Human Resources Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2023

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

I call this meeting to order.

The clerk has advised that we have a quorum and that all the witnesses who are appearing virtually have been sound-tested and are okay to go.

Welcome to meeting number 83 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee is meeting on its study of the Canada summer jobs wage subsidy program.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room, and witnesses and members are appearing virtually.

Please wait until I recognize you before speaking. You have the option to choose whichever official language you wish to speak in. Those appearing virtually can use the “raise hand” icon to get my attention. Translation should be available by making a selection at the bottom of your Surface. I would remind members to speak slowly and to keep their earpiece away from the mike for the benefit and protection of the translators and interpretation services.

I want to introduce and welcome Sacha Vassiliev, who is filling in for the clerk in today's meeting.

Appearing in panel one, from the Corporation of the Township of Douro-Dummer, we have Paul Creamer, interim treasurer. From Kerry's Place, we have Kevin Spafford, vice-president; and Nicole Larocque, manager of human resources. From the Uptown Rutland Business Association, we have Karen Beaubier, executive director.

I will remind each presenter that they have five minutes or less to give their opening comments, which we will follow with questions from the committee members.

I will now invite Mr. Creamer to give an opening statement.

Mr. Creamer, you have the floor for five minutes or less.

[Paul Creamer, Interim Treasurer, Corporation of the Township of Douro-Dummer]

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for inviting me as a witness this morning for the Canada summer jobs program.

I'm going to assume that I received an invitation to speak today based on the comments I provided to the Honourable Michelle Ferreri this past April when she contacted me to inform our township about our successful application and also our unsuccessful application.

I should note that I am the interim treasurer for the Township of Douro-Dummer. We are just east of Peterborough. It's a small township of about 7,000 people.

I have four points to make, the first one being really the most critical and the rest being probably more housekeeping items.

I think the biggest thing for us that would be a critical improvement to this program would be to have earlier decisions and to be notified earlier in the process about whether or not we have been successful.

The last few years, we have not been notified as to whether or not our application was successful until about mid-April. Since we are a small municipality, some of the summer student positions that we plan for are dependent on this funding, so this creates a significant challenge when it comes to recruitment. We already have recruitment challenges given our small application pool, and we're not going to recruit for a position that we aren't guaranteed to get funding for, so we are at a pretty big disadvantage of not being able to get the top talent and maximize the funds we're going to get from this program if we can't start recruiting until April. For example, this year we started to recruit for an office position at the beginning of April, and we didn't get one application.

I think my recommendation around this would be that if we knew by the middle or end of January whether or not we were going to be successful, that would set us up for much better success and allow us to recruit and plan going forward. It's not only about the recruitment. We have positions for running events in the township and various other things, including for parks and recreation. If we knew we were going to have those resources, versus not having them, that would allow us to plan accordingly.

The next three points, again, are less critical than the first one, but I think they're worth mentioning.

My next point is around selection criteria. I've noticed in the last few years that there's been an emphasis on diversity. I'm not disagreeing that that's important, but it just tends to put us rural townships at a disadvantage. The reality is that there's not necessarily a lot of diversity in our area, and it's hard for us to fulfill that need of the application.

Rural location is another point. We find that in addition to the small application pool, there are not a lot of people, not a lot of students, who have vehicles, and so without public transportation we have a hard time getting students who can even make it to our location. Therefore, it's even more critical that we can recruit and have every advantage possible throughout the process.

On one last note, in terms of the application process—this is a comment from my staff who complete the applications—we find that it can be a little tedious when we're submitting the application. What we find is that we go in and we start the application and then we can get timed out and we lose all progress in the actual application. This is just, again, on the administrative side of things, but it can make things take a little longer on our end and make it a little bit more tedious to actually submit the application.

Those are my opening comments. Thank you, again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Creamer, for those very succinct, specific observations.

Now we'll go to Mr. Spafford for five minutes.

[Kevin Spafford, Vice-President, Strategic Initiatives, Kerry's Place]

Good morning. Thank you for the invitation to appear today.

