Human Resources Committee on April 4th, 2022

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Morrissey (Egmont, Lib.)), Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Good morning, everyone.

We will begin with meeting number 17 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members will be appearing in person in the room and virtually as well.

Given the ongoing pandemic situation as well as the directive of the Board of Internal Economy on March 10, 2022, all those attending in person will follow the required health protocols in place at the time.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. For those participating by video conference, please click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled by the proceedings and verification officer. When you are not speaking, your microphone should be on mute.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice, and interpretation services are available for this meeting. For those participating by video conference, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of “floor”, “English” or “French”. For those in the room you can use an earpiece and select the desired channel. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately and we'll ensure that interpretation is properly restored.

For members participating virtually, please use the “raise hand” function, and for members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as well as we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, February 3, 2022, the committee will resume its study on labour shortages, working conditions and the care economy.

I would like to welcome our witnesses to begin our discussions with five minutes of opening remarks followed by questions.

I will introduce first Canada's Building Trades Unions. We have Sean Strickland, executive director, and Mark Ellerker, business manager.

From the National Police Federation, we have Brian Sauvé, president.

From RM International Recruitment Inc., we have Régis Michaud, president.

I would ask the witnesses to please keep their opening comments to five minutes. Thank you.

We will begin with Canada's Building Trades Unions.

[Sean Strickland, Executive Director, Canada's Building Trades Unions]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee this morning and talk about labour availability challenges in the construction industry.

My name is Sean Strickland. I'm the executive director of Canada's Building Trades Unions, and I'll be sharing my time with Mark Ellerker, the business manager of the Hamilton Brantford Building Trades Council. I'm going to give the committee a few suggestions on some policy changes that may help with labour availability in the construction industry. Mark's going to talk about how policy impacts workers in their community in real time.

At Canada's Building Trades Unions, we represent 600,000 workers and 14 affiliated unions right across Canada. As you know, the construction industry is unique. Projects arise, projects get built, and then they wind down and workers are often subject to layoff. This happens at different times in different regions across the country requiring different trades. It creates labour shortages in some areas and surpluses in another, because construction projects don't happen in uniform right across the country.

Because of that, the construction industry needs unique solutions to address labour availability. We have few suggestions.

One is a skilled trades workforce mobility tax deduction. Currently, skilled trades workers aren't afforded the same treatment under the Income Tax Act as other workers and can't deduct work-related expenses from their income. This creates a barrier to having to travel where the industry needs workers.

A second is cross-border [Technical difficulty—Editor] across North America. We know that training qualifications for many of our trades are near identical on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. Therefore, it makes sense to allow members to travel back and forth across the border to address labour shortages. This is something that cannot currently happen.

The temporary foreign worker program is part of a short-term solution, but it has to be reformed. One suggestion we have is allowing unions that are interested to become the designated sponsor for the temporary foreign worker. This will ensure that workers are treated fairly and that we can leverage our hiring hall system so that temporary foreign workers can be put to work on a consistent basis and be provided a pathway to citizenship.

The government also needs to work with local labour market experts, like building trades councils, that best understand the local market. For example, the 2015 version of the labour market impact assessment asks specifically if a union has been consulted about the hiring of a temporary foreign worker. In 2021, on the recent version of the form, that question was deleted. It's important that building trades councils are consulted when temporary foreign workers come into an area.

Lastly, it's important that there are massive challenges right now [Technical difficulty—Editor] a construction pilot program that would target 10,000 workers from somewhere in various areas across the world to have a construction immigration pilot project, where we can attract workers to Canada, provide them with a pathway to citizenship and meet our labour shortage.

With that, I'll turn it over to Mark.

Thank you.

[Mark Ellerker, Business Manager, Hamilton-Brantford Building Trades Council, Canada's Building Trades Unions]

Good morning, Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Mark Ellerker. I'm the business manager of the Hamilton-Brantford Building Trades Council representing 16 unions and over 10,000 skilled trade workers.

As Sean mentioned, the unique, cyclical nature of construction requires different solutions to address labour availability. Our key focus is to continuously recruit, train and dispatch skilled trades workers, creating opportunities for the local and regional economies first.

