Human Resources Committee on April 4th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Good morning. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, February 27, 2019 and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, February 28, 2019, the committee is resuming its study of precarious employment in Canada. We are joined by a number of great witnesses today, and I'll introduce them now.

First of all, from Basic Income Canada Network we have Sheila Regehr, chairperson.

Coming to us via video conference from Vancouver, we have Parisa Mahboubi, senior policy analyst, Toronto Office, C.D. Howe Institute.

From the Canadian Chamber of Commerce we have Leah Nord, director, skills and immigration policy.

From the Canadian Labour Congress we have Chris Roberts, national director, social and economic policy department.

Also joining us via video conference from Montreal, from the Institute for Research on Public Policy we have Colin Busby, research director.

Welcome, all.

We will get started with opening statements.

To start us off, from Basic Income Canada Network, Sheila Regehr. The next seven minutes are all yours.

[Sheila Regehr, Chairperson, Basic Income Canada Network]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before this committee. We'll have a written brief that will follow shortly. Today with my limited time I want to highlight just a few points. I have four key points. I'm going to do a bit of history and then I want to talk mostly about the impact of precarious work on people.

My first point is that I went straight to the dictionary and I saw that precarity, according to what I read, encompasses uncertainty, lack of security and control, and threats of danger. I think threats of danger is the really important part, and, for people, those amount to things like income loss and poor health, but from a wider perspective they also include things like bursting of debt bubbles and societal unrest. Those threats are real.

The second point I want to make is that this committee talks about employment. I'm very particular about how I use “employment” and “work”. All work is precarious to some extent. New forms of paid work cannot be divorced from the broader circumstances that affect security: for example, maternity, disability, weather, or bad luck. For the growing precariat, however, the lines are increasingly blurring between employer/employee relationships and paid and unpaid economic activity, both market and non-market.

The third point is therefore that the definitions and indicators of precarity must reflect those first two points in order to inform effective policy solutions: for example, indicators of time spent in paid and unpaid work as well as education and training, and the impact of income security policies such as child benefits and tax credits, not just employment-related indicators.

The fourth point is that due to the increasingly precarious nature of employment, the expansion of forms of basic income—I assume that's why I was invited—not tied to employment, which some Canadians already receive, is urgently needed for others.

I'll take just a very brief divergence into some historical context. We all know that a key driver of precarious work is technological change—think of Uber being made possible by smart phones—but it's part of a larger challenge. I have a quote on that larger challenge of “the growing and serious imbalance between our ability to create wealth with our tremendous productive power and the inability of millions of families to consume that abundance because they lack adequate purchasing power.” That's a quote from 1955, from a labour leader to a committee like this one. Not much has changed, but I think the significance today of that era is that governments responded strongly over the next number of years to adopt public policies to meet those kinds of concerns that they saw coming, with things like unemployment insurance and student loans that continue to benefit people today.

The problem now is that change is accelerating and our progress has stalled, eroded, reversed in some cases, or is simply not kept up with new realities. I have just a few examples. Employment insurance is harder to get at a time when stable jobs are harder to find. More people are working at paid jobs or even just tasks with no benefits and protections. Financial shortfalls for a lot of people are being managed by taking on debt. Social assistance continues to be miserly and punitive while we continue with tax breaks for the wealthy.

The last point I want to make as an example is important because it points the way to the future, I think. That is that one of the really positive things we've done in Canada is that basic incomes for seniors and children, which have been in place for years, have been proven to be very successful in improving security for individuals and as a stimulus to the economy, but they exclude people. Those people are vulnerable to precarity and poverty. Things like the Canada workers benefit are helpful, but they're inadequate in amount and range of coverage.

Now I want to turn to the impact on people. I want to do this by looking at how people who are living precarious lives respond when that situation changes and they have more security.

The examples I'm going to provide are from a report called “Signposts to Success” done by the Basic Income Canada Network on the responses to a survey on the Ontario basic income pilot project. We ended up with a database that no one else had. We surveyed and received over 400 responses. I want to highlight three main areas that show you the kind of impact that increased security has on people.

