Human Resources Committee on Oct. 9th, 2025

[Wasiimah Joomun]

Thank you for the question.

The solution is to support students. All the witnesses talked about preparing students to enter the workforce. However, the problem is that they can't even get through the door.

I know students who have applied for 20, 30 or even 50 jobs and haven't gotten a response. Employers require experience on entry, which limits their chances of getting a job and, as a result, acquiring the necessary skills.

What we're asking the government to do, as Mr. Abbasi said, is to provide more employment opportunities. The program plans to reduce the number of positions from 60,000 to 40,000, which represents a loss of 20,000 positions. That means 20,000 fewer students will be employed.

For that reason, we're asking the government to make a longer-term commitment to the innovative work-integrated learning initiative to support students across the country, in all provinces.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The rest of my time can go to Ms. Desrochers, or anyone else.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you for the time.

I have a quick question for you, Ms. Krieger. We talked earlier about vulnerability. You have your 75%. They have the supportive parents, they have the background, they have the money and they have the support system. What about the 25% of students who come from vulnerable demographics? Can you expand on that?

[Delaney Krieger]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this a little further.

It boils down to resilience. That's the number one word there. Nobody is more resilient than students and individuals, youth, young people, whether they be individuals with disabilities or from racialized communities. Nobody will be more resilient in a workforce than a vulnerable community. That's why they're such a key aspect when we look at jobs like apprenticeships. Speaking to a structure that currently doesn't have a lot of those supports, I often say that nobody is going to work harder at an apprenticeship than a single mom trying to provide for her kids.

When we invest in the apprenticeship structure, we need to have a focus on equity priority groups and these vulnerable communities to ensure that they are set up for success. At the end of the day, when we speak to employers and we ask them what they need from qualified workers or from skilled workers, they need resilience. They need the ability to pivot quickly to keep up with an ever-changing workforce and things like that.

At the end of the day, I think that's a huge point. Thank you so much for raising it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

Ms. Gill, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

A witness from the National Council of Unemployed Workers told us that the federal government had cut 2,000 student jobs in the public service.

Do you think the government could find another way to support students right now, given the rise in youth unemployment?

[Wasiimah Joomun]

Thank you for the question.

You highlighted the main points.

We've recently seen a decrease in employment opportunities for students as well as an increase in the unemployment rate within that group.

We would like to see some more opportunities for students, because everybody wants to work, as you said. Students want to gain experience and earn an income.

I think the government should look at options such as work-integrated learning or other options such as Canada summer jobs, to see how it could expand existing programs and provide more opportunities and support for students.

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

You said that, thanks to the Canada summer jobs program, young people across Canada could get a job.

Ms. Krieger, do you have any comments on that?

[Delaney Krieger]

I would definitely say that one of the things we're seeing a lot of is heavy funding in the recruitment and awareness side of things—I'm sounding like a broken record here—but there's a lack of supports when it comes to those retention and advancement pieces.

Looking at one of these stats from BuildForce, we see that women accounted for just 4.8% of construction trade apprenticeships nationally, but only about 2% completed their apprenticeship in construction sectors. That speaks volumes as to how many individuals get into the trades. The recruitment and awareness investments are working, but they need to be supplemented with the long-term holistic approach that wraparound support and holistic-based programs can provide.

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

My question may have less to do with your area of specialization, but I'll ask it anyway.

There's a gap between the time when people finish their studies and the time when they want to work and when employers want employees who aren't just qualified, as you are, but experienced. Is that a shift you're seeing everywhere?

Someone can't be expected to have two or three years of experience when they start a job.

Could that prolong your training and impoverish young people in a way?

Are employers shirking their responsibility to provide the support that they too should maybe be giving workers?

I know I asked three questions, but you can send us your answer in writing so that we can take it into account.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you. You can provide a written answer.

We're going to end with two five-minute rounds, right on the five minutes.

We will go to Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I need to start by responding to what Ms. Desrochers said.

We have a globally recognized economic investment expert here who has given us an economic and data-driven critique of bad Liberal immigration policy because of its impact on youth unemployment. This Liberal MP has characterized that expert reflection as being “anti-immigrant”. She did not engage with the data Mr. Dias presented, and she didn't even give him a chance to respond during her round of questioning. I think it's important for people to notice that this is precisely the way Liberals have tried to shut down substantive debate about immigration.

All of us recognize that this country has benefited from immigration, and we also recognize that we need to have thoughtful conversations about the particular policy mix, about whether or not the policies of the government are working or not in this regard and about how they are impacting our country. This is a necessary policy conversation about holding the government accountable for government decision-making.

For Liberals to dismiss disagreement with their bad policies and dismiss expert analysis based on data exposing the failures of their policies as “anti-immigrant” is a political tactic aimed at covering their own failures and the impacts those failures have had on working-class people and young people.

Those are my comments on it, but, Mr. Dias, I want to give you the courtesy that Ms. Desrochers did not give you and allow you to respond to some of her slanders against your testimony, particularly if you want to offer further support for your position. I'll give you the time to do that now.

