Evidence of meeting #18 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was international.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Emma Rose Bienvenu  As an Individual
Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Marie-France Lafleur
Babacar Faye  President, University of Ottawa Students’ Union
Timothy Gulliver  Advocacy Commissioner, University of Ottawa Students’ Union
Bryn de Chastelain  Board Chair, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations
Jade Marcil  President, Quebec Student Union
Matt Reesor  President, University Students’ Council, Western University
Mackenzy Metcalfe  Vice-President, External Affairs, University Students’ Council, Western University

2:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 18 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Pursuant to the orders of reference of April 11 and May 26, 2020, the committee is resuming its study of the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today's meeting is taking place by video conference and the proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. The webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, please click on the microphone icon to activate your mike.

Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone, especially the witnesses, to please use the language channel of the language they are speaking. If you are going to switch from English to French or French to English, be sure to change the channel before you change your language. It's a huge help for interpretation.

I thank the witnesses for joining us. With us today we have Emma Rose Bienvenu, appearing as an individual. From the University of Ottawa Students' Union, we have Babacar Faye, president, and Timothy Gulliver, advocacy commissioner.

Ms. Bienvenu, please proceed with your opening remarks.

2:05 p.m.

Emma Rose Bienvenu As an Individual

Thank you.

I'd like to begin by thanking the committee for the invitation. I commend its members for wanting to hear from a wide cross-section of Canadian society, including younger Canadians like me.

My name is Emma Rose Bienvenu. I am a recent graduate of McGill law. I also hold a master's degree in economics and a master's degree in business law from Sciences Po, Paris, and the University of Pennsylvania.

My remarks today are going to focus on three topics. First, I'll say a few words about how I am thinking about this crisis, which will hopefully provide useful context for my later recommendations. Second, I'll discuss ways to retrain and upskill the Canadian workforce. Third, I'll turn to how government can better support students, in particular students with disabilities.

I want to start by discussing two assumptions and beliefs that guide my thinking about the crisis. The first is that, in my view, it's imperative that government make morbidity, not just mortality, a top-of-mind consideration in its policy decisions, particularly as it assesses acceptable risks of virus exposure in the interim economic reopening.

The outcome of coronavirus is often expressed as a binary. We focus on case fatality rates—so many survive and so many don't—and we judge the success or failure of government responses by how many citizens have died from the disease. The science, however, is increasingly clear that COVID-19 does not lead to binary—

2:05 p.m.

Bloc

Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.

2:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor.

2:05 p.m.

Bloc

Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

There is no interpretation because of the poor sound quality. Can we solve this problem?

2:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Please hold on one second, Ms. Bienvenu.

Madam Clerk, I think we have a problem with the interpretation.

2:05 p.m.

The Clerk of the Committee Ms. Marie-France Lafleur

I'm being told that the sound is choppy. It seemed to be fine a few minutes ago, but something happened. Let me see.

2:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

Do the IT folks want to chime in? Can anything can be done? If it makes a difference, we could hear from the students' union and see if we can resolve the problem while they're presenting their statement and then come back to Ms. Bienvenu.

2:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Emma Rose Bienvenu

Was the interpretation the only problem? Could the English speakers hear me?

2:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

Yes.

2:05 p.m.

Bloc

Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

That is not the case for francophone participants.

2:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

It's the problem we want to solve.

2:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Emma Rose Bienvenu

If it can make things easier, I could let the other students speak first.

2:05 p.m.

The Clerk

I am being asked to move on until we can see what the issue is.

2:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

Okay.

Ms. Bienvenu, we'll go to the students' union, and then we'll come back to you. When we do, feel free to either pick up where you left off or start from the beginning. We won't dock your time.

Now we're going to the University of Ottawa Students' Union, for a total of 10 minutes.

Mr. Faye, please go ahead.

2:05 p.m.

Babacar Faye President, University of Ottawa Students’ Union

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, honourable members, good afternoon. Thank you for allowing us to appear before you.

My name is Babacar Faye and I am the president of the University of Ottawa Students' Union, UOSU. I am accompanied by my colleague, Tim Gulliver, the union's advocacy commissioner. I will present a brief profile of our student community and then talk about the conditions created by this crisis and how it affects students. I'll focus specifically on their financial situation.

I would like to begin by saying that we are very grateful to the government for its efforts to help Canadian students, as well as to Parliament and members of the opposition, who are always looking for solutions to help students overcome the challenges they face during this crisis. These actions have already alleviated many of the challenges faced by the thousands of undergraduate students represented by the UOSU.