As labour market experts, we know that the demand for workers can fluctuate from one-or two-day shutdowns to weeks, to longer-term projects. As a result, we often deal with labour availability and labour shortages. Sean made some important points that I want to expand on.

A skilled trades workforce mobility tax deduction will remove employment barriers for workers. Our labour demand fluctuates. We often have workers travelling from Thunder Bay to Windsor to help assist with critical shutdowns in steel mills, petrochemical and auto plants and power generation, the entire time having to pay for accommodations on the road while continuing to support their family back home.

On cross-border mobility, I'm a steamfitter by trade. The textbook used to obtain my certificate of qualification is the exact same as what my American sisters and brothers use; our training is just that close. In Hamilton-Brantford, we have steel mills and refineries that all require a large, short-term, mobile skilled workforce, and we are right beside the Buffalo border.

We support a balanced approach to the temporary foreign worker program. We would work with employers and owner clients to bring in workers like this past summer from Portugal, but when the scope of the project changes, local workers are laid off, and the contractor has to keep temporary foreign workers or risk getting penalized.

Finally, on immigration, the construction industry is built on immigration. I myself am a first-generation Canadian. My father and his three brothers all immigrated to this country because of the skilled trades.

We cannot allow employers or labour markets to undercut and water down fair contractors who have invested in established best practices in apprenticeship and training.

If we bring people in to build our country, we should give them respect and every opportunity to become Canadian citizens.

Thank you, and I look forward to any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Ellerker.

Now we have Mr. Sauvé for five minutes.

[Brian Sauvé, President, National Police Federation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for inviting us to appear today.

I'm Brian Sauvé, president of the National Police Federation. We're the sole certified bargaining agent representing close to 20,000 members of the RCMP below the rank of inspector.

The past two years have been challenging for everyone, including the RCMP. Our membership, which was already facing human and financial resource challenges, had to deal with an accelerated increase in demand due to COVID-19. These challenges, paired with an increased workload, impacted not only staffing levels but also the well-being of our membership.

When looking at labour shortages among the RCMP, there are several factors that need to be considered: growing demand, the impacts of COVID-19, the recruitment process, the impacts on core policing responsibilities, and identifying the root causes underpinning all these challenges.

Today I'd like to address some of these factors.

First are recruiting challenges. Unfortunately, policing is no longer considered the attractive career it used to be. Police services across North America are seeing a decline in applicants and are facing recruitment challenges.

For perspective, between April and December of 2021, the RCMP received close to 6,300 applications. When looking at the previous fiscal year, the RCMP had received close to 11,800 applications. This shows a decline of almost 47%. In addition, the RCMP is projecting an even further decline in applicants for this coming fiscal year. This trend needs to be researched and addressed to implement possible solutions as soon as possible.

We have negotiated the first collective agreement on behalf of our membership, and we hope that this will make the RCMP a more competitive and attractive employer and assist in attracting new cadets. However, wages and monetary incentives are not the only thing applicants are looking for.

We recommend that the government study RCMP labour shortages, identify why applications are declining, and review the current recruiting process and standards that are set out as well as how to improve the image of policing as a career option.

Second is human resources capacity and related impacts. As the national police service, the RCMP has the ability to move members between units or detachments to fill gaps and respond to emergencies, as identified in the recent Ottawa occupation. This is done through the various provincial police service agreements with the provinces.

However, demand for contract policing continues to rise as populations and police service needs grow within communities. The departmental plan for the RCMP shows that between 2019 and 2025 the number of full-time equivalent positions will only grow 2.5%, while the population in Canada is estimated to grow 6%. This demonstrates a growing concern about pressures on our membership to continue to meet increasing demands with inadequate human resources to do so.

The last impact I'll speak to today is the capacity at the RCMP's training academy at Depot in Regina, Saskatchewan. Looking beyond recruiting and FTE constraints, Depot has a maximum capacity of 2,176 cadets per year. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a training backlog that needs to be addressed in the short term and a strategy implemented for the longer term.