Mental health was the biggest one. In the government's baseline survey of all the participants when they enrolled, almost 81% were suffering from moderate to severe psychological distress. That's 80% of the people enrolling in this program: people who are working for a living and struggling and also people who are on social assistance.

On our survey several months into the basic income, when they had been receiving this security, 88% of recipients reported less stress and anxiety and greater confidence. We have tons of examples, but they included things like reducing and eliminating medication. They controlled conditions better with diet, exercise and social contact. In turn, then, they were able to do things like go back to school, get a job or get a better job. There were similar results on health and food security overall. One of the important things here is that again they talked about things like reducing medication, but also about becoming more alert and actually physically more capable of activities that were not possible for them before.

The last area that I want to highlight is work. It's the one that everybody talks about when we talk about basic income and we worry about work disincentives. That's a bit of a myth. In our study, we found exactly the opposite. In the baseline survey, most people who were employed reported that they thought they were in dead-end jobs with no future. In our survey, we can see that people with the security of a basic income went back to school, upgraded skills, got better jobs, and were able to put gas in the car or buy bus tickets. Everybody improved in some way.

For me, then, I guess the bottom line is that basic income security reduces precarity. It improves lives, and it opens up options for everyone in ways that programs tied to employment alone cannot. The federal government has stated its intention to move in the direction of a basic income, and it's one that we fully support to address precarious work and many other phenomena.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thanks very much.

Up next, via video conference, from the C.D. Howe Institute, we have Parisa Mahboubi, senior policy analyst in the Toronto office.

[Parisa Mahboubi, Senior Policy Analyst, Toronto Office, C.D. Howe Institute]

Thank you very much. I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to you regarding precarious employment in Canada.

The labour market outcomes experienced by individuals in terms of quality of jobs and compensation are the key determinants of living standards. The traditionally preferred jobs are considered to be stable, full-time jobs with access to benefits. On the contrary, precarious employment often offers low pay and is relatively insecure, unstable and uncertain.

Several types of non-traditional employment that can capture the features of precarious employment are temporary positions including term or contract, casual or seasonal work, part-time positions, full-time employment with multiple jobs and unincorporated self-employment.

While full-time permanent positions remain the norm in Canada and the share of precarious employment in total employment has been relatively stable since 1997, at around 34%, there are some alarming shifts in the labour market that require special attention.

First, the stability and the proportion of precarious employment still mean a growing absolute number of workers in precarious work, which has climbed by 1.5 million from 1997 to 2018.

Second, full-time but temporary employment has grown by 63% since 1997, outpacing the 36% increase in total employment.

While term or contract employment, either full-time or part-time, has always been the largest component of temporary employment, there has been a shift towards more contract work over time. In particular, the number of Canadians employed in these types of jobs has almost doubled, accounting for a rise in contract work as a share of temporary positions, from 46% in 1997 to 53% in 2018.

Service industries, as a group, are the fastest-growing industries in Canada. The industry breakdown of temporary work shows that not only the lion's share of temporary employees is in the service industries' sector, but also that this sector has seen the largest growth in the amount of temporary work available. As a result, the share of temporary employees in service industries has climbed from 76% in 1997 to 83% in 2018.

Another dimension to the rise of precarious work, particularly in service industries, is the shift towards more part-time employment. Part-time employment has also grown by 32% since 1997, with almost no change in its share, and represents 45% of all precarious work and 15% of total employment in 2018.

The good news is that the number of involuntary part-timers has started to decline. The percentage of part-time workers who would prefer full-time employment was 22% in 2018, down from 28% in 2010.

Indeed, while trends in precarious employment are driven mainly by globalization, technology development, the shift towards services and the need for flexibility in business, more Canadians desire flexible work arrangements. In particular, demographic changes such as aging, greater labour force participation of women, and emphasis on higher education are playing key roles in this respect.

For example, older Canadians who are generally living longer, healthier lives have been a major contributor to the growth in part-time jobs and temporary work. For some individuals, temporary work has also been a stepping stone to full-time permanent employment.

