Human Resources Committee on Oct. 7th, 2025

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

Good morning, committee members.

We will open today's meeting.

Welcome to meeting number seven of the HUMA committee. Pursuant to a motion adopted on Thursday, September 18, the committee is meeting on youth employment in Canada.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, meaning people are participating in the room and virtually on screen.

Before we begin, I would like to go over a few points. You have the option of choosing to participate in this meeting in the official language of your choice. Interpretation is available in the room. Members, I would ask you to see that you're on the right channel. For those of you appearing virtually, use the globe icon at the bottom of your screen and choose the official language of your choice. If there is an interruption in translation please get my attention, and we'll suspend while it's corrected. To those appearing virtually, to do that simply use the “raise hand” icon.

All witnesses appearing virtually have been tested and meet the technical requirements for today's meeting.

For those in the room, please put your devices on silent mode so they do not ring during the meeting, as it can cause issues for the translators. As well, familiarize yourselves with the microphone. Please refrain from tapping it because it can cause issues for our translators.

Please address all questions through the chair. Wait until I recognize you before proceeding. For those on Zoom, we went through those particular points.

We're beginning with the first hour panel of witnesses. From the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, we have Heather Exner-Pirot, director, energy, natural resources and environment. From the National Council of Unemployed Workers, we have Milan Bernard, co-spokesperson. From the Provincial Employment Roundtable, we have Nicholas Salter, executive director, and Morgan Gagnon, director of policy and research.

You have five minutes to give your opening comments. Then we will open the floor to questions. When you're at five minutes, I will say thank you, which means I will expect you to wrap up shortly.

We will begin today with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute for five minutes.

[Heather Exner-Pirot, Director, Energy, Natural Resources and Environment, Macdonald-Laurier Institute]

Thank you, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak to you today.

I think everyone across the political spectrum can unite around the goal of lowering youth employment, which stands at a historically high level of 14.5%. As we all understand, in practice that translates into—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The interpreter is telling us that the connection to the network is unstable and that it is hard to interpret.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We'll come back to you, Madam Exner-Pirot.

We'll move to Milan Bernard.

Please proceed with your opening statement.

[Milan Bernard, Co-spokesperson, National Council of Unemployed Workers]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the members for giving me the opportunity to address them.

I am speaking today as co-spokesperson of the Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses, which represents organizations that defend the rights of the unemployed, help workers on the ground and advocate for major improvements to the employment insurance program.

Today I will focus on two key elements.

First, I should point out that youth employment is an important economic indicator. The current situation is mainly a result of extreme instability and uncertainty due in large part to the trade war with the United States. In other words, there is a crisis. When employers have to cut staff, they target the newest hires, who are often young people. Worse, they're not hiring anyone new. As a result, young people are being left in the lurch.

I really need to emphasize that it is alarming to see that the government is really not leading by example in cutting 2,000 student jobs in the public service and by making workforce cuts that specifically affect young people. Youth employment and access to good jobs are being undermined. Skills transfer is being undermined. The public service is also being undermined.

Second, to deal with the tariff crisis, the government implemented temporary employment insurance measures in the spring. Two of these measures, the waiver of the waiting period and the rules around the way severance pay is handled, will be extended until next April. We should really consider making them permanent once and for all. The third measure will expire in a few days, on October 11. It currently provides broader eligibility for employment insurance to counter economic instability. By refusing to extend this measure, the government is putting workers, especially young workers, in a vulnerable position. It doesn't seem to realize that the crisis doesn't just affect people who have had jobs for a number of years. It affects everyone.

In place of the third measure, the government put in place a convoluted measure granting additional weeks of employment insurance benefits to long-tenured workers. By reintroducing a discriminatory measure from a former government that used it to undermine the employment insurance program, the government is failing several thousand other workers. Focusing on long-tenured workers creates an artificial and unfair divide among workers by automatically excluding young people and others from these support measures. It discriminates against young people and so many others.

It excludes many workers, particularly those in the automotive industry, the very workers we wanted to target with this measure and who have had employment gaps in recent years. Many part-time working women are also excluded. I say “working women” because 75% of part-time workers are women, particularly young women. Never mind seasonal workers, who are important, indispensable figures in the Quebec and Canadian economy, and who are excluded every time there is a crisis. When we abandon seasonal workers, we also abandon our regions.

The best way to combat job insecurity is to provide a social safety net worthy of the name. I urge you to consider improving the employment insurance program to provide all workers with real protection in the event of unemployment, whatever economic turbulence should occur.

We are proposing expanded eligibility for the employment insurance program, a review of penalties to allow for greater flexibility, an extension of measures already in place and better benefits for family caregivers.

We reiterate the suggestions that we submitted to your colleagues on the Standing Committee on Finance in our pre-budget consultation brief.