The world has stood still during this pandemic, and the student community has been affected as well. We had to make the transition to distance learning, which created additional barriers. This is in addition to the challenges that students share with many Canadians, including loss of jobs and career opportunities, worrying about paying rent and bills, as well as the ability to buy food to put on the table.

When the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB, was announced, many students at the end of the semester were unemployed and unable to pay their rent for the following month. In fact, a few thousand of them had to leave their homes urgently.

The Canada emergency student benefit has certainly provided some relief. However, the cost of living is not much different for the student community than for the rest of the population, and we realize that even with the Canada emergency student benefit, the situation remains uncertain for many students.

At the same time, we see the spectre of fall tuition fees looming. In order to better understand the effects of this pandemic, between May 5 and May 28, we surveyed our student population on their experiences during the crisis and its academic, financial and psychological impact. The survey determined that this crisis had a serious effect on the ability of students to cover their basic expenses.

In the Ontario context, this follows significant across-the-board cuts to student financial assistance. According to the survey, 44% of our students responded that they are worried or very worried about not being able to pay their rent, and 60% are worried or very worried about their ability to pay their tuition in the fall. It should be noted that 80% think that fall tuition fees should be reduced if all their courses are given online. In fact, 95% of courses are given online at the University of Ottawa.

We are experiencing a crisis that affects all sectors, including education and students. Although students benefit from a number of support measures, tuition fees are still a major concern. The situation is even more difficult for international students, many of whom are still in Canada because of the conditions created by this pandemic. Just yesterday we received an email from an international student who could not go home and cannot work in Canada. The airline cancelled his plane ticket and new tickets would be too expensive for his parents, who have to pay the rent. They have to choose between paying their son's school fees or putting food in his mouth. This student's situation is unfortunately no exception, and many international students find themselves in particularly difficult situations.

The limit on the number of hours that international students could work was lifted, and we applaud the government's action. However, it is still not enough. Many international students are unable to apply for the Canada emergency response benefit, even if they suffer in the aftermath of this pandemic due to the previous limitations.

Without additional government assistance, given the border closures and the various circumstances created by this crisis, international students are likely to be in a fairly precarious situation in the fall. A lot of them already are.

It would be important to consider extending and applying certain measures to assist international students, including the Canada student service grant, a scholarship program for international students or their host institutions, and the Canada emergency response benefit itself.

This reality goes beyond the simple financial framework. Many students, especially international students, face a variety of challenges, which are likely to multiply in the fall when many universities will be offering distance education courses. These challenges raise a number of questions about access to affordable and universally accessible learning materials, which my colleague Mr. Gulliver will address in his presentation.

Thank you for your attention.

I will now yield the floor to my colleague Timothy Gulliver, advocacy commissioner of the University of Ottawa Students' Union.

2:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

Thank you, Mr. Faye.

Mr. Gulliver, you have the floor.

2:10 p.m.

Timothy Gulliver Advocacy Commissioner, University of Ottawa Students’ Union

Thank you, Babacar.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for having us today and for hearing the student perspective. It's very much appreciated.

As somebody who's had the opportunity to work on the Hill in the past year, I have a great appreciation for the work all of you do, and the role this chamber and committees play in Canadian democracy.

I want to echo the perspective raised by my colleague and would like also to bring to the attention of members of the committee some of the challenges students have been raising with us.

First, the transition to a fully online learning model has not necessarily been a smooth road. Though we appreciate the hard work our university and others have put in to make this work, it cannot ignore the class, racial and rural/urban disparities within the undergraduate student population, which has had a direct impact on the ability of some to access the tools required to learn online. Examples of these tools include laptops, microphones, webcams, a stable Wi-Fi connection and a quiet place to study and learn at home. Moreover, some programs may require students to purchase additional software or learning tools out of pocket, increasing the financial burden that students already face.

In short, being able to thrive in an online learning setting is a privilege; it is not the reality for all. In our survey, we found that students with disabilities and racialized students were more critical of their online learning experience this spring. This must be addressed. When all students are on campus, many of these challenges are reduced, and there is a more equal opportunity for all students to succeed. However, these unprecedented times and the reality of online learning have shed light on the disparities that exist within our community. We are hopeful the federal government may consider a policy measure like a one-time bursary to help students who could use some extra money to buy the learning tools they need to succeed in an online learning setting.

