Human Resources Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2023

[Krista Gillespie]

Yes, we do.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

That's fine. Where I want to go with this.... I have asked this question once before. There is a huge housing shortage. There is a crisis in this country. One of the primary reasons we're struggling to get enough units built is the lack of skilled trades and labour in that sector.

Is that something that you have heard from the industry in the communities you serve?

[Krista Gillespie]

I can't speak to anything specific that I have heard directly. Certainly, I understand that this is a challenge. With the ability to make the program more flexible, outside of the summer, I think there would be opportunities. Not specifically speaking of housing, but if we were to offer Canada summer jobs positions outside of the summer, it would open up opportunities for us to provide positions in other areas of the work we do.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

You're suggesting that the program should be more permissive in terms of letting local agencies decide what they need to do.

Do you think the program could be used to help encourage young people, for example, to get into fields that people need in different regions, whether it's particular industries or more national needs? Do you think it's a program that could be used to help guide young people?

[Krista Gillespie]

Absolutely. The program excels at providing opportunities that youth wouldn't otherwise have to open the doors for anything they might be interested in.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thanks for that.

I don't know how much time I have, perhaps two minutes. I will quickly ask both camps.... I have a bit of experience with camps. My riding is Parry Sound—Muskoka. I think we probably have more camps in my riding than any other riding in the country. During COVID, camps were one of the organizations that seemed to get missed in all the different programs that existed. I remember working with the government at the time to try to come up with ways to help camps.

Do you think the Canada summer jobs program, the way it works, is really the best vehicle for summer camps? Is there a better way to support summer camps?

You don't have a lot of time, but I'd ask the question of both camps that are represented, starting with Mr. Quinn.

[Ben Quinn]

The thing about summer camps is that.... The Canada summer jobs program is a really wonderful grant that helps summer camps fund their wage costs—one of the highest costs an outdoor centre has—through their main operating season, which is July and August for most summer camps.

Where the Canada summer jobs program does not help a summer camp is during the rest of the year. Many camps operate in shoulder seasons and off-seasons in areas like outdoor education. Currently, the Canada summer jobs program does not apply to that operating season, which is often just as expensive as running a summer camp. If this grant were expanded, or a new program came in that offered funding outside the eight weeks of summer camp, that would be incredible for camps across this entire country.

[Kevin Cougler]

I agree with Mr. Quinn's comments on that.

We have 50-odd locations across Canada. It's a challenge just to be able to find employment for the summertime. For example, we interview over 1,000 candidates, starting in December and January every year, to be able to land on 400 who actually show up during the summer. That has a very taxing implication on our staff at head office, who are not many. We have seven or eight full-time staff. You can imagine just the sheer volume of interviewing those 1,000 candidates. There's not a lot of other work that can be done when you're trying to interview and attract top talent.

If there was a mechanism to increase some funding for positions throughout the course of the year for some of those important entry-level jobs, it could give some experience, just in terms of being able to teach them interviewing skills and how to interview a vast volume of potential candidates. I think that would be incredibly useful for the youth of today and a skill that would serve them well in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Aitchison.

We'll go to Mr. Collins for six minutes.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for their appearances today.

I'll go to Mr. Cougler, who mentioned that he had other recommendations to provide to the committee but, because of the five-minute time limit on his opening, couldn't provide them.

Mr. Cougler, could you provide us with the other recommendations that you referenced earlier?

[Kevin Cougler]

Yes. Thank you for that opportunity.

This one will come as no surprise. I think the largest recommendation on the list of everybody who's involved in the Canada summer jobs program is to not backdate the timelines.

I'll give you an example. When we interview our 1,000 candidates, one of the reasons we have to continue to interview is that we are not able to offer full-time employment until the announcement that we are successful in getting Canada summer jobs funding, which comes out in late April. If we're interviewing somebody for that position in January, the best we can do is say that we think we'll be able to hire them once we hear about this position. Of course, that's not a lot of confidence for students who are in college or university. They want to know what their job is for that summer. We then lose them to another organization that can give them a firm offer.

Often, we'll be hiring two or three times for the exact same position, so if we could back that up and be able to hear about funding sooner, I think the program would see a huge uptick in success in being able to attract and retain that quality talent come summertime.

I think that's the biggest one on our list.

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

Thanks, Mr. Cougler.

I'll turn now to Mr. Quinn.

In terms of the flexibility of the program, do you have any recommendations? There is a common theme, as Mr. Cougler mentioned earlier, of opening up the program earlier to provide a greater pool of students for program participants to choose from. We've also heard from others, and we heard Ms. Gillespie's recommendation today about some of the flexibility that she's seeking from the program.

What are your thoughts on that? I didn't hear recommendations as part of your opening submission to the committee. Do you feel that multi-year funding or a year-round program with greater flexibility for part-time status would benefit your organization, understanding you're a camp?

[Ben Quinn]

Thank you for that question.

