students as they're graduating. They're seeking more applied skills to be more competitive on the labour market.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Mr. Morrissey, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

My question is to Ms. Speevak. I agree with your comments describing volunteer positions. You accurately articulate what it is you're doing.

Could you comment on how you can ensure that potential employers place the same value on volunteer work that the employee, the student, does? Sometimes they may evaluate it but not attach a value to it.

[Paula Speevak]

That is a great question.

One of the things we're trying to promote.... First, we're working with organizations, and organizations are creating these volunteer opportunity descriptions in a manner that uses the competencies from the National Occupational Classification system. When somebody has volunteered, they are able to use that language in their resumé, as opposed to just saying what they've done. We're encouraging that.

We're also trying to create a program called Programme d'enseignement bénévolat It was developed by the Centre d'action bénévole de Québec, in Quebec City. It is a certificate that, instead of saying, “Thank you for volunteering”—which is great—says, “Thank you for volunteering, and when you volunteered, you demonstrated the following skills”, and it will list leadership skills, promotional skills, public speaking skills, etc. That certificate can be attached and included. We're working with organizations—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Who issues the certificate?

[Paula Speevak]

Any volunteer can be issued this certificate.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

By whom? What's the name of the organization?

[Paula Speevak]

The volunteer centre of Quebec City, the Centre d'action bénévole de Québec. A number of other volunteer centres in Quebec are starting to use this program. We're looking at that.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Good. Thank you.

Dr. Lehmann, one of your comments was about the inability to transfer academic success into professional employment success, where you're striving to reach for the top, to have the highest academic achievements, but your achievements do not necessarily line up with professional requirements. You also related that to not being well-connected within the field you're going for. Could you elaborate a bit on that? Given that Canada is one of the G7 countries, a wealthy country, a leading industrial and academic country, how can government in its programming better address that particular issue?

[Dr. Wolfgang Lehmann]

There's potentially two ways to answer this question. One of them might be that a lot of young people come to university with less than well-informed career goals. What I see in my research, and just casually talking—I teach first-year courses—to students, is that everybody wants to be a lawyer or maybe a doctor. Perhaps we could step back a bit and give young people in schools career information that's more realistic, that doesn't allow young people to come out with goals that are commendable but.... Surely we need more than just lawyers and doctors for a country like Canada to function well.

To me, the fact that many of the young people in my study did not go to medical school but instead became public health nurses or occupational therapists is actually not a bad thing. It is a bad thing only if it is a career move that the young person later regrets. If it's one they make willingly and happily and quietly, it's a different story.

Part of the problem is the data seems to suggest that the people who make these downward shifts tend to be from less-advantaged backgrounds. They come with higher aspirations and somehow get frustrated, if that's the right word, along the way.

It's tricky because I don't want to say they shouldn't aim high. I don't want to say that working-class kids in high school should be told not to become doctors or lawyers. That's not my point, but maybe my point is that some more accurate and realistic career advice early on would help. I think it could also help to think a bit more about how we support people in postgraduate professional programs. They're very expensive. I know that not a single one of these programs would come out and say they're trying to not admit poor people. I've done some of these presentations to professional faculties and they often say, “That's not our intention. We want to get the best people into the program”, but quite often it comes out that way. Some people cannot get that experience and don't have those connections to be competitive in the end.

Maybe there are ways at university we can guide young people who do not have the connections through their families into internships, into placements, into legal aid offices, into working with doctors, and shadowing doctors. Maybe we can find ways in which universities can play a more active role in helping young people to do that, to gain those connections. I think once they establish them, things work out much better.

In my follow-up study, I see that young men and women who go into public health and nursing do well once they get their placements. They find employment, they connect, and they build networks through their programs—but they need to get into them first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Madam Trudel, please.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

I'd like to welcome the witnesses and thank them for being here.

My first question is for Professor Lehmann.

Mr. Lehmann, I'd like to take advantage of your experience to ask whether apprenticeship programs for skilled trades could be expanded by giving employers or workers subsidies. I'll tell you why I ask.

Some of the entrepreneurs I have visited in my riding, and other parts of Quebec, have told me that a number of their employees are retiring. Given that the population is getting older, many workers have been retiring for a while now. These employees, who know how to operate the equipment and are familiar with the work processes, would like to be able to pass on their knowledge. That way, knowledge would be transferred more effectively and young workers joining the company would benefit. Since small and medium-sized businesses are often the ones affected, they can't afford to pay both an employee who is two years away from retirement, for instance, and, at the same time, a young person who is new to the company.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.