Evidence of meeting #139 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 workers.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Bill Ferreira  Executive Director, Ottawa Office, BuildForce Canada
Leah Nord  Director, Skills and Immigration Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Mike Yorke  President and Director of Public Affairs, Carpenters' District Council of Ontario
Mark Lewis  General Counsel, Carpenters' District Council of Ontario
Kevin Lee  Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Home Builders' Association
Joe Vaccaro  Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Home Builders' Association
Rick Martins  President, Ontario Home Builders' Association
John Barlow  Foothills, CPC
Scott Duvall  Hamilton Mountain, NDP
Kerry Diotte  Edmonton Griesbach, CPC
Gordie Hogg  South Surrey—White Rock, Lib.
Leslie MacLean  Senior Associate Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development and Chief Operating Officer for Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
Graham Flack  Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development, Department of Employment and Social Development

1:35 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

Thank you very much, MP Hogg.

You're right. The Canada student loan default rate is steadily tracking downward, and that is as a result of the supports that we're providing students in terms of repayment assistance. We've increased the amount of support for non-repayable Canada student grants, so that helps as well. Obviously, for lower-income students, having more grant and less loan is one way to prevent the default of loans. We know that for lower-income students, oftentimes even the prospect of taking out debt can be a deterrent to education.

There are changes to the repayment assistance program so that no graduate who applies will have to repay their Canada student loan until they're earning at least $25,000 per year. This is going to benefit 54,000 students, and the writeoff represents less than 1% of the overall amount of the Canada student loans, so this is obviously heading in the right direction.

We want to make sure that any young person who wants to attend post-secondary training has an opportunity to do so and can see a financial path toward that goal.

Again, we know when people feel confident to invest in themselves through higher education or skills training, they repay that investment multiple times over in their contributions to their communities and to our economy.

1:40 p.m.

South Surrey—White Rock, Lib.

Gordie Hogg

Thank you.

That's good.

1:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

Okay, we'll go to Mr. Ruimy.

1:40 p.m.

Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

I get his 30 seconds.

Welcome, Minister. It's always a pleasure to have you at our committee.

First, I would just comment on the Canada summer jobs, because we all seem to be talking about it. I love the program. Since I've been elected we've more than doubled the number of Canada summer jobs we've had in the riding of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge. Part of the reason for that is that I've gone out and met with almost every single student. We showcase them on social media with videos, pictures, and we interview them—not only the students, but also the organizations that hire them to find out what they hire them for and what criteria they are looking for.

I was really excited to see that over the course of the last three years, we've tried to push people to hire on what the students are doing in school. For example, we have a hatchery, and they've hired people from university who are studying fish and biology. This is practical experience for them, which is great. So thank you for that program.

I'm going to move to a different subject. Right now we're studying construction jobs and the lack of skilled labour and so on in the GTA. I see that in the supplementary estimates (B) there is $409 million for the Canada summer job grants for qualifying full-time and part-time students. I know you haven't likely been following our study, but the problem we're seeing is that people are moving away from skilled trades. Could this money be applied to trying to encourage skilled workers to pick up the trades? Is there an opportunity here to use this program?

1:40 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

If I understand the question correctly, you're asking if people can use Canada student grants for trades training. Is that correct?

1:40 p.m.

Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

Yes.

1:40 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

Yes, and I'll let my deputy speak in more detail about that.

1:40 p.m.

Senior Associate Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development and Chief Operating Officer for Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development

Leslie MacLean

One of the five national priorities that were established for Canada summer jobs was for employers who are providing youth an opportunity to work in the skilled trades. That would be any of the Red Seal certified trades, be it chef, carpenter, etc.

When we spoke about it last, we recognized that as part of the application process, there are four objectives, and the weighting that is given in the Canada summer jobs evaluation is very clear for those. The first objective is just to give a quality job to youth, and as members have already noted, it's for youth between 15 and 30. The second one is providing youth with the opportunity to develop and improve their skills. The third objective is the one I just referred to, where the minister has established national priorities that staff are using across the country. That's where you find the one for skilled trades. The final one is local priorities, and as members around the table are aware, you, as MPs, have input into establishing those.

1:40 p.m.

Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

Thank you very much for that.

The Red Seals are great, but I don't think we have people at that level yet. That's one of the challenges we're hearing about in committee.

What we're trying to see is how to encourage new people to come into the trades program—I think that's where the challenge is—and if there's an opportunity to use this program to push people into the trades.

1:40 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

I'll take it first, and then I'll turn it over to my deputy for a few more details.

Yes, you're absolutely right. What we want is more people in the trades. We want more interest in the trades earlier on. We need to reverse the generational stigma around pursuing a career in the trades. This is obviously a burning desire for me as the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, but also as the mom of a young man in trades. Trades are some of the best middle-class jobs in our country. There's a shortage of skilled workers for 65,000 trades positions in our country.

Obviously, the previous government didn't invest in unions. As a matter of fact, they introduced a whole bunch of union-busting legislation. They were no friends to organized labour or to the trades, so for us, this is about reversing that. We're doing that by ensuring that we invest in the women in apprenticeships model, so that we bring more women into the trades, by investing in pre-apprenticeship strategies, so that we can get people into the idea of trades before the apprenticeships, and by investing in union training. We know that unions actually do some of the best jobs in terms of training the next generation of skilled tradespeople, whether it's for equipment or innovation, in terms of bringing people into union-based trades.