However, poor compensation and employment uncertainty negatively affect the willingness to spend and delay family formation, a home purchase and saving for retirement. Learning from approaches to precarious employment in some European countries as provided in a C.D. Howe study in 2016 by Colin Busby and Ramya Muthukumaran highlights that Canada should turn its focus from rigid labour employment legislation that prevents job creation to polices that provide proper support for workers with precarious jobs.

Policy options to better address income and employment insecurity associated with precarious employment are improving employment insurance eligibility by adopting more balanced employment insurance eligibility requirements, both regionally and for workers in non-standard jobs; and ensuring uptake of the new Canada training benefit for workers in precarious employment.

The above-mentioned polices can provide policy-makers with options to mitigate the challenges faced by workers in precarious jobs and maintain a dynamic labour market outcome.

Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Up next from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is Leah Nord, director, skills and immigration policy. You have seven minutes.

[Leah Nord, Director, Skills and Immigration Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce]

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here this morning.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce is the voice of Canadian business. Our network consists of 450 chambers of commerce and boards of trade across the country, representing 200,000 businesses. We also have over 100 corporate members and an equal number of association members.

Digitalization, automation, Industry 4.0, and artificial intelligence are all top of mind for individuals, organizations, businesses and governments alike across the country, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce included. For example, over the past year, our activities have included a report called “Skills for an Automated Future”, which examines the effects of automation on the workforce, the skills and training that people will need to work in a digitized world, and ways to facilitate that training.

Our national AGM in Thunder Bay, our executive dinner in St. John's and Ontario's economic summit all had a focus on skills challenges and the workforce of the future. As well, this month and last, March and April 2019, we have hosted a series of round tables on artificial intelligence. On April 16, in Montreal, our AI and the workforce session will explore not only the specialized talent needed for the country, but also focus on how to facilitate the integration of the broader workforce, those who interface with AI and the skill sets needed to do so. This future of work has brought us all here today, to drive towards a definition of precarious work and its impacts on Canadian society.

There is a new reality in the Canadian workforce landscape, which started as early as the turn of the century and has picked up momentum since. To seemingly state the obvious, and to state it simply, gone are the days when Canadians go to secondary school, then possibly, or not, post-secondary, get a job with a single company over a lifetime and then retire at 65 with an income and benefits arrangements.

What this all means is not clear cut. Increasingly, as the data and research shows, full-time employees or employees in the public sector might feel precarious or insecure. At the same time, contractual or part-time workers are not necessarily vulnerable. They can, in fact, on a fully informed, personal-choice basis, be embracing this new gig economy.

Further, for example, survey results from BMO's wealth management survey, published in January 2018, found that the most cited reason for becoming self-employed was voluntarily making the choice, at 60%, or wanting a new challenge or change, at 49%. BMO also made the point that those in the gig economy range from the traditionally defined blue-collar workers, to IT, engineering, accounting and HR professionals.

As the future of work in the new economy is evolving, so much is unclear. I'd like to make three points about what the Canadian Chamber of Commerce thinks is clear.

First of all, it's not all doom and gloom. There is possibility, potential and opportunity. In December 2018, I conducted a series of interviews with influencers and thought leaders in the chamber network.

I'll quote a bit from the conclusions, as follows. Discussion on artificial intelligence in the workforce is welcomed and important, yet we must acknowledge that the technology is still nascent and much is unknown. Disruption is inevitable, and it is acknowledged that the conversation speculating about massive job loss persists in the media and the marketplace; however a more prevalent sentiment among interviewees was the expectation that while there will be some impacts on jobs, the labour market will evolve and adapt.

Second, within this evolving landscape, we need to be wary of the data and its implications. You've heard testimony already, which is reflected in the literature and research, about the qualitative lens that needs to give the numbers real and true meaning. You've also heard that how to do so is really problematic. Until we know if and where the issues and challenges lie in a gig economy, especially in the federally regulated private sector, we should not be jumping to program solutions.

Third, what we need is to set up Canadians, all Canadians, in all regions across the country—all ages, genders, fields and backgrounds—for success.

How do we do this? The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has recommendations for the federal government in two key categories.