The government has an opportunity to get back on track, to reverse some of its decisions and to honour the commitments that it has repeatedly made, election after election.

Thank you for your attention. I will be pleased to answer your questions in the language of your choice.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Bernard.

We'll go to the Provincial Employment Roundtable.

Mr. Salter, please go ahead.

[Nicholas Salter, Executive Director, Provincial Employment Roundtable]

Good morning, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and honourable members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear today and contribute to this discussion on youth employment in Canada.

My name is Nicholas Salter. I'm the executive director of the Provincial Employment Roundtable, otherwise known as PERT. I'm joined by my colleague Morgan Gagnon, our director of policy and research. PERT is a non-partisan organization dedicated to improving the economic and employment outcomes of Quebec's English-speaking communities through evidence-based research and policy recommendations.

I'm here today to establish that our community's youth and PERT's work to understand and serve them are a case study for the types of targeted support that diverse groups of Canadian youth need to flourish in the labour market. One-size-fits-all solutions will not get the job done. Responsive interventions designed and delivered by community organizations are key.

Let me explain what I mean. In Quebec, English-speaking youth sit at the intersection of two vulnerable populations in the workforce, youth and official language minorities. They experience the same labour market detachment, uncertainty and instability that many young Canadians face while also carrying the added weight of language barriers.

We recently received funding from Canadian Heritage to dig deeper into the employment issues facing English-speaking youth. We conducted focus groups with over 50 youth and surveyed 200 more, and then we paired our findings with data from the 2021 census to build a more robust statistical portrait.

We broke down the youth cohort into specific age brackets to understand the different issues each group faces. Together these sources offer a detailed and, frankly, concerning picture of how English-speaking youth fare in the provincial labour market. Allow me to share three of our core findings.

First, English-speaking youth in Quebec are starting their careers at a disadvantage. They're struggling to break into and remain in a labour force compared to their French-speaking counterparts. This is evident in their labour force participation rates, which lag behind those of French speakers by more than six percentage points. The unemployment rate is almost double, 13.1%, compared to 7.8%, and that gap widens among those under 25 to 17.4% versus 10.9%. Among youth in rural and remote regions of Quebec, these gaps are wider still. English-speaking youth in Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Côte-Nord, for example, have unemployment rates of 27.7% and 21.8% respectively.

Our second key finding helps to contextualize the data. Three out of four youth in our survey described the job market as discouraging. Despite strong confidence in both their technical and soft skills—and that's the good news, they were confident—many expressed doubt that their skills would be enough to secure meaningful employment. Over half of all respondents identified French proficiency as a barrier to employment, one that limits not only their job opportunities but also their ability to build professional connections and access the information needed to secure meaningful employment.

Given this finding, it's not surprising that, when we launched the linguistic mentorship program last year called Circonflexe, where all accents are welcome, the vast majority of interested mentees were young people.

Third and finally, our research shows that these issues are compounded by a lack of institutional support. We surveyed English-language employment service providers and regional community organizations about their experiences with the federal youth employment and skills strategy, YESS, measures and the provincial Jeunes en movement vers l'emploi program. Not one had received support from the Jeunes en mouvement program. What this means is that a generation of English-speaking youth in Quebec is left waiting for the support they need.

This brings me back to my original point. English-speaking youth need and deserve programs that truly reflect their reality and initiatives that integrate French-language learning and networking alongside job search support. The same is true across Canada. Immigrant youth, francophone youth in other provinces, indigenous youth, youth in rural or remote areas, youth with disabilities and so many others need supports that are tailored to their lived experiences.

Furthermore, these efforts must be led by local organizations that have the direct expertise to create responsive programs and the network to ensure that these programs reach and engage youth. PERT's work offers a model for how this can be achieved. We bring community organizations together with stakeholders and experts to implement evidence-based programs and coordinate them to ensure adherence to best practices and consistent evaluation.

We implore the government to invest and scale this type of model across the country, meeting needs of our youth as well as those across Canada. We therefore urge this committee to consider the following recommendations. We need stronger federal-provincial coordination to deliver on a youth employability program, in our case more specifically, commitments to Quebec's English-speaking communities and organizations to ensure adequate distribution of resources. We need the implementation of programs that are accessible when and where youth need them and a renewed recognition of the linguistic, identity-based and other regional realities that youth live every day.

We are confident that, with this targeted support, we can reverse the trends we're seeing today, not only in the employment data but in the discouragement youth are reporting. They want to contribute. Empower us to empower them.

Thank you once again for this opportunity to share these results with you.

I'm happy to answer your questions in English or French, whichever you prefer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Salter.

Now we'll go to Ms. Exner-Pirot.

[Heather Exner-Pirot]

We'll try this again.

I think that everyone across the political spectrum can unite around the goal of lowering youth unemployment, which stands at the historically high level of 14.5%. In practice, that 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.

