Human Resources Committee on Oct. 28th, 2025

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I have a point of order, Chair.

I'm just trying to follow the questioning, and I'm questioning the relevance. We are doing a youth study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

Mr. Généreux, please continue.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

All right.

If there aren't any markets, there aren't any jobs, and that means no jobs for young people. I don't know how you can't understand that, Ms. Koutrakis.

As long as the tariffs stay as high as they are now, jobs will be in jeopardy—that is a fact. The U.S. is even proposing to raise them. We can't let the Europeans eat our lunch when they are thousands of kilometres away. That's outrageous. We have to continue negotiating with the Americans.

Every single day, young people in my riding go to work in the forestry industry, and they have a lot of questions about how the federal government is engaging with the U.S. right now. To be perfectly frank, it's not going well. When I look at the solutions you're proposing, I can see they have merit. Nevertheless, the government has clearly done a poor job of negotiating with the U.S. to date, and it's having an impact on jobs for young people. I say that for the benefit of my fellow member Ms. Koutrakis. Can young people really picture a future in the regions? We definitely need to focus on the regions. Canada's big cities are great, but we have regions too, and they are the ones supplying a key material big cities need to build housing. The industry needs those jobs and those young people.

What else can you recommend to give young Canadians working in the forestry sector a bit of hope?

What you said about contractors or businesses working in the forestry sector is important. In many cases, they are self-employed people operating incredibly expensive equipment, so they need solutions for the future too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Généreux. You went over the time.

It is now Mr. Joseph's turn for five minutes.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Listening to Mr. Généreux, I thought I was in the House, because he seemed to think that the witness was an MP. It's fine.

My question is for Mr. Mahdy.

The Conservatives are always pushing for less government, and what that means for many young people is fewer job placements, fewer employment programs and reduced access to training.

Can you tell us how cutting those things would stimulate youth employment, rather than make things worse?

[Sharif Mahdy]

Thank you for the question.

In what we're proposing as a whole-of-society approach, we're not saying that government or the state doesn't have a role to play in supporting ongoing youth employment. In fact, some of the projects and work that we have done resulted from government starting to fund the initiative and then businesses and others coming to the table. We're looking for a mix of government, corporate and non-profit partners to be part of the conversation to support employers to work really closely with youth. The number one thing we're hearing from employers is that they don't necessarily know how to work with youth, and that wraparound supports for those employers are really important. That can only happen when we have government, corporate and non-profits working together in an integrated approach.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Mahdy.

My next question is for Mr. Nighbor.

Every season, numerous regional employers in the forestry sector rely on Canada summer jobs and the youth employment and skills strategy for funding to hire and train young people in the field.

Can you describe what effect those wage subsidies have on small operators and young workers gaining their first paid work experience in the forestry sector?

[Derek Nighbor]

Thanks for the question.

The YESS program is very important to our sector. I've talked a bit about the outland youth employment program. One of the other programs that have benefited from YESS is Project Learning Tree Canada, which has placed 8,000 young people in conservation and forestry job placements—3,000 of those were youth who had barriers to employment.

My point on the YESS program is that there's been some tremendous infrastructure built. The more we can lean in and scale up there in a sector like ours.... We're national. We have a great network of people, and we can really mobilize. My advice, in our sector, as we try to fix some of these challenges that we're facing, to blunt the blow and to provide opportunity, is to really lean in on where we've been successful. We're prepared to work with the government to do that.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to give the rest of my time to Ms. Koutrakis. I think she wanted to say something earlier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Go ahead, Ms. Koutrakis, for two minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you for your testimony and for appearing here before us.

We heard in a previous committee meeting that high youth unemployment “translates into pessimism and resentment, lost opportunities to build skills and networks, dependence on other family members and economic hardship. It represents a failure to launch.”

In your opinion—and any one of you can answer this question, or all of you, if we have time—what specific skills or work habits are most at risk of being lost when young people face extended periods of unemployment during their careers?

[Sharif Mahdy]

Thank you for the question.

I think the number one skill that we're seeing could potentially be eroded as a result of the youth unemployment challenges right now is adaptability—the ability to adapt and be resilient to the changes that are happening in the world. Jobs are changing quite rapidly, and what you need to thrive in this economy is the ability to be adaptable when those jobs do change or when new technology comes to the fore. If we're not preparing young people at a young age for that adaptability that's going to come down the road, then they're not going to have the skill set to cope with the ever-changing needs of our economy when technology continues to evolve.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

What federal programs do you think would be most effective in preventing failure to launch?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Give a short answer, please.

[Sharif Mahdy]

It would be the YESS program.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Koutrakis.

Mrs. Gill, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Nighbor, I have a question about EI I forgot to ask you earlier. I brought up seasonal workers, but didn't get a chance to ask my question. Should the government expand EI to reduce the precarious nature of the work they do and strengthen the social safety net?

Obviously, people want to be able to work year-round, but that just isn't possible in some fields, because of our climate. I mentioned tree planting earlier, and you clearly can't plant trees in January.

With that in mind, I'd like to know whether potential EI reforms should be aimed at strengthening the social safety net. Of course, I would love for us to be able to participate in remanufacturing, even tertiary processing, but at the very least, measures are needed to keep people in their communities, in remote areas where the forestry sector is very active.

The question is for Mr. Nighbor.

[Derek Nighbor]

We would be among the first to support that. It's what we're looking at now as we look at a potentially protracted trade dispute.

For us, on lumber, it's $8 billion a year. We're not just going to find another market for $8 billion. It took us about 40 years to get to $1 billion-or-so in Japan. We need creativity here. We've learned a lot through COVID, through the CEWS program and through wage top-ups. We in industry with our union partners are prepared to be very creative here. It's a call to everybody on all sides. We're happy to work with you. It's time to be very creative and flexible on these solutions if this thing drags out.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Gill.

Next, we have Mr. Reynolds for five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Reynolds.

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming here today. I really appreciate it.

My question is for Mr. Nighbor.

Is the forestry industry actively recruiting youth right now?

[Derek Nighbor]

Yes, very much so. We recognize that there are different pools of talent. I think of a group like Women in Wood, which is now home to about 3,700 women. It's a network that started as a sharing group that is now a group that provides support for professional development. They're in their 10th year. We have indigenous programming through OYAP and PLT Canada, for example. I know that we have a number of members who brought in Ukrainian refugees.

It's a very segmented approach. My advice on the recruitment piece is that it be targeted and, where possible, regionally based.

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

What challenges is the forestry industry facing in youth recruitment? What is the biggest challenge?

[Derek Nighbor]

Right now it's the cloud of brutal markets and the trade dispute with the U.S. that some days makes it feel like it's.... Well, it's just bad right now. That's our biggest barrier right now. Forestry has been through issues before. We're still 200,000 workers, despite all the challenges and all the different disputes and issues over the last couple of hundred years in Canada, so we're going to be here on other end of this. We might look a bit different.

My focus is also on new emerging areas. I've talked about drone technology. We're an industry now that has almost as many lab coats as safety vests. We have biofuels, biomaterials, mass timber, prefab and modulars. One area I talked about earlier was in terms of connecting with young people on the sustainability and on the community component, and that this is good for the community and the environment, and then also tapping into some of the very unique, cool things that are emerging in the industry that weren't part of our grandma's and grandpa's forest sector.

[Colin Reynolds, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Given how critical the forestry industry is to the Canadian economy, employment and youth employment, do you feel that the forestry industry is being adequately represented in trade negotiations?