Human Resources Committee on Feb. 19th, 2019

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

MP Duvall, please.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody, for coming today and sharing your information.

Ms. Kim, in your report you mentioned the Atlantic immigration pilot. Has there been an evaluation of the pilot program? What have been the successes? Have there been failures? I'm just wondering if there is a report from it that we can learn from going into Toronto.

[Natasha Kim]

The pilot was only fully launched in March 2017. Of course, it took some time for admissions to actually follow, because there was a process in place. Provinces had to designate employers in order for them to actually participate under the pilot. Then, those who were recruited had to not only receive a job offer but also work with a settlement agency to get an individualized settlement plan and then get the endorsement of the province. Only after those steps were completed could someone submit their permanent resident application to IRCC. It took some time. Of course, then they had to actually move to Canada with their families.

We're seeing now very good results in terms of the numbers, and they've been steadily increasing. To date, I believe we have over 1,000 permanent resident admissions. Those are people who have actually landed in the Atlantic region, although we already have people working there under the pilot through a bridging mechanism on a temporary basis. I would just say that the numbers have been increasing, but it's a bit early right now to have done an evaluation of the pilot. We are looking to do that in the near term, but we needed to see some of those numbers increase before we could do a good assessment.

That said, I would just say that we are in fairly regular contact with our provincial counterparts in the Atlantic, as well as employers in the region and settlement agencies, just to keep tabs on how things are going. Generally, the reviews have been quite positive. There have been some very valuable and useful stories. We have learned various lessons so far, such as the importance of that relationship to the overall Atlantic growth strategy as an economic development strategy. As well, the partnership with ACOA on the ground has been very valuable as we've been implementing this. Those are the types of lessons we continue to collect.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

On that same subject, are any of them allowed to move to other parts of the country, being that this pilot program is for eastern Canada?

[Natasha Kim]

Absolutely. As permanent residents, they have the mobility rights that all permanent residents have under the charter. They are free to move, but what the pilot is trying to test is whether those greater settlement supports early on and the enhanced role by the employer in trying to integrate people into the community will promote greater retention in the region. It's not a requirement, but it's a way in which we're trying to influence that.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Ram, in your report on the round table discussions, you were saying that there's a lack of labour mobility, as people discussed. What I've seen in some of the reports is that in the construction industry you're going to have peaks and valleys. It could be in one part of Canada or it could be in another section of Canada, but there are a lot of skilled workers out there.

As for why it's booming in the Toronto area, there's greater demand, while in Sudbury, for instance, there might not be so much building going on. There's no incentive for a worker in Sudbury, say, to use those skills and come to Toronto for a month and a half or two months, because he has to pay for a place to stay and his food. Whatever money he's making, he's basically paying half of that to put his employment in Toronto, while he has a mortgage back in Sudbury.

Why is there no incentive program for people to move? Otherwise, they're just better off to stay at home if they're going to lose half their wages. They might as well just sit there and have EI and do something else.

[Elisha Ram]

That's a very interesting question. I think we need to think about the appropriate balance in this in terms of the role of the government in facilitating an open, transparent, flexible labour market. One of the responsibilities is in terms of employers offering competitive wages and working conditions and helping to attract and retain people, and another is the responsibility of individual employees and workers in terms of how they pursue the path that's right for them.

I think it would be relatively complex to design a system that would provide incentives without effectively displacing the role that some of the other actors need to play in the system. It's not something that couldn't be considered, but it would have to be very carefully designed in order to avoid creating a very expensive program that effectively pays people to do what they would have done otherwise.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Do you believe that there should be a tax incentive, something that the person can write off in using his skills to go from one area to another?

[Elisha Ram]

There is already a tax recognition for moving expenses. That's available to people to earn employment. That's already in place. I think one can look at the possibility of other types of incentives. They don't have to be financial. A lot of the work we have been doing with sectors and companies is around creating the right conditions and making sure that people know what job opportunities are available to them. My colleague Mr. Johnson can speak to that. I think we have to think beyond simply the financial incentive and look at the system as a whole.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

MP Morrissey.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Ram, you outlined an impressive array of support programs to incentivize people into the various trades, yet today we're sitting here with what's been identified as a significant gap in recruiting. Is it fair, then, for this committee to say, or would you agree, that immigration is going to have to play a continued vital role in meeting the various labour components of the construction industry, both residential and commercial, going forward?

