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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Wolfgang Lehmann  Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Western University, As an Individual
Luisa Atkinson  Director, First Nation Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Paula Speevak  President and Chief Executive Officer, Volunteer Canada

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Ms. Atkinson, I have a couple questions for you.

Where do the internships typically take place?

5:25 p.m.

Director, First Nation Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Luisa Atkinson

On Inuit territory and in first nations communities, but it's not limited. As long as there's a sponsor who's willing to train and prepare the intern, it can happen outside of the community.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

When you say sponsorship, is it somebody from the private sector who does sponsorship, or how does that work?

5:25 p.m.

Director, First Nation Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Luisa Atkinson

It could be. Typically it's a first nation that sponsors through their housing management program, or it could be, for example, a technical service provider who does inspections on reserves. It could be part of the Yukon Housing Corporation, if they have an administrative position. It could be a number of things. It really depends on the position and what they're learning as opposed to who the sponsor is.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

How does that process work? Does CMHC go to the sponsors or do you find that sponsors are going to CMHC asking to participate in this?

May 28th, 2018 / 5:25 p.m.

Director, First Nation Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Luisa Atkinson

It's actually both. The program is currently very oversubscribed. There is no limit of sponsors who are looking for this opportunity. We work hand in hand with our first nations communities as well as our Inuit partners. That's a natural linkage right there. We often find other groups like Habitat for Humanity or a tribal council or a non-profit organization that are looking for those kinds of opportunities.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

What proportion of those in the housing internship initiative for first nations and Inuit youth participants are able to secure long-term employment? What success is there?

5:25 p.m.

Director, First Nation Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Luisa Atkinson

That's a little bit harder to correlate because of the fact that market employment is not the same on reserve. The opportunity for employment is much reduced. I would say that a larger number continue in housing.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

I don't know if you mentioned this in your presentation, so if you could please remind me, what is the age of youth who qualify?

5:25 p.m.

Director, First Nation Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Luisa Atkinson

Ages 15 to 30.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Okay, I'm fine.

Do you want some time?

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Mark Warawa Conservative Langley—Aldergrove, BC

Dr. Lehmann, you talked about different valuable pathways, different options for youth, and you touched on apprenticeships. You also highlighted that career goals need to be realistic in helping guide the next generation to where those goals are, and that trades are definitely a very valuable option for them. There is potential for a career that provides a good income and a good quality of life. If they're enjoying the trades, building and creating things, it can be very satisfying.

My first question is, how do we encourage more youth to get into the trades? The previous government had the trade apprenticeship program. It was quite successful. We've reached success to a certain level. How can we do better with this government?

The second question is on geriatrics. My responsibilities in this Parliament are ensuring that we have quality palliative care for our aging population. Whether it's in home care, hospice care, or geriatric nursing, there are great opportunities for a creditable career that they can progress through as they enhance their skill set, and it can start with volunteering, going into an apprenticeship and on. How do we get more people involved with geriatrics?

5:30 p.m.

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Western University, As an Individual

Dr. Wolfgang Lehmann

I'll start with the apprenticeships. Quite often, it seems to me that apprenticeships are a second-best option for a lot of families. We think of it as a career pathway that we channel people into who maybe don't do too well at school. I think there needs to be a rethinking. There needs to be a rethinking that we look at apprenticeships as a valuable career pathway for anybody, just the same way we think of university as a pathway for which you need to qualify in certain ways. I think apprenticeships require a certain frame of mind, a certain type of interest, and certain kinds of goals that people have rather than something we channel people into.

How can we increase it? I know high schools have done a lot more to promote apprenticeships, but the reality often is that most people who advise young students in high school have come through the academic system and this is something they're far more comfortable with, something they understand. It's a pathway they can help students with, whereas apprenticeships aren't. Apprenticeships remain a foreign pathway that most high school counsellors probably don't know too much about. We also know that often in schools it's the shop programs and the trades programs that are being shut down because they're not cheap; they're expensive and need equipment. If you want young people to have access to good equipment, it needs to be constantly updated. There's a dilemma there. We steer people away from this in school, and it's not entirely surprising that in Canada most of the people who enter apprenticeship training are in their twenties or later. They're doing it as maybe not a second career, but as something they go into long after they finish high school.

There are ways that we maybe need to shift how we think about that. It's hard to say how you can do that successfully, because despite all the youth apprenticeship programs in Alberta, Ontario, and all the other provinces across Canada, the enrolment rates remain stubbornly low. We still have only a small percentage of the labour force training in the trades. We haven't seen a huge increase in that. It's something that we certainly need to look at, and we need to do more research to find out, maybe with younger people, what the reason is.

The problem is that there's also a public debate, a public discourse that suggests you're not anything until you get a university degree. It's becoming this fundamental minimal thing you need to achieve in order to be successful. Even some of the apprentices I interviewed have said things like that. They're successful as apprentices and sometimes they'll say they wonder if they should maybe give university a chance in a few years. There's this sort of mindset.

About the geriatric workforce, my sense is that it's similar to what we see in apprenticeships. It's an area that people enter later in life. A lot of people retrain to do geriatric work once they're a bit older, maybe once they've had some personal experience doing this with parents or other family members. I don't do research in schools so I don't really know what very young people think, but as a sociologist I can tell you my department does studies in gerontology. There's not a lot of student interest in this, and I guess young people are simply not interested in what happens to old people. They don't want to think about that. This is where the big crisis looms. We need to somehow have a workforce in place that cares for our aging population, and we need to know what the population pyramid—well, it's not a pyramid anymore—or the population profile looks like. I think we need ways to let young people know about these options at an earlier age, and we need to involve employers more actively in coming out and speaking to young people.

5:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

Thank you very much, Dr. Lehmann.

We are out of time, but I want to thank you all very much for your contributions to this study. I assure you we're moving forward with it, and looking to wrap this up before the summer.

The meeting is adjourned.