Although I expect that many in your study will have ideas on programs and training to make youth more employable, at a fundamental level the problem is that the economy is weak. There aren't enough firms hiring workers. The challenge of youth unemployment won't be solved without a hotter jobs market.

Many times, the energy and natural resources sectors have driven employment growth in Canada. This is especially true when commodity cycles are swinging up and there is lots of new construction. Right now, those sectors, unfortunately, are experiencing investment weakness in Canada. Shareholders do not see Canada as a growth economy, and are rewarding share buybacks and dividends rather than reallocating capital here. They think they can get higher returns in other jurisdictions and in other sectors.

Prime Minister Carney has said that Canada needs to build here at home “at speeds not seen in generations”. We would all like that, but the policy and regulatory environment of the last 10 years is still very much in place and is dissuading the private capital needed to build new mines, pipelines, railroads, power generation and transmission in Canada, and the jobs it would take to build those things. To many in industry, it feels as though the recent rhetoric has been positive, but actual regulatory changes have not manifested. A more welcoming investment environment could unleash tens of billions in new capital spending and create hundreds of thousands of good jobs. Many of those jobs would be in rural and remote areas, meaning that northern and indigenous youth would be able to stay home and build their lives and careers near their communities. I think catalyzing our resource sector is an important way to alleviate youth unemployment.

There is another side of the equation we need to deal with, and that is the lack of skilled labour to develop all those projects. In particular, we need more skilled trades. I live outside Calgary, which is Canada's fastest-growing city. We need to build more houses, schools, hospitals, roads and services to keep up with population growth. My own nephew is in his third year of carpentry here. His cohort could handle 16 students, but only 10 have registered. His experience is borne out in the statistics. Across North America, for every seven tradespeople who retire or leave the space, they're replaced with just one. I don’t know where we will get enough journeymen carpenters, electricians, linemen or plumbers to build things at speeds not seen before.

I think we have spent a decade and more devaluing the building trades. It is seen as a lesser career path than something that requires a university degree. I thought the market would solve this problem, as the trades tend to offer high-paying jobs out of school, but they still face a lack of status.

This is my point. Our youth have been told that working in resource-extractive industries and heavy industry is bad, and that it has no future. They have often been discouraged from entering blue-collar careers. There should be no surprise that we are now facing a labour crunch in those sectors even as we have high unemployment. To help address youth employment in Canada, we not only have to create a more welcoming regulatory and investment environment for the resource sector; we also have to value the people who work in those sectors so that our youth feel comfortable choosing that career path.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Exner-Pirot.

I'd like to thank all three of you for your excellent presentations to the committee.

We'll begin the first round of questioning with Ms. Goodridge.

You have the floor for six minutes.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for their testimony here today.

Ms. Exner-Pirot, speaking as the member of Parliament for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, I will say that your testimony is bang on. Growing up in Fort McMurray, I heard so many stories of people who went off, got a university education, couldn't find employment and then came up to Fort McMurray to find a trade and have an amazing life.

Why do you believe trades are so undervalued across Canada?

[Heather Exner-Pirot]

This is a decades-long trajectory. I have three liberal arts degrees, so I'm a victim of the trend of encouraging people to go to university. The path to middle-classhood in Canada was to go to university. If your kids went to university, you'd made it. We started to discount the contributions of blue-collar workers, construction workers and the skilled trades vis-à-vis those professional kinds of services.

We've seen it repeated by our elites as well. I think Secretary-General António Guterres has said it explicitly: Don't go into oil and gas. There is no future in that sector. You won't be doing the world any good. We have had our own Canadian politicians say it: You should choose coding. You should go into coding instead of these resource sectors. You should know us for our resourcefulness, not our resources.

That has affected, obviously, what you would perceive as a path to a good career and to a good status. As I say, the economics are transitioning. If you do have a journeyman trade, you will probably have a good job and a good career. You can afford a house and you can support a family. But the status seems to still be lacking. That is why I think not enough youth are choosing those trades where we do see that we will have a labour crunch. At least part of the problem with youth unemployment is that they're attracted to jobs for which there aren't enough people on the other end hiring.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I see it on a regular basis. I think that the government saying in the last 10 years that the energy industry is bad and that we need to transition away from those jobs has made a lot of teenagers and youth choose other careers because they've been told by government that this is a bad industry and that it won't be here for their lifetime.

I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about how some of the emissions cap policies, the policies surrounding overall anti-energy rules and regulations like the emissions cap and shipping ban, are impacting investment and, therefore, new jobs in these sectors.

[Heather Exner-Pirot]

That's a great question. You mentioned Fort McMurray, and we all remember the heydays—especially if you're from out west—the hiring and the jobs that came in that boom time between 2006 and 2014. You could get a great job, and you could support a family and have a great life. My uncle lives in Fort McMurray. That has obviously declined.