We are going to continue that work. We have more to do, for sure, but I think we're on the right trajectory now. We're talking about the trades in a more positive way. We're working with organized labour. The skilled trades unions are an important partner in this country, not just to build up the next generation of skilled tradespeople but also to protect those good-quality middle-class jobs we talk about all the time.

1:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

You have 20 seconds.

1:45 p.m.

Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

I'll take the 20 seconds.

Actually, in my riding of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, we have the International Union of Operating Engineers. We had an investment of just over half a million dollars for a brand new crane, which cost over $1 million. Inside the crane, you'd think there would be all these levers, but actually, you need trigonometry. You need to have the skills that are not necessarily considered with the trades. We have a way to go with that. When we look at the equipment and the progress of where we need to be, I think these types of programs would be great for moving our country forward.

1:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

Thank you, Mr. Ruimy.

Mr. Diotte, you have six minutes, please.

1:45 p.m.

Edmonton Griesbach, CPC

Kerry Diotte

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I was just reading a report on Bloomberg. It was from the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It's the same organization that has concern about the SNC-Lavalin affair, so I think everybody knows it. They're calling for quite a severe.... They're warning that a global outlook.... They've downgraded their outlook globally again from a predicted growth of 1.8% to 1%. They have a very gloomy outlook.

What does that do for any of the spending that's going to be done here in Canada?

1:45 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

Thank you, MP Diotte. I will say that we will do the exact opposite of the Harper Conservatives during the recession, when they had an opportunity to actually change things for Canadians. We'll continue to invest in Canadians. We'll continue to invest in their ability to be resilient, to ensure that whatever comes our way as a country, we have skilled people with opportunities to reskill if their sector is impacted.

We will ensure that everybody has a fair chance so that we have more people in our workforce generating great ideas, leading the world in terms of innovation. I'm excited about the opportunity to ensure that people in this country feel that they and their children have a fair chance, and that no matter what is happening in the global outlook, Canada is strong and prosperous and has the people power we need.

I think the deputy has a few other words to say.

March 19th, 2019 / 1:45 p.m.

Graham Flack Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development, Department of Employment and Social Development

The downgrades by the OECD and the IMF largely reflect changes in emerging markets, like China, that have had a significant impact on the downward trajectory of the estimates. There have been a number of downgrades that have emerged as a result of this.

I'd say that Canadian job growth stands in contrast to that downgrade. From a departmental perspective, the programming is very much focused on how we deal with one of our biggest challenges, which is actually the inability to fill the number of jobs we have. The efforts, including the items you see in the supplementary estimates, are about helping us to reduce those kinds of mismatches so that we can have the highest percentage possible who are employed. You are correct in identifying that global headwinds, in terms of economic growth, have stiffened in recent months.

1:45 p.m.

Edmonton Griesbach, CPC

Kerry Diotte

There's another Bloomberg report that talks about home values, which fell in Canada for the first time since 1990, which is a huge blow. We heard from some home builders earlier. It's very grim news on that front.

That same report talked about how business investment fell by 5.9% in the final three months of 2018 in Canada and is expected to be very weak, especially because of the energy sector. There's concern in this report that we're losing billions of dollars from the energy sector. It's fleeing the country. It's not coming back, and without that money—

1:50 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB

A point of order, Chair.

1:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

Excuse me. We'll pause your time for a second, Kerry.

1:50 p.m.

Edmonton Griesbach, CPC

Kerry Diotte

—how is any of this spending going to take place when—

1:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

Kerry, I need to interrupt you for a minute. We've paused your time. Mr. Long has a point of order.

1:50 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB

Mr. Chair, to be fair, I think this is outside the scope of the committee's mandate and questions for the minister.

1:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bryan May

We'll let Mr. Diotte ask his actual question. I would remind him that we are here to talk about estimates. I know that we've been all around the map, but to at least stay within the minister's mandate would be good.

We'll restart your time and let you get back to it.

1:50 p.m.

Edmonton Griesbach, CPC

Kerry Diotte

The minister was talking about the 900,000 jobs, etc., and I'm simply pointing out from secondary sources that all is not that rosy.

The question is, given the fact that money is fleeing from this country, especially in the oil patch, and there's no conceivable date as to when the next pipeline is going to be built, how are you going to pay for all of this?

1:50 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

MP Diotte, I will say that you're right. We have created, together with Canadians, 900,000 jobs. We've set the table so that Canadians have the confidence to create those jobs, and it's created a new problem, which is a severe labour shortage all across the country in a variety of different ways. When I visit with my Quebec counterparts, for example, and the only thing we talk about is the labour shortage, that's when I know we have a crisis of keeping up, quite frankly, and making sure that our businesses have an opportunity to grow.

I will say that a whole bunch of things are going into that labour shortage. Obviously, we have an aging population, people who are getting older and wanting to retire and people who are retiring. We're sort of at the apex of the baby boomers retiring. We have a lower birth rate, which means that fewer people are entering the workforce over time.

Also, we obviously have challenges around recruiting people for these jobs, people who can fill these jobs, people with the skills that employers are looking for, which is why the work we're doing in terms of my portfolio is so incredibly critical. If we do not ensure that every single person in this country has the opportunity to fully skill up to their best potential, then we are doing our employers a huge disservice, not just now but into the future, because it will actually retard their growth. They will not be able to grow their businesses. They will not be able innovate in the same way that they want to. They will not be able, in some cases, to keep their businesses open.

I will end on this. You know, Mr. Diotte, your party has an incredibly negative message around the value of immigration and that is not helping employers all across this country—