Evidence of meeting #14 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was universities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
That partnership is really critical, and we need to know that for our study, so if we have a problem or a manufacturer has a problem, there is a network to tap into that we can direct them to.
5:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Government Relations and Canadian Partnerships, Colleges and Institutes Canada
I don't know how familiar you are with the Winnipeg area and Red River College. That is a great example of a cluster in action.
The movement of people around business, the university, and the two colleges in that area—Red River College and MITT.... When you talk to those people, it is part of their daily life, and I think that is true in cities across the country.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Thank you.
I think the most shocking thing I have heard so far today was the year in which Mr. Longfield graduated from university. I never would have guessed that. This coming from a guy who.... Somebody thought I was a grandpa yesterday, so there you go.
My first question is for Paul. The question I have for you is on the number of openings in a certain field or specialization and the price point for tuition.
I am going to give you the example of teachers. I know this is a manufacturing study, but there are parallels here. For over a decade in Ontario, which is the province I come from, there were at least twice as many or five times as many teaching spots available for the number of teachers that were retiring. Now we have a massive surplus of teachers.
Do we need to take another look at how many openings there are for engineering and how many openings we have for arts programs, and try to encourage people to head into areas where there is going to be demand and high-paying jobs?
I want to hear your thoughts on that, specifically from the university standpoint.
5:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Universities Canada
Better labour market information will make a huge difference for everyone. That is the first point.
The second point is....
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
I am sorry to interrupt you. Just on that point, I would be shocked if there is any faculty in this country that doesn't know what is going on. Any people in charge of the university have to understand. Maybe you need some empirical data to back up your decision, but at the same time, when you read a story like the one in.... I will use the example of the London Free Press, where it went on for a decade.
How quickly can you pivot and make it not 10 or 15 years, but three or four years?
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Universities Canada
That is a great example. Frankly, the Government of Ontario was providing incentives to universities to increase the number of places for students to study education, and universities responded, because the government asked them to respond. That is why I say, be very careful what you ask us to deliver, because we will over-deliver.
Your second question was with regard to....
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Universities Canada
I want to come back to the question of what people should be studying, engineering or arts.
Watch for the data coming out from U of O in the next few weeks, because what it will show is that 90% of graduates are earning income within six months of graduation, and 80% of that is within their field of study.
We have a shortage of talent across the spectrum in this economy, and to pit arts students against engineering students is doing a disservice to Canada's economy.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Yes, and that's not what I'm trying to come off as, and that's not where the root of my question was. My point is that we hear from manufacturers. We hear from other businesses and industries that they need workers. They need skilled workers, engineers, tradespeople, on and on. We hear this every day. Yet the price of tuition for an engineering student is almost double what it is for an arts student. To me, it should be the reverse, or at least it should be equal.
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Universities Canada
The cost of delivering an engineering program is much more expensive than it is to deliver an arts program.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Fair enough, fair enough, I wouldn't argue with that. But I would also add that we need lots of engineers, we are short of engineers. We are importing engineers across the field.
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Universities Canada
Again, it's very specific, it's very sectoral. That's why the evidence is helpful to bring to bear. Again, I was not involved in the community at that point, but we were told in the ITC sector that we needed a huge number of engineers to graduate right up until the 2000 bubble burst, and then we were over-producing for a period of time.
I'm a big believe in labour market information, but I don't want for a minute to say that we're all going to be like Kreskin and predict the future perfectly. What we need is capacity in this country to know where we are, to know where we're going, and be able to course-correct quickly. The labour market information will help us do that.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
All right. We may agree on some things and disagree on others, I think, at this point.
My question now is for the colleges. I've talked to many businesses in my riding and other businesses throughout the nearly eight years I've represented my riding. I'll give you one example that is about specialty butchering and abattoir. Olds College in Alberta has a very focused program that is relevant to the needs of small abattoirs, butchers, etc.
I'm not talking about Cargill meats and a large assembly line. I'm talking about small town or neighbourhood butcher shops. There are very limited programs in this country that deal with these specialized areas, so it kind of goes back to what I asked Paul. When do colleges make the linkage that there are openings for specialized programs? When are we going to start to connect the dots here and offer a program in Ontario like Olds College has? I'll use Ontario as an example.
5:10 p.m.
Vice-President, Government Relations and Canadian Partnerships, Colleges and Institutes Canada
MaryLynn is going to have some good local examples at Georgian, but in general I talked about the program advisory committees that are set up. Colleges have a pretty active labour market information system going in terms of their connections to programs. Because they were mandated originally to respond to local needs, they're setting their enrolment numbers based on what employers are telling them. They meet a couple of times a year. They're talking about curriculum, but they're also talking about demand and whether or not those local businesses and associations see things growing, shrinking or new areas growing—
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Okay, then you would know better than me, but in the particular example I gave, I'm not so sure there's a college, other than maybe George Brown College, in this entire province that offers that. Certainly, over the last 15 years somebody must have made those connections, but they're not offering the courses.
Maybe it's that these small butcher shops and abattoirs don't have a big lobby to get their point across, but you only need to look in the job ads for all these positions that are available from one end of the province to the other. How do you make that, where you actually trigger a program like Olds?
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Georgian College
It's pretty interesting, because actually our provincial government is asking us for differentiation, not to repeat what everybody else is doing. For example, we happen to have the only marine cadet and pilot program and technologist program in Ontario, because that supplies the workforce. We have Canada's only automotive business dealers degree that teaches people how to manage an automotive dealership in Canada. I hear what you're saying—
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
I'm not going to be difficult here with you, and I think those programs are great. My area is the Port of Goderich, so we love the students you teach in that training.
My point is, how long does it take to actually create a course? Once they're going, that's great, but does it take 20 years to create an abattoir program?
5:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Georgian College
No, but it's the first time I've heard of it—
5:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Georgian College
—so I'm going to look into it. You never know, it might be a good program for Georgian.
5:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Georgian College
All right.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