First of all, in focusing on the future of work, the government should focus on skills. As this committee has heard on a number of occasions over the past year, the Canadian chamber and its members and network across the country have a series of policy resolutions and recommendations for developing a skills agenda for the 21st century workforce. In essence, it involves developing a national, overarching skills and competency framework, followed swiftly by a gap analysis and forecasting of future needs; and promoting and developing a competency-based assessment or assessments. The Government of Canada can demonstrate leadership in this area by implementing such evaluations within the federal public service. Our third recommendation is facilitating corresponding and requisite education and training and promoting a culture shift for lifelong learning.

Those are easy to state, colossally more difficult to implement, but critical for success. This is where the Government of Canada's focus should be, in partnership with all levels of government, the business sector, the education sector and all stakeholders involved in skills.

Recognizing my previous comments on programming in the absence of defined issues, the Canadian chamber does have recommendations vis-à-vis three areas of federal government programming related to the future of work, the Canadian workforce and notions of precarious work.

The first is with EI, the employment insurance program. The Canadian chamber has long called for a review of Canada's EI program, particularly as it relates to contribution ratios and the programs that EI dollars fund. I reiterate that again here today and add that a truly substantive review of the program would allow for real visioning on how best to support Canada's workforce in this century and through the ebbs and tides of labour market conditions. The Canadian chamber supports the idea of exploring how the EI program and other income support programs can be effectively combined with skills training and employment services.

This review would also include consideration of budget 2019's proposed Canada training benefit. The potential impact on small as well as medium and larger businesses of providing four weeks is unclear. There is the EI small business premium rebate to offset costs, but the structure of the program is still undefined, and there are also questions about what courses and programs will qualify and how these align with business needs. It is critical to consult employers.

My time is running out.

We also have comments around the portability of benefits. There have been a lot of initial discussions about what benefits will be portable and how they could be operationalized. We have struck a working group that will respond to the expert panel that has been established on workforce issues. Recommendations are forthcoming. We encourage you to proceed very carefully; there are jurisdictional cost and feasibility issues.

We also have comments regarding a national pharmacare program and support a concept that fills in the gaps. I have a position brief to share with those interested.

In closing, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today and underscore the importance of including the business sector in these discussions. The Canadian chamber with its members are willing partners in consultation and collaboration.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Next from the Canadian Labour Congress is Mr. Chris Roberts, national director, social and economic policy department.

[Chris Roberts, National Director, Social and Economic Policy Department, Canadian Labour Congress]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Good morning, committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on this important subject.

The Canadian Labour Congress speaks on national issues on behalf of three million unionized workers in Canada. It brings together over 50 national and international unions, 12 provincial and territorial federations of labour, and over 100 labour councils from coast to coast to coast.

The issue of precarious work is of vital importance to Canadian unions and to working people in Canada. We commend the member for Sault Ste. Marie for his motion and for his role in initiating this important study.

On Tuesday, the committee heard the eloquent testimony of Allyson Schmidt, who recounted not only the personal stress and hardship of precarious employment, but the economic inefficiency and sheer waste that results when someone with such talent and potential cannot secure stable, rewarding employment that makes full use of her capacities.

This sort of labour market failure is widespread in Canada. Employment precarity affects far more workers and is far more prevalent than many understand or are willing to admit. Low pay, employment instability and income volatility, limited access to labour standards protections and other manifestations of labour market insecurity affect millions of workers in this country.

The Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario research project, known as PEPSO, an initiative of the United Way and McMaster University, found that in 2011 20% of those working in the greater Toronto area were in precarious forms of employment. Another 20% were in employment relationships that bore at least some of the characteristics of precarious employment.

Ontario's 2017 Changing Workplaces Review found that vulnerable workers in precarious employment made up nearly one-third of Ontario workers in 2014. Non-standard employment alone made up more than one-quarter of Ontario's workforce. This type of employment includes temporary employees, such as term, contract, seasonal and casual workers; the unincorporated self-employed without paid help; involuntary part-time employees; and multiple job holders where the main job pays less than the median wage.

However, in our view, precarious employment should not be reduced to a question of non-standard work or temporary employment. While there is a high degree of overlap between non-standard and precarious employment, not all contingent or non-standard employment can be viewed as precarious. There are some individuals in non-standard employment, for instance, very highly paid professionals with specialized skills working on contract, who are not in precarious circumstances.