For the 2021-22 fiscal year, Depot onboarded 33 troops at reduced capacity, which will result in about 782 cadets graduating, after attrition. Prior to 2020, Depot averaged 1,050 graduates per year, meaning that between 2019-20 and 2022-23, it anticipated about 4,200 new graduates. However, given the challenges mentioned previously, Depot is now only anticipating to graduate under 3,000 cadets over the same time period, representing a decrease of almost 30%.

We recommend investing close to $190 million to expand training capacity and recruiting efforts for Depot as well as additional funding in subsequent years; developing a three- to four-year strategic plan to increase the number of troops to a maximum of 55 per year; and reviewing and developing a robust recruitment strategy to address future recruiting challenges.

We believe it's imperative that the government address these shortfalls to allow the RCMP to meet current and future demand to keep Canadians safe.

Thank you.

I am subject to any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Sauvé.

Now I will go to Mr. Michaud, for five minutes.

[Régis Michaud, President, RM International Recruitment Inc.]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your invitation.

We are an international recruiting firm and we would like to present the views of employers. I am therefore going to speak mostly to the TFWP, the temporary foreign workers program. I'll be talking about the TFWP, not seasonal employment.

I'm going to give you a brief introduction to our company.

In the last four years, we have brought more than 1,000 workers to Canada. We have already selected more than 2,000 workers. So a lot of workers will be arriving in the near future.

Our head office is in Quebec, but we have offices in Burlington, in the Toronto region, and in Alberta. We have brought workers to British Columbia and other provinces.

Although the labour shortage is more severe in Quebec, it also affects all of the other provinces.

I'm now going to make a few suggestions for providing more protection for our employers.

In the provinces other than Quebec, an LMIA, a labour market impact assessment, can be requested without providing candidates' names. We think that is somewhat unfair. Some employers apply for an LMIA and then recruit immigrant workers from other employers who made the original efforts to get those workers.

We would prefer the employers who did the original work to be protected, so the movement or mobility of foreign workers would be a bit more difficult, while we do understand the importance of making it easier to report non-complying employers. We are aware that some employers may exaggerate, but we believe the mobility of workers has to be made a bit more difficult also because obtaining citizenship is easier in certain provinces.

We believe that Service Canada definitely has a huge problem with the current processing times. For employers, the average wait is 63 business days. That is not practical and employers are suffering the consequences. The average is 63 days, but it is impossible for the employer to know whether it will be 40 days or 80 days. We want to propose solutions to reduce processing times for an LMIA application and in particular for a Quebec acceptance certificate, which is unique to Quebec.

Employers believe the situation at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is out of control. It is very difficult to talk to people and get answers. A lot of answers from the department are not given in accordance with the procedural rules, which are not followed and obeyed. The department rejects applications without first asking for explanations and without allowing time to provide them. Both IRCC and Service Canada should work more in partnership with businesses.

We are talking about the TFWP, but we truly believe in a long-term solution for businesses. Two things are important for that to happen.

First, the entry of spouses has to be facilitated by giving them open work permits. They would then partially make up for the labour shortage by holding certain positions, sometimes low-paid or lower-skilled. We have to facilitate their entry, not just in qualified occupations, but in skill level C jobs.

Second, we have to make it easier for workers in low-paid and skill level C jobs to get permanent residence. Of course, that point undeniably has a significant effect on Quebec, but I think we need long-term labour and the workers have to stay here with us. For our employers, it is important to make it easier for these workers to get permanent residence.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Michaud.

Now we'll begin the first questions with Mr. Ruff for six minutes.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses for coming in.

I have a question for each of the groups.

I'll go first off with the building association and everything you're doing. With the three solid recommendations, I really don't have any push-back at all. I know it's not the first time I've heard of the importance of recognizing our skilled trades, and the tax credit I think is a great idea.

I would like you to expand a little bit more on your accreditation, cross-border, the Red Seal apprenticeship program and challenges going forward, or why this is so important to get this recognition moving so that we can get people working in these skilled trades which are essential to our economic recovery and to fix our labour shortages.

[Sean Strickland]

Thank you very much for the question. Mark may want to weigh in as well.

On cross-border mobility, right now we have challenges in Windsor, Ontario, for example, with the availability of workers. There's an opportunity.... Years ago, in the auto plants, we did share workers across the border for shutdowns and turnaround periods, but we're not able to do that right now because of the changing requirements for immigration and temporary work permits on both sides of the border.

