Industry Committee on Nov. 20th, 2006

[Ann Janega]

We all recognize the great economic situation in Alberta right now and the challenge of the potential loss of our skilled people here.

Nationally, the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters has launched a website, www.icosmo.ca--iCOSMO is an acronym for the Alberta oil sands. It's a matching service for buyers who are registered in Alberta and potential sellers from across Canada, and it is the particular interest here. So as we speak there are new companies signing on to this service, and the advantage for them is that they will have the opportunity to do business into the future.

A particular event we are promoting, which Nova Scotia is promoting here on December 12, is the opportunity for our manufacturers to get together to hear about a very large buyer-seller forum that will be held in March 2007 in Alberta. It will be comparable to trade missions that our governments often sponsor to other countries, except our firms from across Canada--and particularly from the east in my case--are going to meet with designated buyers of services in many fields that are supporting the oil sands. There will be a lot of attention on metal fabrication--the steel industry, as we've heard--but other areas too. So we're trying to make it easy for our local businesses to stay strong and build their businesses by taking advantage of the opportunities in the west.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I would like to make a brief comment before Mr. Durdan replies. For Canadians out West, they are currently losing out on business opportunities because they do not have enough industries to meet the demand. We are looking at a win-win scenario that may improve.

My next question is for Mr. Durdan. In my riding, there is a small foundry called Fonderie Poitras Ltée. To answer the question asked earlier, there is a federal program called Technology Partnerships Canada, which was initially set up to serve the type of project that you yourself are developing. The program is currently being assessed. We're hoping that the federal government will extend and improve the program so that it can be beneficial to industrial sectors such as yours. It would be interesting for you to have additional information. Can you tell us what the ideal conditions would be for this program to help your industry in a concrete manner, because governments are disconnected from industry needs.

What is the winning formula for a proper relationship?

[Robert Durdan]

I'm not aware of the program that the foundry in your constituency is using, but--

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I don't know if the people from Fonderie Poitras Ltée. used that program, but I believe that the Technology Partnerships Program would be helpful to you in developing the prototype to process shellfish and fish.

[Robert Durdan]

I would very much like to get more information on that program and how it works. My view is that with the changing economy there's research and development of new product in the marketplace. We do have industry associations where Quebec foundries and Ontario foundries do meet. There's a Canadian Foundry Association, and one in the United States, a broader one, that's North American-wide, that we belong to. That's probably the best forum to bring together people in that industry and have them look at issues related to the federal government and its support of industry and how we go forth.

I think they're relatively effective groups. I've met a number of foundry people from Quebec and Ontario, and every time we get together we learn. The interesting thing is in most cases we don't compete against each other. We're exporting to the U.S. or exporting elsewhere in Canada and we don't seem to bump heads. It's a cooperative relationship.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We'll go to Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thanks so much.

I know we're running really close, and I know Mr. McTeague hasn't had an opportunity, so I'll maybe pop one question.

Mr. Durdan, I want to just go to one issue, and I'm looking for suggestions here. How do we link you throughout the country with all these industries that are doing great things every day, just like you say, are doing their research and coming up with things within their own manufacturing? What are the logistics of this? Is it through the manufacturing coalition? How do you get to it? Does anyone have a suggestion of how that might work? I think it's really critical. We've heard we have a disconnect between academia and what's needed out in the manufacturing and industry part. How do we bring that together, the logistics of it, so that there's a vehicle to put the flag up to you and say, “Robert, we haven't heard from you. What about...?”

[Robert Durdan]

The only thing that really came to mind immediately, Mr. Shipley, was a liaison officer who would work between industry and academia to pull the resources together and move things along. There are a lot of creative things going on at the universities as well, which we don't have access to. We might have access to it if we'd get out and find it, but to bring the two parties together when they're so busy is difficult at the best of times.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Yes, I agree, and I think some of that has come up. We've clearly been told that there's a disconnect and we're now going to have to find the vehicle. We'd like to get from any of you the efficient vehicle without layering more of the civil service to do it. How do we get it to be an effective, productive vehicle through which you can access it?