On the flip side, there are workers in standard employment whose work is characterized by aspects of precariousness, so precarious employment should be understood to include not just workers whose employment is uncertain or temporary, but also full-time workers in low-paid jobs, without pensions, benefits or adequate employment standards protections.

For this reason, the Changing Workplaces Review emphasized the need to focus on vulnerable workers in precarious employment as a conceptual way forward. It pointed out that vulnerability, powerlessness at work and in the labour market, and increased physical and financial risks are important dimensions of precarious employment.

Importantly, this approach focuses attention on the ways in which employment-related risks and costs have been progressively shifted to individual workers; how shrinking pension coverage and falling access to post-retirement benefits have transferred retirement risk to individual workers; how declining access to employment insurance benefits has weakened protections against unemployment and raised the cost of job loss. It focuses attention on how employers' declining investment in vocational and on-the-job training has raised individual risks of skill obsolescence and technological unemployment; how changes to workers' compensation have increased risks faced by workers when becoming injured or ill at work, and so on.

Our recommendations to the committee, then, consist of the following.

The committee should recommend, in our view, that the Government of Canada work in conjunction with academics, unions, employers and other stakeholders toward a definition of precarious employment and better data-gathering in the interests of reducing precarity.

In particular, the government should generate better labour market information on the differential impact of precarious employment on women, indigenous people, racialized workers and newcomers to Canada, youth and individuals with disabilities.

The government should develop measures of precariousness that can be tracked over time, and against which government efforts to reduce precarity can be evaluated.

As an employer, and through legislation and regulation, the federal government can take immediate steps to reduce precarious employment and promote good jobs in both the federal public sector and the private sector.

lt can continue to strengthen labour standards for workers in federally regulated industries.

lt can reduce the degree of outsourcing and reliance on temporary agency employment in the federal public service.

lt can address the particular vulnerability of migrant workers in Canada, especially migrant workers in agricultural and low-wage streams of the temporary foreign worker program. lt can also move to regularize undocumented workers in Canada, who live and work in particularly precarious circumstances.

lt can improve access to employment insurance benefits and raise the replacement rate, among other needed improvements.

lt can work to remove obstacles to unionization and improve workers' access to collective bargaining.

Finally, fiscal and monetary policy-makers can devote greater priority to pursuing genuinely full employment in Canada.

Thank you very much, and I look forward to questions from committee members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, Mr. Roberts.

Up next, we have Colin Busby, research director, from the Institute for Research on Public Policy, coming to us via video conference from Montreal.

[Colin Busby, Research Director, Institute for Research on Public Policy]

I do want to thank the chair and the committee for inviting me today to discuss with them an important issue: how we can work towards better defining and measuring precarious work, and do so in a way that helps to evaluate and design policies to address it.

I want to spend the first half of my presentation discussing options to achieve a more standardized definition of precarious work. Then I want to spend the last half discussing why the way we define precarious work matters because it leads to, and in some ways predetermines, policy responses.

Economic uncertainty is on the mind of many Canadians. It is increasingly understood that the benefits of economic growth in recent years are not being spread evenly among all workers. As a result, many feel excluded from the benefits of economic progress. Of course, the pressures of economic progress—technological development and how it's facilitated by globalization—have had a major impact on labour markets and workplace insecurities.

Yet, keep in mind, we designed the blueprints of our social safety net and our foundational labour legislation standards in a very different era. Most labour legislation regulations and institutions, although modestly amended over the years, were put in place in the 1970s and the 1980s, a time when many businesses were large—mainly manufacturing—and were the main source of full-time, full-year jobs, and most workers were male.

Large employers were often protected by tariffs and faced limited competition, and union coverage was far higher, whereas today there is more open competition and there are more small employers, more services and, of course, more women in the labour force.

When you add to this workers' anxiety about new technology and how it might replace their work, it's not hard to understand why so many Canadians feel this sense of economic unease.

Although there is no consistent definition of precarious work in academic and policy literature, there are some common threads. Conceptually, the term “precarious work” aims to express the uncertainty and vulnerability of one's work. Broadly defined, it captures job uncertainty, in terms of potential future layoffs, for example; predictability or lack thereof, in terms of someone's shift scheduling, for instance; and being low income or having few benefits or entitlements.