[Elisha Ram]

I'll allow my colleague to speak to the immigration side of it. From our perspective, addressing labour needs of the economy as a whole, including in construction in the GTA, as well as across the country, will require a multi-faceted approach. It's not going to be one tool and a single approach that's going to get us there.

I think we need to make sure that the right skills are in place. We need to make sure that we're working with the industry and with the provinces to train the people. There needs to be the ability for employers to identify the skills they need and connect those to the people who are being trained throughout the system. Mobility is certainly an important issue in terms of making sure that people have the capacity to move, and then of course there's the potential contribution of immigration.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay.

I will get to immigration. I want to go back, because your section is responsible—to use your terms—for providing timely data. If I went back and asked you what your section was advising the government 10 years ago with regard to where the skill shortages would be in this key construction component, could you answer that for the committee? It's your responsibility to have timely data to advise on an array of programs, so 10 years ago, or even five years ago, what skills would you have been identifying?

When I look at the data from BuildForce, they list particular skills. It didn't happen overnight, so what were you advising the government 10 years ago or five years ago?

[Stephen Johnson]

I think it's important to say that we have a variety of sources of labour market information. We receive some through surveys from Statistics Canada. We look at our own administrative data, including things like employment insurance data and Job Bank data, and then the BuildForce industry validates it. As I mentioned earlier, the department actually funds that organization and a few others to undertake what we see as valuable information that adds to the information base we have.

I can tell you it's been a long time. I've been in the department for 17 or 18 years, and I think since the first day I arrived, there has been conversation around apprenticeship and skilled trades and why it seems that so many youth don't consider those to be viable first-choice careers.

That notion, I think, has been long-standing.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

This is not the first time we've heard this. As Mr. Barlow pointed out, I had a composite high school as well. They're closing them down because the young people aren't going, so we'll acknowledge that particular part within Canada.

I have a specific question, and then I'll go to the immigration question.

How many of the trades that have been identified in the BuildForce shortage—when you look at this alarming shortage coming in sections—have been identified or have been approved under the express entry stream in the GTA?

[Natasha Kim]

Mr. Chair, unfortunately I don't have the BuildForce report in front of me and—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Well, then, just allude to general construction—bricklayers, plumbers, carpentry framers, roofers—all the items that were identified by the mover of this motion. How many of those have been approved under the express entry?

[Natasha Kim]

NOC B occupations—those are skilled trades—are all eligible under express entry.

Based on the data I have here, about 3,200 immigrants with skilled trades background have been admitted over the last four years through express entry. About one third of those settled in Ontario, but 86% of those were headed to the Toronto area.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Did I hear you correctly? Did you identify what particular skill they identified?

[Natasha Kim]

Those would be under NOC B, which includes things like carpenters, masons, roofers, electrical tradespeople, welders—interestingly, at different skill levels. So, for example, in the construction trades and helpers, which I think the previous witness talked about, we actually find that a lot of immigrants from other categories—so, actually not economic immigrants but, say, people who entered as refugees or part of the family class—will end up as part of the domestic workforce, working in those occupations.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Seated before the committee today is extensive expertise within two divisions of government, and some have been here for some time. We do know—and this was pointed out—that it does not appear that we are lacking incentives or funding for various trade programs, whether by demographic or whatever, yet, according to the documentation, we're seeing a growing critical labour shortage in particular fields right across the country, specifically in some areas.

We have immigration. What is it that the government has to move to blend the pool? It's pretty clear—and I would be curious to see what the statistics were 10 years ago—that we have a shrinking pool within our domestic market as it relates to young people entering the trades or being retrained in the trades.

What is the component that we need from immigration that would solve this problem? It is a drag on the economy. It's probably in the billions of dollars in lost opportunities and those sorts of things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Answer very briefly, please.

[Natasha Kim]

I guess I would say that it's something that's not isolated to the greater Toronto and Hamilton area in the construction trades—