My name is Kevin Spafford. I'm the vice-president of strategic initiatives at Kerry's Place Autism Services. I'm joined by my colleague Nicole Larocque, the manager of HR operations and total rewards.

We're headquartered in Newmarket, Ontario, and we primarily serve the greater Toronto area and Hastings County in eastern Ontario. We'd like to acknowledge and recognize that we are on the traditional territories of the Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Anishinabe peoples, and we are grateful for the opportunity to work on this land.

Since 1974, Kerry's Place has been providing evidence-based supports and services that enhance the quality of life for those with autism across Ontario. Our vision is that all people with autism are full and equal members of their communities. We are Canada's largest service provider to children, youth and adults with autism, serving more than 8,000 individuals each year. We provide services to children, youth and their families through the Ontario autism program, as well as many community services and supports. Our supported living and semi-independent living programs—the largest in Canada—support autistic adults at over 80 properties across Ontario.

We're very pleased to participate in the Canada summer jobs program to help employ young people and support our mission. In particular, I would like to thank our MP, Mr. Van Bynen, for his support and advocacy.

I'll turn over the rest of the time to my colleague Nicole Larocque.

[Nicole Larocque, Manager, Human Resources Operations and Total Rewards, Kerry's Place]

Thank you. I'm very pleased to be here.

We support the Canada summer jobs program's goal of creating quality summer work experiences for young people aged 15 to 30. As the prevalence rate of autism continues to rise, the need for services and supports continues to increase. In that regard, the Canada summer jobs program has been a benefit to Kerry's Place, enabling us to scale our capacity where needed to support individuals with autism and their families.

Overall, the program is functioning well and has allowed us the opportunity to bring in additional support at a minimal cost to the employer. Having utilized this program over the past 10 years, we recognize that welcome improvements have been introduced. We believe there is an opportunity to further enhance the program to meet the needs of candidates and organizations, and we have five observations that we would like to share today.

The first is the program's flexibility. The flexible parameters introduced during COVID—such as extended recruitment windows, longer placement durations and enabling part-time hours—were cancelled after COVID. The flexibility offered by these temporary parameters made the Canada summer jobs program more appealing to candidates and organizations, and made recruiting easier.

The second is the application process. The process to apply for funding is based on a constituency, making it a time-consuming process for community organizations with multiple locations, such as Kerry's Place, to apply.

The third is the job term lengths. Terms can be as long as 16 weeks, but Kerry's Place is typically approved for the eight- to 10-week program, even though we've requested 16 weeks and we meet all of the program application deadlines. The longer terms can benefit candidates, who often prefer to work longer, and organizations that require more support. The shorter terms make it a challenge to onboard individuals and gain momentum in the few short weeks they're employed with us.

The fourth is the timing of approvals. Frequently, the position approvals from Service Canada come with only a few days' notice, and opportunities are immediately added to the job bank—often without the necessary job information. This causes confusion among candidates and organizations that may not be instantly prepared. Given the time it takes to recruit, last-minute approvals mean that we miss the first one to two weeks of the term, potentially losing candidates as well as funding.

The last is wages and retaining youth. Funding covers minimum wage, and many agencies will use their own funds to top up the wages in an effort to provide more equitable opportunities for candidates. Due to Kerry's Place being a non-profit organization, we often don't have any additional budgeted funds to be able to offer attractive top-ups to the minimum wage.

[Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We've lost Ms. Larocque.

[Kevin Spafford]

I'm happy to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Would you conclude? You have only a few seconds, Mr. Spafford.

[Kevin Spafford]

Absolutely.

Just to finish the point about the minimum wage, we're often not in a position to offer top-ups and also to confirm whether a candidate will continue their employment after. Those are two factors we do think should be reconsidered.

Overall, we've had 13 approvals, but the issues that Ms. Larocque mentioned caused us to only be able to fill five positions. We do think that's a missed opportunity and worthy of consideration.

I'll close there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Spafford.

Now we go to Ms. Beaubier for five minutes, please.