[Richard Dias]

Thank you.

I want to be very clear that I am not anti-immigrant, because I can't be anti-my mom and I sure as heck can't be anti-my dad either. I'm an extremely proud child of immigrants. I grew up in a country that offered my parents the opportunities they would never have been afforded in their countries. They're extremely proud Canadians, and I would never, ever shy away from that.

I was asked to discuss the root of youth unemployment. Whether you look at the Bank of Canada's paper—and I would submit to you that the Bank of Canada is not politically charged; we can agree it's an independent source—or whether you look at the labour force survey of July where it discusses the increase in youth unemployment, the issue is that we flooded a labour market. What I mean by flooded is the population of people aged 15 to 24 in 2021 was about 4.38 million people. It is now at 5 million on the button. That's 600,000 new people in that age cohort.

In that same time frame—I'm looking at the data right in front of me, from the labour force survey of Statistics Canada—in 2022, there were 2.5 million jobs for that same age cohort, and now there are 2.7 million jobs.

We can dink and dither about whether it's polite to say this or that, but the reality is that the reason youth unemployment is so high—it's the highest it's been ex-COVID since 1977—is a poorly thought-out immigration policy that directly affected it.

I have one more point. One of the problems that other witnesses mentioned was that businesses are always asking for experience. That credentialism is exactly what the Bank of Canada cited as one of the issues with flooding a labour market with low-skilled, low-wage workers.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

I note, Ms. Krieger, that you also had some comments about the immigration system. You spoke as well about the importance of credential recognition—how, when there's a failure of credential recognition, you have newcomers who could be in a higher-skilled area who are actually in a position where they're competing with young people for entry-level positions.

I wanted to give you the 30 seconds I have left to share anything else you want to add on the immigration issue specifically.

[Delaney Krieger]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

To echo what Mr. Dias said, it's a situation where nobody really wins. If we're not able to support immigrants who are coming to Canada to work in highly skilled, highly educated positions, it's doing a disservice to them and it's doing a disservice to us.

Honestly, the only people who are winning here are big corporations and big employers, who are benefiting from paying them lower wages and things like that.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Right on.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Genuis.

Now we'll go to Ms. Fancy for five minutes.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'd like to begin my five minutes by saying we have to remember what committee we are actually on right now. We are the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. This is not an immigration committee, although it factors into some of the workings that we're dealing with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Just a moment.

What is your point of order, Mrs. Goodridge? Clearly state your point of order.

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

My point of order is that this is devolving into a....

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

That is not a point of order.

Ms. Fancy, you have the floor.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

To my colleague from across the way, I was saying that this is not the immigration committee; however, there is a piece of the pie at play in regard to immigration.

Another larger societal piece I'd like to talk about is something Ms. Krieger mentioned earlier. We have one generationally larger population, with some of the younger people today.... I also want to say thank you so much for actually having the youth here for a youth study.

Ms. Krieger mentioned the boomers earlier, let's say, and how this larger demographic of people who would have typically retired is staying longer on the job. You mentioned succession planning or the lack thereof.

I wanted to give you an opportunity today to talk about this much larger piece of the pie.

Thank you.

[Delaney Krieger]

I think it really does come down to a lot of moving pieces and moving parts. We're looking at youth, so it seems counterintuitive to look at mid-career and end-of-career individuals, but there are so many moving pieces that you really do have to factor everything in.

With regard to the boomer population, we've all seen the forecasts saying that x amount of the skilled trades workplace belongs to that baby boomer generation and that they will be exiting. That's what was forecast, but that's not what's happening, due to a lack of succession planning. One of the main barriers to succession planning that I've spoken to before is this lack of mid-level population. Whether it's generation X or the millennial generation, a lot of them are leaving the workplace due to violence and harassment or to a lack of support and things like that.

That also brings in the immigration piece: Highly skilled immigrant workers come in and are unable to get their credentials recognized. They would be entering at that mid level, which is where we need them. Again, to my point, it's a disservice to us and to them not to recognize their credentials and put them in at that mid-level range, so that the boomers can do succession planning.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Ms. Krieger.

Can you also expand on the piece you discussed about mentorship with an older demographic and an incoming younger demographic?

[Delaney Krieger]

I can definitely speak to the skilled trades industry as a whole.

The boomer demographic that built the workforce is often predominantly white and male. Part of the issue with this is that when we see a younger and more diverse demographic moving into the workplace, there's a lot of resiliency that the younger demographic is facing and showing in that braveness in showing up to a place where nobody looks like you.

However, they stay there for only so long. We see that from the retention statistics. Oftentimes companies are holding on to these more senior-level individuals, and these more senior-level individuals are passing that rhetoric down. It's essentially just training generation after generation that you have to endure violence and harassment on a daily basis to pay your dues and to expand and excel in the workplace.

I think that gap of succession is more or less going from zero to 100 very quickly. We're going from a predominantly white and male workforce in the baby boomer generation, which makes up the majority of the skilled trades industry specifically, to a very diverse workforce of youth coming in, and that's caused a lot of issues within.