I think there are huge opportunities for flexibility along those same veins. Most notably, I just want to echo that if we were able to hear about funding sooner in the year, that would greatly expedite things and help to retain staff by getting those offers out, instead of making conditional offers in January and February, which is the hiring timeline for most summer camps.

There are other flexibilities I might recommend. I think somebody else mentioned earlier in their presentation the ability to use funding when a staffer resigns or is unable to continue their employment, for whatever reason, partway through their Canada summer jobs contract. Being able to utilize the funding that was allocated to that position somewhere else, for another position in the camp—because currently you're not able to do that—would be a really good flexibility that I might recommend.

I would also echo that being able to apply this funding outside of summer into the spring and shoulder seasons, as well as to part-time employees, would be really good—at least for our camp and, I'm sure, many camps across the country.

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

Thanks, Mr. Quinn.

Ms. Gillespie, we heard from a StatsCan representative at a previous meeting that as much as the Canada summer jobs program has a strong EDI component, there are still a number of equity-seeking groups in the youth workforce that are falling behind. There are still gaps.

Can I ask what inroads your organization has made in providing employment to equity-seeking groups, and whether there's room for improvement with the program application or the program as a whole?

[Krista Gillespie]

Thank you for the question.

Certainly we see a recurring theme with these answers. In terms of timelines, if we are able to find out earlier, it allows us to reach out to our community with more time. At the YMCA, we are building partnerships. We are building relationships with equity-deserving groups to make sure we are getting job postings throughout our community and in other community agencies in order to have a fair and equitable recruitment process across our communities.

We are making inroads. Certainly we have a way to go, but having the ability to know earlier would allow us more time to reach out to our communities further.

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

Mr. Cougler, I have about 30 seconds left. Do you want to answer that same question?

[Kevin Cougler]

I'd echo those comments by Ms. Gillespie as well.

One of our strategies is to reach out to friendship centres and provide them with postings for summer employment, but working with friendship centres and the FNMI space—first nations, Métis and Inuit—requires time. It requires the ability to go and make friends and talk to people and establish relationships, and you can't do that within a few weeks.

We were lucky this summer. We were able to do a camp with Six Nations, but it took us a few months to be able to pull that off, so I would echo backing the time up and giving us more time to give us the opportunity to make those connections.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

I would like to thank the witnesses for their very informative testimonies. They provide us with interesting food for thought and recommendations.

My first question is for Mr. Quinn, whose organization offers day camps and overnight camps for young people in a natural environment. What a great experience for our young people and for the young people who work at these camps!

Mr. Quinn, you've said that you've had a hard time coping with the nearly 50% cuts the program has reportedly suffered. Can you tell us about the impact these cuts have had on the camps in terms of the number of positions and weeks? How does this compare to the previous year?

[Ben Quinn]

Thank you for that question.

Typically, we employ between 40 and 50 youth who would meet the criteria for Canada summer jobs in any given summer, and on average we receive from Canada summer jobs approved funding for roughly 25 to 30 of those. This year we received, in terms of real dollars, about half of the funding that we received in the previous year. On average, based on our five-year average, it was a little less than half of what we would normally expect to receive.

The impacts on the summer camp are not seen by most, because we're going to run the summer camp and we're going to employ those youth regardless. Especially when we received notice of the funding so close to the start of summer camp, we don't have time to make big operational changes on such short notice.

Where the real impact is seen is in the overall financial budget of our non-profit. In terms of dollars this year, the funding cut equated to approximately $75,000 that we were expecting to receive. In an entire fiscal year, now we have to find a way to absorb that cost. Because we're a non-profit, it means finding other funding or finding ways to raise fees for service, which of course directly impacts the users of our camp.

That's the impact, I would say.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Would you say, Mr. Quinn, that the camps you offer as part of your mission are essential to the organization's journey?

[Ben Quinn]

Absolutely, yes. Our mission is enriching lives through learning and playing in the outdoors, and our summer camps are an absolutely essential function of what we do. Part of that, at least half of our operation, revolves around summer camp; the rest of it comes from shoulder season operations.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

So you would be in favour of restoring or increasing funding to better support the program.

Is that correct?

[Ben Quinn]

Yes, and I think there are obviously lots of factors that go into how much funding a certain organization receives. I think my feedback there might be, if an organization is going to be receiving less funding because there's less funding to go around in a certain area, to have communication in advance to let them know that they might not receive what they have been receiving, so that they may have some time to plan around that.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

With regard to the eight-week employment period, one witness told us last week that it was important to obtain funding for a greater number of weeks. In the case of specialized camps, it is often necessary to train young people for the work they will be doing there. However, projects can be jeopardized by the number of weeks currently granted. For example, if a project requires two positions and we get just one for eight weeks, that changes everything, and there are things that may have to be abandoned.

For your camps, is eight weeks enough? Would you like to have more weeks?