Part of it is just global commodity markets. We won't be naive and blame it all on certain policies, but certainly, it means that Canada has to be more competitive right now in attracting that investment. Global commodities are globally traded. That means that the capital will just go to whatever jurisdiction is going to get the best return on investment.

In Canada, for example, we're the only oil-exporting country that has put on an emissions cap, or has threatened to put on an emissions cap. That obviously is a signal to investors not to put their money here. We see similar conditions in mining, forestry and other sectors. This is just going to be a very highly expensive jurisdiction, an uncompetitive jurisdiction for return on investment, and the money goes elsewhere.

Our resources are very valuable, but we have to allow capital to grow when it comes to Canada. Most of our policies and regulations have not allowed for that.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

I actually know your uncle Gary. Fort McMurray is the biggest small town, so I give a shout-out to Gary. Having growing up in Fort McMurray and having lived there most of my life, I see that the indigenous participation in the workforce is a substantially higher percentage than in the rest of Canada. In fact, it sits at about 6% of the workforce, whereas indigenous people make up approximately 3.3% of the Canadian workforce overall. Having a limit on jobs and investment in the energy industry has a huge impact on economic reconciliation with indigenous peoples.

Have you seen any trends across Canada of indigenous employment going down as a result of these bad Liberal policies?

[Heather Exner-Pirot]

I do some work with the Indigenous Resource Network, and you might have gotten those statistics from work that we did. I might have newer data. It was 3.9% of the Canadian workforce, but it's actually 6.9% in oil and gas, 10.8% in mining and 9.2% in forestry.

It's no surprise that indigenous people are more prevalent in resource sectors because their communities are in more naturally resource-dependent areas. I have friends who are not getting the jobs, not getting the contracts—most of them are small business owners—because there isn't growth happening in Alberta and northeast B.C. in the way that there could be if we had a more welcoming environment. People long for the boom years. Even 2022 was better, with more capital expenditures and slightly higher prices, but having a more competitive environment would certainly stir more investment, and that would create more jobs and contracts for small business owners, many of whom are indigenous.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate all of the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Goodridge.

Ms. Desrochers for six minutes.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses joining us this morning for taking the time to share their perspective with us.

My first question is for Mr. Salter or Ms. Gagnon.

I know that the government has invested quite a bit to make changes to the official language policies and workplace, as well as investing in communities in minority language situations.

Do you think that these have brought on notable changes? Do you think those have been helpful in dealing with the situation you described? I know you're speaking about English-speaking Quebec, but you also referred to other people across Canada in minority situations.

[Nicholas Salter]

Are you speaking about specific investments in the Official Languages Act and the languages action plan?

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Yes.

[Nicholas Salter]

Unfortunately, just getting those out the door has been quite delayed, so we have not seen the impact of any of those investments. The announcements were made over two years ago, but there has been significant delay in the allocation of those funds, so they haven't had the impact that we had hoped for. We certainly hope that they will. They're not necessarily targeted to youth specifically. I think they will ideally help English-speaking youth in Quebec, but the kinds of specific interventions, particularly ones paired with language training and a holistic approach that English-speaking youth need, may not be provided by those existing funds.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

I have a question for Ms. Exner-Pirot. Thank you for sharing your perspective on the energy sector.

My question is twofold.

In the recent work we've been doing in the platform and how we're looking at initiatives to address the situation, I think we have all agreed there is a gap. This was also part of last week's discussion around a mismatch between the skills that our youth have and what the labour market requires.

I'm wondering if, in your view, programs like the one we have proposed, where we would provide up to $8,000 for apprenticeship training for skilled youth, would be helpful. If not, what else could the federal government do to support and encourage youth to go into those sectors?

[Heather Exner-Pirot]

This is a great question.

I used to work at the University of Saskatchewan doing a lot of work with northern and indigenous programs. I was there during the last commodities boom. Uranium was booming, potash was booming, and there was a real skills and labour shortage. The colleges were trying to do whatever they could to get more youth into the programs, and then the bust happened, and there was a mismatch between what was promised.... Youth had been trained up and then there was nothing at the other end.

For many disadvantaged youth, and northern and indigenous youth in particular, having that assistance to go to school is very important in making it easier for them to choose trades or other areas where we have a skills shortage. It's also extremely important that there's a job for them at the other end of that. It would be extremely discouraging to take a step out, leave your community and move your family to undertake training when there's no job at the other end of it.

In any economic analysis, I think you'll find the availability of those high-paying jobs on the other side is the best incentive for going into these trades, but I absolutely do think, in the case of the indigenous and northern youth that I spent a long time with, that kind of thing would be helpful.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I'm trying to understand something. We're saying the youth are not taking the skills in trades that we want, but we're saying there are no jobs on the other side. At the same, time we hear from employers that people don't have the right skills.

What would be your recommendation for getting a better match, and how can the federal government help with this?