[Karen Beaubier, Executive Director, Uptown Rutland Business Association]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for inviting me to be here today.

The Uptown Rutland Business Association, or URBA, is a business improvement association that was established in 2007. It is located a 15-minute drive from the downtown core of Kelowna, British Columbia. It is an area defined and mandated under municipal legislation.

Rutland can be described as Kelowna's oldest, most established neighbourhood, with approximately 30,000 residents. Its business membership consists of 230 businesses and commercial building owners. These business owners can be described as hard-working, diverse, approachable and authentic. Our membership breakdown consists of about 25% retail businesses, with an almost equal breakdown among restaurants, professional services and services such as car repair.

Our vision statement is “Rutland Proud: to attract and expand development, business and prosperity with pride and purpose.” Our mission statement is “Uptown, Down to Earth: To grow and strengthen Rutland's hard-working business community through authentic connections and strategic opportunities.”

We are accomplishing our promotion goals by broadening our reach and sharing our stories. We are accomplishing our advocacy goals by building a cohesive vision through open dialogue with our members, and eventually plan to expand our BIA. We are building capacity by increasing our visibility and supporting our local businesses. We are increasing our connections by increasing our community contacts and shifting our approach with local and provincial governments to develop solutions.

By advocating for a vision of Rutland, URBA wants to engage members, developers and entrepreneurs. We conduct surveys and interviews to determine what types of support and resources our members want and need. URBA will continue to cultivate meaningful relationships to motivate dialogue. We see a shift in approach with municipal and provincial ministries from merely asking for answers toward actively working together to develop solutions and communicating a clear understanding of the possibilities and limitations to membership. This way URBA can advocate for the possible.

URBA will continue to promote business to customers, investors and entrepreneurs. We want to celebrate and encourage the multiculturalism and diversity of Rutland by identifying opportunities to support multiculturalism and related key stakeholder events and sponsorships. URBA is working on identifying what types of businesses and missing amenities Rutland needs and then developing a plan to attract them. We want to continue to work with the city and the Ministry of Transportation to identify what URBA can and cannot do in terms of beautification. We want Rutland to be a visible, unique and attractive place to invest.

Our proudest accomplishment is our award-winning uptown mural project, consisting of 22 large-scale murals located on the walls of commercial buildings within Rutland. Each mural has been painted by a different artist coming from the Okanagan, throughout B.C., and as far away as Montreal and Toronto. The objectives of the uptown mural project consist of strengthening community engagement and involvement, boosting the local economy, reducing crime, beautifying the community, and educating and inspiring youth through the creation of public art.

URBA sees Rutland as a community where businesses flourish and are sustainable in more difficult economic times. We also see Rutland as a healthy community and want to be engaged with the city and key community stakeholders in the vision and planning for Rutland's future, as well as identifying infrastructure and transportation, especially when it comes to the flow of goods and people through Rutland.

We are acutely aware of the community's safety and security challenges, which many B.C. communities are currently facing. We are advocating for all levels of government to take action immediately and begin to work collaboratively on how best to tackle issues such as complex care, prolific offenders and attainable housing. We all know there are no easy answers.

As a small organization, URBA has utilized the Canada summer jobs program for many years. It's an important part of how we are able to work on new and ongoing community initiatives each summer. I share similar challenges and issues that my fellow witnesses have already mentioned, so I won't go into those.

In conclusion, I thank you for this opportunity to participate in this process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Beaubier.

Thank you for your comments on this study.

We will now open the floor to questions, beginning with Mrs. Gray for six minutes, please.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

My first questions will be for Karen Beaubier of the Uptown Rutland Business Association.

As you mentioned, you are part of a business improvement area, a BIA. I heard from both you and the Downtown Kelowna Association, as well as from others across the country who are being told that their funding model is changing as the federal government is classifying them as a public government entity, which is new.

Could you tell this committee what you heard on this as well?