Statistics Canada keeps track of what's called non-standard employment, like part-time temporary work, which the previous witnesses have already talked about. Precarious workers are often associated with the results of these data because of their availability.

Still, because people in non-standard jobs can be well compensated, sometimes as a result of the insecurity of their jobs, there has been a shift towards focusing more on low-paid workers as the central element of job precarity, regardless of the form of employment. Previous witnesses have mentioned this, and I want to support it because, after all, some full-time, full-year work is quite insecure. Low-paid workers may have little opportunity for career advancement and little protection from unions, and they might not have extended medical benefits that improve their access to prescription drugs, dental or other extended health benefits.

As we search for a more common, better way to measure precarious work, I would add, as was just mentioned by the previous witness, that we do want to know about whether specific groups of workers are potentially more affected in precarious work over time. Those can be women, racialized groups, new immigrants, youth service workers, people with disabilities, etc.

I would also echo the point made by Parisa: Knowing the total number of precarious workers from one year to the next tells us only part of what we as policy-makers need to know. We need to know whether or not episodes of precarious work are long lasting, whether or not they're more of a temporary phenomenon and whether or not they lead to more permanent, full-time, well-compensated opportunities.

Again, this is a point of repetition, but I will make it because it's important: The 2017 Changing Workplaces Review in Ontario used two definitions of precarious work, focusing mainly on low income as the underlying variable. It's a methodology decision that I strongly support and, as Chris mentioned previously, they found that about one-third of workers in Ontario, using either definition, could be classified as precarious.

However, we must be mindful of how we define precariousness because it influences how we develop policies. When it comes to improving support and security for workers, what are we trying to provide: job security, income security or some combination of the two? If job security is the main focus of our definition of precarity, we might focus more around labour legislation issues like hiring and firing, as well as severance rules. But if income security is the focus, we might end up focusing more on the social safety net in the absence of job security. However, most likely, we probably want to be looking at a balance of the two.

I want to give a very quick example as to how we define precarious work. One way of doing so can contribute to how we analyze policy responses. Statistics Canada recently produced research called “Assessing Job Quality in Canada: A Multidimensional Approach”. It looks at six elements of job precariousness, which I'll go through very quickly: things like income and benefits, career prospects like opportunities for career advancement, work intensity, autonomy in the job and in the workplace, training opportunities and so on.

The results of this study shed light on the more complex issues of precarity. They show major differences in workplace precarity across sectors but also within specific sectors. The data also show important implications with respect to gender, with women more commonly in precarious work, as well as increased job precariousness for youth and those in part-time work.

To take one result from this study and ponder briefly on how these findings can shape policy responses, consider the finding in the report that large firms tend to provide much higher quality, well-paid jobs relative to small businesses. What do we make of this? Does it mean that we should stop favouring small businesses through a more favourable tax regime relative to large businesses? Or, to the extreme, should we stop worrying about growing market concentration among firms and antitrust legislation if it means more stable, high-paid work for some?

I don't have the answers to those questions and I don't want to speculate, but I want to highlight that the issue of precarious work is intertwined with the competitive environment for Canadian businesses. I think this is what the private member's motion was trying to get at when stating that a common definition of precarious work should “enable us to look to prevention, support, and the opportunity for innovation in both the public and private sectors.” Underlying all this is a tension between the vulnerability and uncertainty that workers face and our options to address them and the fact that we encourage competitive business climates that require giving firms flexibility in making business decisions and employing workers and purchasing capital.

What this boils down to in how we look at ways to address workplace precarity and maintain an innovative economy is as follows. Although efforts to better define and track precarious work are an invaluable task of the federal government that arguably Statistics Canada should undertake, ignoring the inevitable tension and pressures facing workers and firms and the need to find compromising solutions to these problems means we're going to probably risk struggling to make progress in shaping policy responses.

On this point—I'm going to conclude shortly—the need for governance solutions that brings together tripartite groups—business, labour and government agencies—should be an essential part of the way that we aim to advance policy going forward.