The training is so similar, almost identical, within the construction trades unions. Mark is a member of the United Association of plumbers, steamfitters and welders, and their training curriculum is the same in Canada as it is in the United States. The skill set between skilled tradespeople in the U.S. and Canada is almost identical. It's very familiar, and it would be a really good policy objective and implementation if we were to allow for that cross-border mobility to happen, especially when you have border areas where there are requirements for workers and there are labour shortages. They're not there to fill those jobs. Also, it would be good for large-scale shutdowns.

We had an example this year. We were able to get some electricians into a plant in Pennsylvania. These electricians were unemployed in Canada. They were able to get into a plant in Pennsylvania, but it was like moving heaven and earth in order to get these folks into Pennsylvania. We think there's a policy solution to this. We need to get into this a bit more, but we think there's a policy solution to help with that cross-border mobility, recognizing how the unionized construction industry has the very same skills on both sides of the border.

Mark had an experience in Hamilton that he may want to talk about.

[Mark Ellerker]

Yes. Thank you.

There are examples I can give you. When you have longer-term projects, you can plan on availability, but when we take a look at some of our owner-clients such as the Dofascos and the Stelcos, they sometimes have steel mill shutdowns that are basically only two or three days in length. When we're taking a look at trying to bring in personnel, we're typically, in that situation of a two- or three-day shutdown, trying to identify who's closest, who's within driving distance. We take the Niagara border going over across to Buffalo; that's a very close direction for us. When we take a look at the opposite, at trying to bring somebody in from Alberta or somebody [Technical difficulty—Editor] for just a one- or two-day shutdown, it's not practical with the expense for the contractors and for the owner-clients with air transit, etc.

When we talk about longer-term projects, some of that can be planned. In that case, we support local employment. We look at it on a regional and then a provincial basis, but we're basically just taking a look at identifying the actual need under the current circumstance. For one-day or two-day shutdowns, the need is definitely different than it is for longer-term projects that run for several months or for consecutive years.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, gentlemen.

My next question is for Mr. Sauvé and the National Police Federation.

It's interesting to hear your recommendation when you talk about the Government of Canada undertaking a study. We're studying things right now, but the problem is that some of these shortages are imminent or immediate and ongoing. I think we need to address them sooner. Based on the feedback you have, without studying this at great length, what are the immediate types of actions we could be taking—that the federal government could be taking—to help alleviate things to fix the national police shortage?

In particular, I'm interested to know if there's any difference between rural Canada and urban Canada. I represent a rural riding in Ontario that obviously depends upon different contracted policing solutions, but I know that the labour challenge is the same pretty much across all of them.

Could you provide some concrete recommendations on how we can deal with this even faster?

[Brian Sauvé]

Yes.

In Ontario, the OPP in smaller rural jurisdictions—similar to the RCMP in other rural jurisdictions in many other provinces—is facing very similar labour and recruitment challenges, which, in the grand scheme, results in challenges from work-life balance to burnout. It's one of those continuous cycles. If we don't hit it at the front end, ultimately, we'll be dealing with it at the back end by having more mental health challenges, more operational stress injuries, PTSD, etc... The goal should be a healthy work-life balance.

From an elected representative's perspective, I think the easiest solution for you today is to support a healthy work-life balance publicly for all first responders, whether they be paramedics, firefighters, volunteer firefighters or even police officers. The easiest start is an acknowledgement of the fact that there are challenges recruiting into this career and over time, we'll try to fix it.

There are a number of good conversations happening with us and the RCMP to see what we can do to expedite different recruitment processes. However, the RCMP is federally regulated. It relies upon the government of the day to establish its budgets, hence the ask for funding. I know it's odd that I'm making an ask on behalf of management—being from a trade union—to give it a bigger budget, but you need to hear it from a number of sources. Depot in Regina really needs to be able to accept an influx of applicants, now that we hope it is a more attractive employer. It needs the capacity to do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Sauvé.

Thank you, Mr. Ruff.

Now we'll go to Mr. Collins for six minutes, please.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Please note I'll be sharing my time with Ms. Martinez Ferrada.

