Human Resources Committee on Nov. 17th, 2016

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

That's okay. I'm just glad you do measure this, because I think it justifies your role in this gap.

[Dr. Rachel Gouin]

Absolutely. We have a model for success that identifies where we want to go, and we want to measure how we as a movement are delivering on it.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Perfect.

I see this as part of what Lynne was saying about a strategy. You're a key part of it.

Lynne, I have a question for you. I want to ask you for more of an explanation. You talked about this school-to-work strategy. You talked about it being necessary.

Can you inflate that a little for us here? What would it look like? Do a bit more for us.

[Lynne Bezanson]

I have to write a paper on this, apparently.

It's the key question. Countries have done school-to-work transition strategies. It's not rocket science, but there are multiple pieces to it and multiple players in it. One of the biggest gaps in the transition is the transition from school to work. Whether it's from post-secondary or from secondary, people fall through those cracks. If you come out of the educational system in which you can have some supports and you don't go on to post-secondary and you're not in work, there's a huge gap around how we manage that.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I was just going to say that one thing we ran into as a school—I taught high school for seven years—was that the key thing we needed to do was to give trades training for the last two years that students were in high school, because that's a key period of time. We have them at their desks and in their chairs. Why aren't we educating them there? We want to educate them after school even more. Why don't we do it there?

It was because there were little fiefdoms around, and we didn't want to step on colleges' toes and take any students away, and all these little things. But if we just looked at our need to have success, whatever is in the way we would need to deal with.

[Lynne Bezanson]

I'm going to come back to your question about what a strategy looks like. The bottom line answer is that nobody has the perfect solution, but we do need to be able to identify one, and there are pockets of excellence from which we can begin.

What are the components in the strategy that have worked in other countries? One component would be how you engage employers in a meaningful way to provide work experience. What would be some mechanisms for doing so?

It's not prescribing to provinces or regions that they need to “do it this way”; it is saying, “This is a strategy that needs to be part of a national strategy. We need to find a way to engage employers and build work experience. Here are some models that have worked elsewhere. Here is what has worked; what will work in your jurisdiction?”

We need to look at how we build services for young people who are in between—and not just young people; it can be seniors.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I'm sorry to cut you off. I have probably less than 30 seconds. Are you saying that the strategy still needs to be built? You're not saying you have it; you're just saying we need one.

[Lynne Bezanson]

Of course.

There are models, and we need to bring the stakeholders together to say what is already working, ask how we build that into a structural approach that really does engage the critical people, and then build it together. It's a very big question and I'm having trouble answering it in thirty seconds.

I don't think I could really go much further except to say that it's not that we are sitting here with the answer on a school-to-work transition strategy. We have a problem. Other countries are addressing it, and other countries are doing a lot better at it than we are.

For instance, there's an example from the European Union countries. They have a youth guarantee program, which means that if students are out of school and not working, so neither employed nor in school, they track them. They track them for the first year and they pull them back. They pull them in to ask why they are not doing one or the other. Either they provide them with some volunteer experience that builds some skills or they encourage them to go to training or they give them some connection to how to get re-engaged, and maybe it means going back to school. But they don't leave them adrift. We leave them adrift in Canada. There are no support systems for that group.

We need a strategy for how to build the supports and services for those who are in between. That would be a critical piece of a national school-to-work strategy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

[Lynne Bezanson]

We need to identify are all those pieces and identify why employers aren't really engaged. That was brought up by Emily. Why are they not providing on-the-job training? What do we have to do to give them the incentive to do that? That's a piece of the strategy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

[Lynne Bezanson]

So it has to be developed by Canadians.

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

That's okay.

We do need to move on.

We now go over to MP Sangha.

Go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all witnesses here today.

My question is again to you, Ms. Bezanson.

You have given a concept of a national school. I cannot grasp from your statement the idea of a national school. Could you provide us an idea of what you mean by national school? If it's a lengthy one, you can give it in writing. I understand you have many ideas to give today. If you feel that you can't explain it in a short time, you can give it in writing.

[Lynne Bezanson]

I will certainly follow up. There's no doubt I will. It's not going to be a doctoral thesis, I can guarantee you.

It's not a national school. It's a strategy. We have worked before on creating some.... You were talking about a national strategy on poverty, I think. It's to bring the players together to say we have examples of programs that are going on in B.C. We have inspired New Brunswick, which is connecting young people to employers when they're in grades 10, 11, and 12. We have Nova Scotia establishing a business education council, in which they really are focusing on economic growth sectors and building co-ops. There are examples across the country of people who are getting it right, but nobody knows about it. If you ask people in Alberta if they know anything about what's going on in Nova Scotia, they have no idea.

We need to bring those pockets of excellence together, and out of all of those we need to identify the building blocks and then build that strategy together. Then people will go back and make it happen in ways that fit their own communities, including indigenous communities, which would look quite different from any kind of prescribed national strategy.

That's really about the best I can do, Mr. Sangha, around trying to give you some concrete examples. We have no mechanism for bringing excellence together and building together toward something that would make sense. This is not an overnight strategy. We're talking about a minimum of five years to do something concrete.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

I agree. Can you just provide us with your total statement in writing?

Also with regard to the strategy planning, are you suggesting today to the committee that there should be some incentives to employers so that they are happy to employ students from the schools?

[Lynne Bezanson]

I have had the privilege of meeting with you and I know that in fact, in your own work, you've already offered those opportunities to young people. I think the first thing we need to understand is what the problem is. Why are employers not...? I'm sure they have many issues and many problems, but until we understand what we need to do to make it a.... Employers in Canada are investing less in on-the-job training than are employers in any other OECD country. Why is that?

I don't have the answer to that, but we need them to tell us what government needs to do to bring them to the table in a much more proactive, constructive way that really helps people. That could help people of all ages, including seniors who are very eager to do something meaningful with their third age. I know that. I'm still doing meaningful things.

I think that's probably where I could take that now. We need to understand the employer perspective, and in our field, they are very difficult to bring to the table. It's not that they don't care in some ways, but it's a very complex picture.

Piece one is to understand what they need, and then let's see what is affordable and what is not. Can we allow them to be doing unpaid internships non-stop, and if they are, what do we need to do?

We now do the top employers in Canada. That's a start, but Australia actually rewards employers who have good work practices towards youth and at-risk youth. They have a reward system so that they get recognized. People love to be recognized.

Maybe it's not rocket science. Maybe we could do some creative things, without necessarily spending all the money in the world, that actually profile what a good employer does. We make them feel a sense of encouragement, and then other people say, “I want that too.” We need to get smarter, not necessarily always more expensive, just smarter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, Lynne.

That was very passionate testimony and I thank you.

[Lynne Bezanson]

Yes, I am a little passionate about this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We have almost 27 minutes before we have to be in our seats.

I know a few people want to move now because of mobility issues. I would suggest they go now if they wish to.

To continue, I need unanimous consent from our group. I would like to finish the round. We have two more speakers. We need about eight minutes, approximately, to get that done.

Do I have unanimous consent to move forward to continue?

No? Okay.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Can I offer an alternative? Can they be shorter, about three minutes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Yes.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I have to go. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

You can go. I'm just saying that in order to finish the round we can do that.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Just make it shorter.