Second, we remain keenly aware of and concerned by the impact of this pandemic on students' mental health. As many of you may be aware, the University of Ottawa is among many post-secondary institutions facing a mental health crisis. Tragically we have lost six students to suicide on campus since April 2019. We recognize this is a systemic problem that has no easy solution, but our concern is that this pandemic is exacerbating this crisis. In our survey, we found that 63% of students reported that their mental health had worsened or significantly worsened. This is consistent with a survey conducted last month by StatsCan which found, “Almost two-thirds (64%) of those aged 15 to 24 reported a negative impact on their mental health...since physical distancing began.” Students are feeling less productive and less motivated and are struggling due to the lack of social connection. A second wave of COVID-19 would certainly exacerbate these struggles.

Last, I would like to make an appeal, if I may, to all members of this committee. A 2018 report by RBC noted, “Since 1990, the government’s share of university funding has fallen by nearly half and the cost of tuition at universities has risen 2.7 times in real terms”.

I took the liberty of calculating the average age of members of this committee. I found that, on average, members would have been in university 30 years ago, in 1990. I would submit it is more expensive to go to university today than it was 30 years ago. In 1990, according to the RBC, it took around 300 hours of minimum wage work to pay tuition. Today it requires over 500. In 1990, in real terms, the average tuition was around $2,400. Today, it is closer to $6,500. In 1990, average full-time loan borrowing was under $3,000 a year. Today, it is around $6,000 a year. According to the RBC, "Over 20% of graduates with a bachelor’s degree start out with more than $25,000 in debt”, a phenomenon that is exponentially worse for our colleagues in law and medicine.

In our view, it is essential that the federal government work to ensure this trend does not continue, and if not, the challenges already associated with being a post-secondary student in Canada will only worsen due to the current economic climate.

In conclusion, in the short term, our priorities as student leaders are: (a) calling for the inclusion of international students in the government's pandemic response; (b) supporting students who are disadvantaged by online learning; and (c) advocating for a holistic, nationwide mental health response.

In the long term, as we look forward to what a post-COVID Canada will look like, we firmly believe there must be change. We must build a post-COVID society where education is at least as affordable as it was 30 years ago and where every student can afford to help rebuild the Canadian economy, rather than remain saddled by student debt for years to come.

Once again, Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank members of the committee for their time today. We hope this is the beginning of continued consultation with student unions during these trying times.

We're happy to take any questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

2:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

Thank you, Mr. Gulliver, and thank you for the reminder that I bring up the average age in this group.

We hope the technical problems have been resolved.

Ms. Bienvenu, you have the floor.

2:15 p.m.

As an Individual

Emma Rose Bienvenu

Thank you. I believe we have resolved things.

Once again, I thank the members of the committee for the invitation and I commend them on wanting to hear from a wide cross-section of Canadian society, including younger Canadians like me.

My remarks today are going to focus on three topics. First, I'll say a few words about how I am thinking about this crisis, which will hopefully provide useful context for my later recommendations. Second, I'll discuss ways to retrain and upskill the Canadian workforce. Third, I'll turn to how government can better support students, in particular students with disabilities.

I want to start by discussing two assumptions and beliefs that guide my thinking about the crisis.

The first is that, in my view, it is imperative that government make morbidity, and not just mortality, a top-of-mind consideration in all of its policy decisions, particularly in the interim economic reopening phase as it assesses acceptable risks of virus exposure.

The outcome of coronavirus is often expressed as a binary. We focus on case fatality rates—so many survive and so many do not—and we judge the success or failure of government responses by how many of its citizens die from the disease.

The science, however, is increasingly clear that COVID-19 does not lead to binary outcomes. Many who survive it, particularly the 10% to 15% who experience severe or acute symptoms requiring hospitalization, suffer permanent damage not only to their lungs, but also to their kidneys, liver, heart and even brain. These will require ongoing medical care and have lifelong consequences for their quality of life.

Accordingly, it's my view that even for those who are likely to survive COVID-19, the morbidity risks of exposure should be central to policy decisions and are sufficiently great to justify the most stringent measures to avoid exposure.

My second assumption about this crisis is that many of the changes that are brought about will not be undone, not by a vaccine, not by herd immunity. We do ourselves a disservice by assuming that they might.

The world record for vaccine development is held by the mumps vaccine, which took four years. Concurrent trials for coronavirus vaccine candidates will shorten the timeline, but it is extraordinarily optimistic to assume that we will develop tests and administer a vaccine in anything less than 24 months. Those two years or more will accelerate social and economic changes that would otherwise have taken decades to materialize. It will transform how we live, work and learn, and those changes will not be reversed when the virus threat is contained. A clear acknowledgement of this is, in my view, the best way to guarantee better policy outcomes and a stronger recovery.

