Human Resources Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

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

I know that if you're an apprentice in Ontario and you move to Manitoba—I'm from Manitoba—you now have to deal with Apprenticeship Manitoba to try to transfer your schooling and your hours. It's very difficult. I think there's a lot of room for improvement there.

Have you spoken with any of the provincial representatives from the respective apprenticeship branches and gotten feedback?

[Shaudia Ricketts]

Yes, I sit on the board with Shelley Gray, from SkilledTradesBC. We went through this issue because Kiewit itself has a couple of different projects in those provinces, between Alberta and British Columbia. For her, it was, “Okay, let's work together so that we can solve this issue.” I think they would be willing to look at the issue and try to solve it. Again, it comes down to ensuring that the credentials and technical training are similar.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.

Mr. Joseph, you have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, Ms. Gessesse. I wanted to congratulate you on your fight to help young people. I know it's not an easy fight. Rest assured, it's a legitimate fight.

In collaboration with community organizations like yours, what concrete steps should employers take to ensure that systemic inequities in access to employment for Black youth are no longer perpetuated?

I'll give you time to answer my question. I may have another question for you after that.

[Agapi Gessesse]

Thank you for the question.

I think we have a lot of examples of this if we look at our partners. Zurich Insurance has identified a labour gap in their organization. They came to us and said that they wanted to see more insurance underwriters. They helped us build the curriculum. They helped us deliver the curriculum to the young people through their employee engagement. That allowed for familiarity to be there. In the end, they hired the entire cohort. They built the program with us so that they could create a pipeline. Not only did they help us create that pipeline; they brought along other insurance companies, such as Marsh, to also become employer partners.

There's a lot of power that corporations have to ensure that this happens. This is also beneficial to the employers. The employers are able to, number one, get to know the young people before they enter into their workforce. They're able to make our curriculum and experience as realistic as possible to when program participants actually end up in their workplace. I also think that, instead of just hiring someone off of Indeed or LinkedIn, you actually have time to spend with someone, to really understand them and to know exactly what skills they're going to have coming into the organization, because you've helped foster that development and build those skills.

From a corporation's perspective, there are a lot of things that can be done, but I think it needs to come outside of just the will of organizations that know they want to reach a broader demographic of Canadians and that this is an untapped pool. There need to be incentives and some pushing of government to also initiate those relationships as well.

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

I'm going to follow up with another question for Ms. Gessesse.

The government has put in place quite a few initiatives that you've had a chance to participate in, and you've been able to get young people to benefit from them. Which of these federal initiatives have had the greatest concrete impact on the lives of the young people you support?

Can you give us an example or share a personal story of a young person who benefited from a program supported by the federal government?

[Agapi Gessesse]

Yes, for sure I can do that. I have many.

I would definitely say right now that the YESS program is one of the programs that the federal government is providing that really speaks to the demographic we serve. It is really focused on the wraparound supports that are necessary and the life stabilization that's necessary for a young person. It allows us, as an organization, the flexibility to really understand where the funds should go based on the young person's needs. Again, not every young person is the same. There isn't a magic formula as to how we're going to serve Black youth specifically. It takes intentionality and an individual approach to each young person who walks through our doors.

I think the YESS program is a perfect example of something that was developed, and CEE was part of the development or shaping of that. That's a perfect example of a program that has worked. I've worked with many young people who have benefited from that, but I do have one individual who was furthest from the labour market, who was, for lack of a better term, making money on the black market, who had come out of incarceration and who ended up going and making a decision that he wanted to change his life. The life stabilization supports that CEE provided really helped him with that because for many of the young people, particularly the ones who might have been in contact with the law or might have been incarcerated, when they come back out, they're coming back to the same communities where maybe friends or those folks may put them in the same situation.

One of the wraparound supports that were provided was a safety plan for this young person. When you're telling friends you used to roll with that you don't want to be their friend anymore, that you don't want to engage in what they're doing, that puts a target on your back as well, so we were able to put a safety plan in place for this young man. He went from, at the beginning of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Gessesse.

Thank you, Mr. Joseph.

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. Hersch mentioned something earlier that was discussed by the previous panel, young people's expectations.

I know we haven't been able to get very far on that topic, but I imagine it's about young people's expectations when it comes to jobs.

Mr. Hersch, I'd like to know more about this.

[Joe Hersch]

A little bit of complacency is a theme that we've seen over the years—that things are just going to magically land in people's laps. Anybody who's in this room has probably been in the same boat as I have and everybody else. There's no magical thing that's going to happen. I'm not sure where this whole thing emanates from, but you have to start at the bottom. I worked at a couple of fast food restaurants when I was 15 years old to start with, and I'm sure that other people can attest to similar experiences. There has to be a bit of a change in the attitudes and philosophy of youth.

There are other factors, too, about reliability, turnover and productivity. They're complex things. Nobody can come up with a single statement or a single solution at this point. It's a difficult thing. However, we definitely see that as a problem: that expectations are.... I'm not quite sure how to put this in a politically correct way, but yes, there has to be a change from the youth. They do have to start at the bottom. I guess there has to be incentive, too. Like Ms. Ricketts pointed out with the trades industries and as we can also attest to, how do we incent people to want to do those things?

The youth are a little bit confused and clouded in their viewpoints. I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Gill.

That concludes the second hour of witness testimony on this important study. I would like to thank the witnesses for appearing and sharing their information this afternoon with the committee.

Thank you.

With that, is it the will of the committee to adjourn?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We are adjourned.