[Robert Durdan]

In the U.S. they're far more cooperative in their approach, and far more effective in delivering technology from academia to industry, and vice versa, and the interchange creates products and jobs.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Yes, okay.

I don't know if Mr. McTeague has one.

[Charles Cirtwill]

Can I just add one point?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Sure. Yes, please.

[Charles Cirtwill]

You asked for ideas. The federal government spends a lot of money on research and development. Have we ever considered putting a condition on it that there's a requirement for a partnership between the private sector and the university? That's one suggestion. You've already got the resources and the infrastructure in place to monitor compliance. Certainly people respond to incentives, and if that's an incentive, then they're going to find ways to work together.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

One of the other things that was mentioned that is maybe worth making sure it is in it is that there are measures in terms of productivity and how you measure for the staging of funding. It all then comes to an end if it doesn't actually become effective research and result in productivity for the industry in the end and how it is actually integrated with the industry. I think those sorts of things laid out clearly would be very beneficial for us and appreciated.

[Charles Cirtwill]

I know you're short on time, but it gets back to this question of how the federal government actually has a nice model for bringing private sector people into the public sector to get fresh ideas and to encourage those interrelationships. There's certainly an avenue there to find a way, either through some training dollars or some tax recognition, to encourage the private sector and universities and community colleges to transfer staff between them. We do that at the trade school level in terms of apprenticeships and that kind of exercise. Maybe we should be looking at the middle and higher levels to encourage that kind of interchange.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. McTeague.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Chair, thank you.

Mr. Shipley, thank you for that as well.

If any of you can resolve the problems that one experiences in having their baggage lost by Air Canada, I'd be very glad to put that as a recommendation to the chair when we do follow-up.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I think one of the members of our committee would. I think he was the former transport minister.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Hence the lack of a tie.

I apologize again for not being here for the presentation, but I am interested in canvassing your ideas—as briefly as I can, Chair—on the subject of using employment insurance to bolster apprenticeship training or to take on, as it were, sharing the risks in training, particularly in the apprenticeships and the trades. Would you have any opinions with respect to using EI to that effect, so that you would have perhaps a greater number of people taking up training, over a four- to five-year period for a journeyman or whatever the case may be, and with less risk to the employer?

I note that there is a comment here in French from the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters:

“Introduce a training tax credit creditable against EI premiums.“

I'd just like some comments, if you would.

[Robert Durdan]

To comment on that, in a previous life I worked as the director of HR at IMP Aerospace, in Amherst, Nova Scotia. We developed a program with the local community college that saw an advertisement go out for people who wanted to work in our aerospace divisions. One of the requirements was that you were on unemployment insurance or on welfare and were willing to go through an eleven-week program, during which your benefits would be maintained. In cooperation with the industry, we took these people and put them through some job readiness training at the community college level, and at the community college a lot of it was computer-based. In a lot of cases, these were minorities or females who were non-traditional workers.

It was in excess of 90% successful in taking people through a program that actually put them to work at the end of the program. We brought them into the plant and employed everyone who made it through the program. Without exception, they were extraordinary workers. They had the right attitude. They had the right approach. They had already committed eleven weeks of their own lives to getting trained. In the last three weeks, the industry actually took the people off-site, where we taught them how to fabricate skins for aircraft, bonding methods for putting composites together, riveting, welding, and using the skills that are required in the industry. It was a tremendous success.

We tried to do that again at Maritime Steel fairly recently as we were going through an extremely rapid growth rate, but the opportunity wasn't there. We tried to work with the Canada Employment Centre, HRSDC, and the community college to replicate the program. For whatever reason, though, it didn't work. We weren't able to get there.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Cirtwell.

[Charles Cirtwill]

Just to add a point, there was one phrase in Bob's answer that was the key to the success, and that was “maintain your benefits for the eleven weeks”. I think one of the structural problems that we have in EI right now is that it's not available currently for people who are in school or taking training. They lose those benefits. As a result, there's very little incentive to actually go out there to try to improve your skills and match your skills to employment opportunities. Of course, the challenge there is that if you expand EI into those areas, where are you going to find the money? You have to be willing to make some trade-offs on the other side, and I think there are all kinds of other areas where we could save in EI and fund it to make that transition.