Evidence of meeting #106 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.
Liberal
Senior Lead, Computing Education, Shopify Inc.
I talked about some of these in my speech. The salary or the tuition of the student is paid by Shopify. As well, there are other perks. They receive a MacBook Pro to use for their studies and their work. We have other perks for employees at Shopify like breakfast and lunch, and these kinds of things.
Liberal
Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC
I have two quick last questions. Are you able to access any government grants? What is the follow-up like? Do you have any track records? Once they've graduated and finished a program, are they staying with Shopify, or are they moving on?
Senior Lead, Computing Education, Shopify Inc.
I'll answer the latter question first. The program is into its third year now, so nobody has graduated from the program yet. But so far we have retained everyone, which is great, also unprecedented for computer science. We do hope to either retain them in Shopify or retain them in Canada. We consider it a win if they end up staying in the Canadian technology ecosystem.
I apologize, your first question was...?
Senior Lead, Computing Education, Shopify Inc.
As of yet, we have not received any government support for dev degree.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses for their presentations. They will really help us in our work.
My first question is for you, Mr. Cash. I am using this opportunity to tell you that I am happy to be able to have a discussion with you. I have been a member of Parliament since 2015, and I have a great deal of respect for NDP members who have shown me the way.
In your presentation, you talked about how much the labour market has changed and said that there has been an explosion in the number of independent workers, without us seizing the opportunity to adapt based on our various social security nets. When you talk to us about that indicator of job quality, do you think it's the first step in a major overhaul of our social protection systems?
Co-Founder and President, Urban Worker Project
Independent workers who are outside the standard employee-employer relationship don't have access to our social safety net. They don't have access to employment insurance. They don't have access to parental leave or sick leave or any of the benefits housed within the employer-employee relationship. In other words, if you are working on contract, if you are freelance, if you are an entrepreneur, if you're a micro-entrepreneur, then you have no protections under Canada's labour laws, really, and the provincial labour laws and standards specifically around work. You are not officially an employee.
So for those who don't have access to a sick day, we have to ask this question: how do we respond, from a social policy perspective, to the changing nature of work? It necessitates our looking at the millions of Canadian workers today—and the many more tomorrow—who fall outside the social safety net that is predicated on a full-time job or a job that is housed within the employer-employee relationship.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Okay.
That's without taking into account all those with a precarious job. We know that six workers out of 10 have a precarious job and don't have access to employment insurance. You reminded us that those workers also have families, but that they don't have access to a parental leave program, or that they are young people with a significant student debt.
Based on your experience and your knowledge of the labour market for young people, how could we at the federal level help them have a stable job that would enable them to earn a living? And how, with the measures and programs in place, can we guide them to ensure that things are going well on the labour market and that they can have access to employment insurance? What can we do in the context of this new labour market reality?
Co-Founder and President, Urban Worker Project
There's no one single answer, but let's start with student debt. We have to ask ourselves this question: is it counterproductive, at the very least, to have both our federal and provincial governments making money off student debt? That seems to go right against the goals of what we're studying here in this committee. I think that would be number one. Again, we are building programs, experiential programs, where young people are working for free. Even though they're connected to post-secondary institutions, and they're viable programs, really, in today's context, students are really struggling.
As I said in my remarks, students are workers already. Some of them are working full time while they're still going to school. They're trying to juggle an unpaid co-op placement within the context of their lives, which are pressurized in a way that I think we have a hard time understanding. We think of students as we used to think of students: you go to school for four years, you're focused full time, and you do nothing else but your school work. I mean, there are students who have that access, and that's awesome, but the majority of students today, in cities like Toronto, are facing enormous pressure.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
In that case, here is my request.
Given Mr. Cash's experience with independent workers, I had a question on temporary employment agencies. I think that can be relevant to our study. May I give the question to the clerk, so that Mr. Cash can answer it later?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Of course.
I believe there are a number of questions around the table. I know our side has a few questions. The analyst is also going to follow up on a few clarification questions.
I thank you all for being here. Just so it's clear for everybody, anybody can submit questions to the clerk. We will get them to you, and we look forward to those answers. Thank you very much for being here.
We do need to suspend to go to some committee business this evening, but I want to thank you for being here and helping us with this study.
We will suspend.
[Proceedings continue in camera]