With this in mind, I will turn to workforce interventions.

Some sectors will bounce back relatively unscathed, and they'll bounce back quickly. In these sectors, wage subsidy programs serve their purpose by avoiding disruption that would otherwise result in layoffs that would sever the employer-employee relationship.

In other sectors, labour demand has permanently shifted. Much of the job displacement that we've seen in recent months wasn't so much caused by COVID-19 as it was accelerated by it. Many of the functions most affected by the pandemic were already under threat from tech and automation. What we've seen in the pandemic is that labour-replacing automation is even more cost-effective because of its resilience to virus-driven shocks. Put simply, this means that in many sectors, labour demand has permanently shifted and wage subsidies will mask these shifts for as long as they remain in place. They'll delay the associated layoffs, but they will not reverse those underlying changes.

This means that before the government begins to phase out income support programs, it needs to proactively identify where labour demand has shifted and where it has surged to reorient its focus on retraining and upskilling programs to help repair the Canadian workforce for their new post-coronavirus economy.

To re-skill at speed and scale, government should focus on two distinct interventions: first, rapid upskilling for short-term demand surges such as retail grocery and last-mile delivery; second, longer-term re-skilling that can help workers move into careers aligned with future skills trends, like health services, remote work and remote education.

To this end, I have four recommendations.

The first is that the format of retraining is ripe for innovation. In Canada, we've tended to focus on multi-year degrees, but in most sectors microcredit modules can provide workers with targeted training in the most advanced skills more quickly and at far lower costs. Microcredits would be most effective if developed in concert with employers or industry associations to ensure that workers are provided with targeted skills that most closely match the needs of the Canadian job market.

Second, as government prepares to phase out the CERB, it should consider offering displaced workers the option to continue receiving it for one or several additional months on the condition that they take that time to complete micro-credentialing modules, particularly if these modules are developed in concert with employers. This would help ease their transition back into the workforce.

Third, government should create an online talent exchange that helps match those who have completed microcredits to employers. This would increase job market transparency and reduce frictions in worker redeployment. This kind of exchange was recently designed in the U.S. in just six days by a group of food sector companies. It was launched in April and has been extraordinarily successful at matching jobseekers to food sector employers experiencing short-term demand surges related to the pandemic.

Fourth, government should consider subsidizing retraining initiatives specifically for micro-businesses and SMEs. In Germany, the recent Qualification Opportunities Act subsidizes companies' employee training costs up to 100% for micro-businesses and up to 50% for SMEs.

To reiterate, government should, first, replace multi-year training programs with microcredits developed in concert with employers; second, consider extending CERB payments for those who decide to complete these microcredit retraining programs; third, create an online talent exchange that helps match jobseekers with employers; and fourth, subsidize the retraining costs of microenterprises and SMEs.

Now I'll turn to students, which, as a recent graduate, I may be most equipped to discuss.

There are many ways government can support students in this crisis. Few are more pressing than ensuring universal access to high-quality Internet. CRTC data show that 11% of Canadian households still don't have access to Internet, and even those who have it face massive disparities in connection speed and reliability. In a remote work environment, the inequities this creates cannot be overstated.

The Ottawa Catholic School Board recently recommended to students who didn't have Internet access at home to hunker down in parking lots to listen to lectures and complete their assignments. In Manitoba, the Garden Hill First Nation was forced to cancel the school year outright, citing poor Internet connectivity as a key factor in the decision.

My recommendation is simple: You should provide every student that does not have Internet at home with a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot device. The long-term work of this committee is to wire all of Canada to ensure universal broadband Internet. That could take years, and we don't have years. Wi-Fi hotspot devices cost about $10 a month, and they could immediately close the digital divide that remains a limiting factor for so many students.

Spectrum, the U.S. broadband provider, recently launched a program that provides one of these devices free of cost to any K-to-12 student who does not have Internet at home. The Canadian government should pressure Canadian carriers to follow suit and subsidize the cost of doing so if need be. As it becomes increasingly clear that social distancing measures will continue to limit in-school learning for one year or more, government needs to do everything in its power to ensure that all students have the Internet access that they need to succeed.

I'd like to say a note about disabled students. It's become almost trite to recognize that the pandemic has disproportionately burdened those least equipped to bear its weight, and students with disabilities are no exception. The additional support they've received through the CESB has helped them absorb the cost of purchasing ergonomic equipment and assistive technologies, but critical gaps remain in the delivery of online learning. Educational institutions in Canada have not historically prioritized the procurement of accessible technology. This means that the shift to remote learning has replicated, in their digital classrooms, the barriers disabled students already face in the physical world.

