Evidence of meeting #75 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 young.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
To follow up on that point, it would concern me, especially in a region where there isn't a lot of opportunity, that while a candidate might not be ideally suited, with some oversight within the area, he or she could find valuable work experience. It is a good point for us to follow up on.
Would a situation arise in which you might have five or six candidates apply who were turned down, and the position then was not filled? Would that happen?
5:15 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
We have a delegated system. We delegate the responsibility for hiring to managers. We can design programs and make them as effective as possible and create pools that managers can draw upon, but we can't force managers to use them. We hope that we encourage them, that we provide some value to both the candidates as well as the managers, but at the end of the day the matchmaking has to happen at that level.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Would there be a benefit of a more broadened definition and interpretation of the position to be filled within the public service, within those areas, so that the manager would fill the position?
5:15 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
I'm sorry, but I can't really answer that. It's a level of speculation.
5:15 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
I'm trying to understand your question. If a manager has a position to fill in Regina—
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
It may have been too narrow a definition of the skill required for the position to be filled. Recognizing that we're dealing with young people who have no experience, or youth with no experience, maybe if this is occurring a lot, we have too narrow a definition.
5:15 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
If it's too general, then you will have 250 candidates referred.
5:15 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
I think the positions are being filled. If the manager normally—
5:15 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
Managers are looking for specific skills and competencies, and we're trying to match them with what candidates bring. That's how we try to make things happen.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
How do you identify priority skill shortages in the public service that may be coming, and then how do you go out and educate young people that these are the areas they should be focusing on? How do you reach out, especially to the universities and colleges, and present the areas where we're going to be facing critical skills shortages?
5:20 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
That's a great question. In fact, in some cases I think we need to intervene before university and reach into high school. For example, there are initiatives to try to encourage young women to study in science and the STEM areas, and that has to be done at the high school level. By the time you get to the university level, it's a little bit too late. That's one of the things we're looking at, whether in some cases we have to reach down a little further.
We consult across the public service with managers to find out what their hiring needs are. We'll go to a specific department.
For example, we know that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is going to be hiring significant numbers of people to deliver on the oceans management program. It's a government priority. Then we ask what specific skills they are looking for. Then we try to make a match with some of the universities across the country that have programs that produce graduates in these areas.
After that, we have targeted outreach strategies. We did this recently with the University of Victoria, for example. The Public Service Commission, in partnership with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, went to the University of Victoria and had a very focused job fair. That's a way to be able to identify those needs.
Some skills are required across the public service, such as computer science, which I mentioned. There we created a specific stream on our post-secondary recruitment, sending strong signals to all institutions that this is an area that we're going to be hiring in.
5:20 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
Those are ways that we try to do that matching.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond Centre, BC
I'm sharing my time with MP Kent. How much time do I have?
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond Centre, BC
Perfect.
Mr. Borbey, you had mentioned job fairs. I have four universities and career colleges in my riding, and I used to teach at one of them, a polytechnic university.
You mentioned job fairs. One of the very successful job fairs in my riding has federal government departments and colleges and trade schools that are also recruiting students at the same time. When these students look for jobs and cannot find the right match, they realize that maybe this is an area they need to go into. These colleges then also refer them to potential employers, such as the public service.
How active are you in those job fairs?
5:20 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
We had 272 outreach events—job fairs—last year, quite often involving deputy minister champions as partners. There's quite a lot that's being done.
We are trying to be more targeted in our approach. For example, over the last year we've prioritized universities with a strong aboriginal or indigenous student population. We're being a little bit more targeted because we know there's certainly a demand, and when we look at our stats, we don't get as many applicants who are self-identifying as indigenous, as we do, for example, with visible minorities. Certainly with women, we don't have a problem. Much more than 50% of our applicants are women.
We try to be targeted in our outreach so that we're not using a shotgun approach. Partnerships of the kind you've described, that bring a number of universities or colleges together, are also a good way to maximize the use of our resources.
What we've been guilty of over the last years is not having a consistent presence on campus. We'll show up from time to time, and then we expect everybody to know who we are and the value that we bring, the career streams. We're glad we have people promoting careers in the public service, but we haven't done enough of that ourselves. Just showing up once a year or once every second year will not create that sustained relationship, which we also have to develop with the professors and the faculty so that they can also be part of our messaging.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond Centre, BC
Thank you.
With reference to first nations youth who are not in northern communities, on the Lower Mainland we have a good population of young people who are unemployed and who are from the first nations. Are there any specific programs that you...? I know that there are successful programs, but the funding dried up.
Ms. Isaak, can you give me some ideas? Are you working on that as well, those who are not in the reserve areas or northern territories?
5:20 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Education and Social Development Programs and Partnerships, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I will speak briefly, because they fall more under the responsibility of Employment and Social Development Canada.
There are what are called asset holders, which are aboriginal skills and education training agreements that are negotiated with organizations that provide those services to indigenous people. Whether they're on-reserve or off-reserve doesn't matter; they serve the whole population, young people, older people, everybody. There are targeted programs, mostly under ESDC, that fund targeted skills training, employment, and case management programs for indigenous people.