[Karen Beaubier]

Yes. I reached out to our Service Canada program, and I received an email from them on February 2, 2023, which said, “We have been instructed to mark your organization type for the purposes of processing your application as a 'public' organization”. I then emailed back, asking them to look into our history. We are not a public, or for a public, organization. I received an email back on March 2, 2023. It said:

Our instructions this year are to treat business associations and libraries that receive the majority of their funds from public budgets, as a public organization, for funding purposes only, in the Canada Summer Jobs program only. There are many organizations that have had to switch to this new organization status for this funded program only. I am sorry for the abrupt change and the inconvenience it may cause.

If you are approved for funding, the 50% of minimum wage will apply with no MERCs covered, unfortunately, how your organization was funded in the past does not apply.

I was very surprised and confused, as our funding has been approved for about the last 10 years. I became anxious that I wouldn't receive this funding, as it is integral to the success of our organization. I am a 1.5-person office that relies on the extra staffing during the summer months to assist me with enhancing our marketing initiatives, with running our social media, and with the mural project. I didn't understand why applicants weren't informed of this change before we submitted our application. The rules were changing mid-process. I found this to be very unfair.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you very much for this. It certainly must have been a shock to you.

Do you have any indication why the government thought you were a public, government-related organization?

[Karen Beaubier]

No, I didn't know why the government thought that URBA was a public, government-related organization. Our funding funnels through the city as it collects a levy that is part of commercial property taxes of those businesses located within our BIA boundary only. URBA does not get funding from other areas of the city. The money comes directly from our businesses, not the city. URBA is a not-for-profit entity registered through the B.C Societies Act.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Great. Thank you for that.

Back in March of this year, I myself reached out to the Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Youth directly—because of time I won't read the letter here—asking her to look into this urgent matter. It appears that someone in the government might have misunderstood, or was reclassifying something that hadn't been indicated before.

On that note, can you explain what played out afterwards, after we had started this advocacy, and what you had seen occur?

[Karen Beaubier]

Once I received the email, I sent the whole email chain between myself and the program officer to you and your office. It was fantastic to have you react so quickly to this crucial issue for BIAs that this happens to all across Canada. You started making immediate inquiries to seek an explanation for the shift in classification. I was in ongoing contact with you and your office to give me updates. Both my board of directors and I were very pleased with your proactiveness on our file. It meant a lot to have our voice heard.

As a former small business owner, we know, MP Gray, that you understand how important this type of funding is to the success of our organization.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Great. Thank you.

Looking at our time here, I want to go on to another topic.

The government scores organizations' applications and gives each organization points. There are far more applications than there is the ability to fund them, so the government puts together these scoring points. It does allow an MP to provide input on local priorities; however, this is worth only 10% of the scoring criteria.

Do you believe that a 10% value for local priorities best serves the community?

[Karen Beaubier]

No, I don't think that small percentage for local priorities on the scoring criteria serves the community.

Local MPs are tapped into their community, as they understand the needs and challenges that are often unique to their communities. They know how to create success at the grassroots level. They know whom to engage and communicate with in their community. They are a community's biggest voice at the federal level of government, and they know how to amplify.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Gray.

Thank you, Ms. Beaubier.

Mr. Van Bynen, you have six minutes.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions will be directed towards Kerry's Place.

First, I want to thank you for the invaluable support that you provide to our communities on a not-for-profit basis, and I certainly appreciate having spent the time at your office to get a better understanding of how the Canada summer jobs program is working for you.

In your presentation here, there's a section where it says, “Overall, the issues above affect the quantity and quality of candidates we are able to recruit. For example, this year we were approved for 13 positions but were only able to fill 5.”

How does the timeline between the employer approval and the date for the latest job to end impact the ability to find youth to fill vacancies for the summer?

[Kevin Spafford]

Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.

Do you mind just repeating the last part of the question there?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Sure. How does the timeline between the employer approval and the date of the latest job to end impact the ability to find youth to fill the vacancies for the summer?

[Kevin Spafford]

Thank you.

If she is able to, I'll ask my colleague to answer. I know she's been having some coughing issues, so I'll step in if she is not able to.