There are two cost-effective ways government can help. In the short term, government should pressure the companies that design the products, apps and schooling technologies currently in use to create a mandatory accessibility issue complaint mechanism with a prescribed timeline for remediation of reported issues. This would ease the immediate challenges of disabled students. Second, government should educate employers and universities on how to continue making remote work an option. This would broaden access to education and employment for students who might otherwise have been limited by their physical disabilities.

To conclude, the challenge before this committee is great, as these are difficult times, but great challenges can make great opportunities. No people are better positioned than the elected men and women of this committee to seize that opportunity, assert leadership and help Canadians build back better, ensuring we come out of this pandemic stronger, more resilient and more united.

2:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sean Casey

Thank you, Ms. Bienvenu.

We're going to begin now with questions, starting with Mrs. Falk for six minutes.

Mrs. Falk, you have the floor.

2:25 p.m.

Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Thank you so much, Chair.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for their comments.

As our committee evaluates the government's response to this health crisis, I would argue that it's very important we not only look at the immediate needs, but we also look at the long-term impact of this crisis. The economic fallout of this pandemic is, and we know will be, significant. It is changing the job market, and some of those changes may become permanent, as we know. This will certainly have a significant impact on students, graduates and young Canadians who are entering or near entering the job market.

In the previous Parliament, the HUMA committee studied experiential learning and how valuable it was in helping students integrate into the workforce. I want to make note that some of the government's responses for students were tied to work and to volunteer opportunities, but those programs have been slow to roll out. Unfortunately, the reality is that those opportunities to connect students to the workforce are largely just not there.

My first question is for Emma Bienvenu.

You wrote an article called “7 Predictions for a Post-Coronavirus World”. In it you talked about a move towards automation, that a lot of companies will transition existing jobs to automated jobs and that those remotely capable jobs might leave the country. What impact do you think a move towards automation would have on the job market? In particular, how does this change the job market landscape for students and graduates?

2:30 p.m.

As an Individual

Emma Rose Bienvenu

Thanks for the question. I'm glad you read the article. For those who haven't, the basic point I made was that, to survive any deep economic crisis, firms need to lay off their least productive workers, automate what can be automated, and in a pandemic, make everything else remote capable. Once companies figure out their remote work steps, they'll eventually realize that someone remote in Ottawa can be remote in Sri Lanka, and often at much lower cost. The basic point was that you would see a shift from in-person to remote and then from remote to remote overseas.

Obviously, this is a challenge for developed countries, but I think Canada is well positioned to succeed in that environment. We have an extraordinarily educated workforce, and the network effects of being domestic continue to be strong for industries that require certain qualifications from their employees. I think in other sectors it's going to be more difficult. That's why in my comments I try to emphasize that we need to recognize the changes that, at this point, are largely inevitable and focus on our retraining and scaling up so that the workforce can succeed in that environment.

Anything that can be automated, I think it's safe for the committee to assume, will be in a relatively short order and much more quickly because of the pandemic. This is true for two reasons: automation is often cost-effective and robots don't get coronavirus. Employees who perform a function are susceptible to getting the virus and being disrupted whereas labour-replacing automation makes a business more resilient.

The government in recognizing that should focus on identifying jobs that are susceptible to automation and look at the workers in those positions, develop a really granular profile of their skills and aptitudes, and then focus retraining programs on closing the skills gap with adjacent skills. People who do one thing may be really well positioned and need minimal training to be re-skilled for an adjacent skill in a different industry, for example.

2:30 p.m.

Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

In your opinion, do you have any idea or suggestion which part of the economy might be moving towards automation?

2:30 p.m.

As an Individual

Emma Rose Bienvenu

Yes. I think even before the virus, because of increasing wages, in certain manufacturing countries like China, you had automated factories. That was already starting a trend where, in manufacturing, it was really difficult to keep overseas for different labour reasons. I think manufacturing is largely going to automate and come back to be reshored domestically to bring it closer to Canadian R and D centres.

I think food production has been super disrupted in this pandemic, because meat production, in particular, is very difficult. It's labour intensive and very difficult to do in a socially distanced way, so you're seeing huge investments by food production companies in how to automate and have much fewer workers. I know that's a big employer in B.C. and Alberta. I think focusing on how people who work in food production, and meat in particular, can transition into other industries should be a priority.