I want to conclude by stating that I favour a standard definition of precarious work that places the greatest weight on income uncertainty as I do believe it underpins most economic security issues regardless of type of work and because it would also support the widest range of potential policy responses.

On that point, we should strive for the right and more modernized mix of labour legislation, income security programs and programs that encourage work and transitions among jobs as we go about addressing precarious work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, Mr. Busby.

We're going to start with questions now.

Up first we have MP Falk.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Regehr, you mentioned EI is harder to get. Can you tell me why?

[Sheila Regehr]

It's because of all the changes in regulations. Chris will know the details much more clearly than I, but we've been talking about women and looking at the gender aspects of this. Within EI you see these paradoxical things where you have the expansion of maternity and parental benefits, which is great for those who qualify, but an earlier study that I'm aware of shows that a lot of the women who need that support most are going to be least able to get it because they're living in precarious situations.

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

So just reaching the minimum hours for work—

[Sheila Regehr]

—reaching the minimum hours, having the required time periods.... Very often a second or subsequent childbirth is difficult because you have the labour force interruptions related to the first child you are raising, and because it's based on income, your options for being able to remove yourself temporarily from paid work to raise your children is really limited because of the financial pressure.

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

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Nord, as the chamber, an organization that supports and is a voice for business, I'm wondering about your opinion on the federal government supporting training initiatives that would allow someone to move into a better job versus the responsibility of the employer or that business.

[Leah Nord]

We support the need to change the education and training system or to at least adapt it somewhat. It's this lifelong learning concept, and I think there is a role for everyone.

I think it is about the way that it gets structured going forward, and I think there are some considerations. If a business or a sector is going to put forth training, it has to have benefits for the business as well, if we structure it like that. There is an individual responsibility as well, in a career path, so it is an absolute careful balance.

One of the questions we have within the present training benefit being proposed, for example, is that you get a four-week leave to take courses, but what courses are going to qualify? What courses in this day and age, at least at a post-secondary level, are going to give you four weeks of what...? That might be an individual need, but how does that align with the business need? Is it existing right now within any number of agreements and mechanisms? We don't want to see professional development services provided by business lost in the shuffle either.

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

You've mentioned lifelong learning. Being somebody who is younger and who falls into the millennial category, I've been taught that already, just throughout school, in terms of having that scale of always learning new things, trying new things and trying new challenges.

How do we shift culture or how do we shift education amongst the different generations of people? People are working not just at 30; people are working into their seventies or even into their eighties. How do we shift that focus of always needing to learn and be adaptable?

[Leah Nord]

Short courses, badging, micro-credentializing, a recognition of non-traditional post-secondary education and not waiting for unemployment to come before you go back for a full degree: It's a whole engendering of a culture shift.

It's also about the skills that are being taught. I believe Andrew brought up the entrepreneurial piece with the traditional soft skills, foundational skills and human skills such as resiliency, teamwork and adaptability. This is critical. These human skills are not going to be replaced by the robots either, right? There's a very technical aspect to a lot of professions across the board, but arguably these are the sorts of skills that we need to engender.

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

I don't know if you can answer this, but do you know how the business community is doing in this area? Would you say that they are setting an example by training employees and that kind of thing and continuing to train them to make them more adaptable? Or is that not happening at all?

[Leah Nord]

It is. It's not across the board. It's who can afford to and where the priorities are. In this day and age with the technical change.... There's always been change. There have always been revolutions. The rapidity of the pace of change.... This is more quantitative than qualitative, but in my experience, a lot of businesses are offering days off just to keep up. It's more from the technology front than it is on the soft skills front, but I'm not able to speak definitively on it.

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

Okay.

You also mentioned doom and gloom, in that it isn't all doom and gloom in the changing labour market. What can we do tangibly as policy-makers at this level of government to make sure that it's not all doom and gloom?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

That's your time, but I'm going to allow a quick response.

[Leah Nord]

There's a suite of responses. There's investment in innovation, and that's a whole conversation. It comes back to the point I made earlier: investment in skills training, that resiliency and adaptability, and the culture shift in mindset. Again, it's easy to state and colossally hard to implement, but critical.

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

Okay. Thank you.