It's great to see someone from Hamilton again. That's two meetings in a row. Welcome to the trade union representatives.

If I could, Mr. Chair, through you to Mr. Ellerker, in Mr. Strickland's opening statement, he mentioned some issues related to the temporary foreign worker program. I'm curious to know whether they have examples similar to the cross-border issues that were just referenced in response to Mr. Ruff's question.

Do you have any examples to provide of problems you're currently experiencing with the temporary foreign worker program?

[Mark Ellerker]

Yes, I do. I appreciate it.

A good example is this summer. A contractor had to bring in 10 workers from Portugal to do a project. Unfortunately, the project was delayed and local skilled trades were given layoffs, because there were penalties for the contractor regarding the temporary foreign workers.

We also had one particular processing facility being built—and this goes back to about 2019—and they were using Chinese engineers. They brought them in under an engineer's temporary foreign worker permit, but it was identified they were actually doing skilled trade workers' work. It was mostly sheet metal work at that time.

Another example is in about 2018, during the building and the erection of wind farms, temporary foreign workers were utilized instead of employing local people. At that moment in time within the trades, we had availability.

It's a good example of being able to reach out to the local labour force. Because it is very cyclical, we can assist with that process before putting vulnerable workers on both sides into harm's way.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Ellerker.

Through you, Mr. Chair, I would like to ask a subsequent question. Mr. Strickland provided some recommendations regarding the TFW program.

Can you elaborate on what was suggested in the opening comment and what you'd like to see as part of a revision to the policies?

[Mark Ellerker]

Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Chad.

A good example is to expand the questions on the labour market impact assessment form. As Sean said, the 2015 version had questions particular to unions. In the 2021 version, the questions were changed and some were removed. Our recommendation would be to expand a couple of questions on that form.

It's very light lifting and it would be a very good example of how to get the local labour force involved and make sure it's accountable on [Technical difficulty--Editor] and transparent for everybody.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you.

Before I turn over to Ms. Martinez Ferrada, my last question will be on the immigration pilot project. Do you have any recommendations on that?

That's for either Mr. Ellerker or Mr. Strickland.

[Sean Strickland]

Maybe I can take that one, Mark.

We're suggesting a construction immigration pilot program. Right now it's very difficult for a construction worker [Inaudible—Editor] Canada. They just don't meet the requisite requirements.

I did a quick survey—anecdotal, not scientific—and right now in Ontario we could use 25,000 construction workers basically tomorrow across mostly civil trades related to the building of transportation infrastructure. Contractors are really scrambling to try to find these workers. Some contractors are looking at becoming certified employer organizations so that they can act as a group of employers, GEOs, to bring in temporary foreign workers.

But that's not the long-term solution. That's why we're suggesting a construction immigration pilot project. Pick a province—Ontario would be a good example—and let's work together to bring in 10,000 workers and make them Canadian citizens. Train them, get them into the unions, protect them from exploitation and build our economy.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Strickland.

Mr. Chair, I'll cede the rest of my time to Ms. Martinez Ferrada.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank my colleague Mr. Collins, and to thank the witnesses for being here.

My question is for Mr. Sauvé. Given that we don't have much time, I'm going to ask a question and a sub-question at the same time.

Mr. Sauvé, I'd like you to tell us about the challenges the police face in terms of staff retention and preserving their mental health.

If I understood correctly, you said just now, in your testimony, that about 47 per cent of new applications are not completed. I'd like to get a little more explanation on that point. What is the explanation for people not finishing the program once they submit their application?

How could the federal government do more to support the National Police Federation?

[Brian Sauvé]

Thank you, that is a good question.

To be 100% accurate, I will answer in English.

When we talk about applicants and attrition, the attrition rate at Depot, once the applicant has been accepted to go to Regina, has grown exponentially over the last number of years to almost 30%. We're losing one in three before graduation. That probably means we don't have a deep enough pool of those who are applying at the front end. The number of those applying at the front end has been decreasing exponentially over time.

When I joined about 18 years ago, the RCMP would receive—

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Sauvé, since time is passing quickly, could you provide written answers to the questions we have asked the Federation?

[Brian Sauvé]

Yes, we'll do that, no problem.

Thank you.