Industry Committee on March 23rd, 2021

[Aaron Wudrick]

I think there were bigger problems that go back a lot further than that, but this was definitely something that I think drew a lot of negative attention towards it, and rightly so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Garrison.

Welcome back to INDU.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thanks very much. I'll try to remember that I'm in the industry committee and not the defence committee—although, with aerospace, of course, as I've said before in this committee, there's a very direct connection between maintaining capacity in the aerospace industry and Canadian sovereignty.

I'm going to talk about more personal things today. First of all, I should confess that my father was a pilot and air traffic controller, so I've always been interested in this industry.

Secondly, I spent 20 years teaching in a college before I became a member of Parliament, so I'm particularly interested in Mr. Donald's comments on the labour force problems that have been presented both during the pandemic and through losses during the pandemic, and also on future needs in the industry.

I wonder whether he could tell me a bit more about it. Is it a two-faceted problem? Do we not have enough people wanting to go into the industry, combined with not enough capacity, or is it simply a capacity problem?

[Robert Donald]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

It's a little of both. I think we're getting more interest from people in coming into the industry, but capacity is a huge issue. As a practical matter, as I said, in 2018 Canadian colleges with wait-lists were only graduating 25% of the students we needed. That situation is getting worse, not better.

As I say, if we're going to rely simply on colleges, governments have to fund a massive expansion of them. I don't think that's realistic. I think, bluntly, we need to look at new ways of training that don't require five days a week, full time, at a bricks and mortar institution. I think Transport Canada has to recognize other ways of training and expand our capacity.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I think those are very useful suggestions. I hope that, when it comes to writing a report, the committee will keep those in mind.

What about attracting the non-traditional employees into the industry? I'm not just talking here about women, but about perhaps new Canadians, racialized Canadians and indigenous Canadians. Does the program that ESDC runs now actually reach out to non-traditional participants in the industry to try to encourage participation?

[Robert Donald]

Yes, we have a number of programs that are directed at north of 60, trying to encourage students to join the industry. As I alluded to in my opening remarks, one of the problems is that if you take students from the north, there are no training facilities up there. That means indigenous people have to come south to Winnipeg or otherwise for two years. The success rate is not good, for a whole variety of reasons that people have studied. We are working to get ambassadors and we're trying right now with partners in the north to get entry-level positions in the north, so we can train people in the north, etc.

ESDC is assisting in that way. We did a massive project with them on how to attract more women to the industry and how to attract more indigenous people. We conducted focus groups across the country. Now we're bluntly applying for funding to try to put some of those into action.

Does that answer your question, Mr. Garrison?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Yes, I think it does, very directly.

I want to turn to Ms. Medve to talk in a more practical sense about the impact of skill loss during COVID on her company, which I know quite a bit about because we spend a lot of time as a family in Kelowna.

You talked about losses and the difficulties of getting people back after COVID. Can you tell us a bit more about the scope of that problem, Ms. Medve?

[Tracy Medve]

Our problem wasn't really the loss of skilled workers. It was the loss of customers because our carriers are on the ground. They're not generating any revenue and they can't pay for maintenance.

We took a very deliberate decision to keep our workers working as much as we possibly could throughout the whole pandemic. We converted some of our own aircraft. We did cargo conversions on them so we were able to keep people working. We were able to keep them doing the work that they normally do. We took the opportunity to do a lot of training because we knew that once things started to come out of the lockdown, carriers were going to be back massively and very quickly wanting their airplanes maintained.

I think we've done a good job of hanging on to our staff. The problem is that we were suffering shortages before COVID hit. That goes back to what Mr. Donald was saying about not having enough colleges and enough people going through the colleges and graduating.

Interestingly enough, during COVID, Transport Canada has loosened the requirements for training to say you could do classroom training. I guess it's one of those silver linings where presumably, if it was okay this past year, it's going to be okay for the future. That will help a great deal. It will also help a great deal in attracting, say, women to this industry, if they can train in their home locations. They can train at home and have flexibility in the time that they're training during the day, so that they can look after their kids and all those kinds of things.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I realize there's very little time there, so I'll let you go to the next questioner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

We'll start our second round of questions.

Our first questioner is Mr. Généreux.

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

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Arthur, from The Boeing Company.

Mr. Arthur, WestJet cancelled an order for 15 aircraft in the last few weeks. This clearly affects your company. The pandemic has a direct impact on your company.

What are the implications of that decision in Canada?

[Michael Arthur]

Thank you, Mr. Généreux.

If I've understood your question, it's about the recent order of the Max for WestJet. The Max is now back flying. Thank you to Transport Canada for having reauthorized that.

These are planes made in the United States, so I wasn't quite clear why your question was on the impact in Canada. These are the most fuel-efficient planes we sell. They're 25% more efficient than the planes that they replace, across the board. In terms of sustainability, this is the state-of-the-art offering that we have.

Does that answer your question, Mr. Généreux?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Yes, thank you.

Mr. Wudrick, earlier, you set the cat among the pigeons by saying that all the witnesses we have heard so far in this study were essentially lobbyists trying to save their jobs.

Is it not important to find a balance between the amount of money that the Canadian government can provide to the aerospace industry as a whole, in order to create jobs and ensure good wages for workers, and the amount of money that Canadian taxpayers have to pay to fund these subsidies, loans or benefits granted to the industry, as to all other industries?

Earlier, my colleague from the Bloc Québécois talked about the importance of the automobile industry for Ontario and the oil industry for the west.

Am I to understand that, in your opinion, there should be absolutely no more subsidies in Canada, in any way whatsoever?

[Aaron Wudrick]

Yes, you would understand correctly. That's our position, and I recognize that a lot of people take that to be an extreme position.

I think that the onus really needs to be reversed. We're arriving at a point in this country.... I spend a lot of time in Ottawa around a lot of lobbyists and a lot of industries, and their marching orders are to see what's on offer from government. Their marching orders are to see what the government is prepared to give them. I think that's a very unhealthy business climate for any country to be cultivating.

I am not an advocate of making the perfect the enemy of the good, so I recognize that it's not going to be “snap your fingers and nobody gets any subsidies”. However, I just want to always put out there that there are ways to help businesses that don't involve direct taxpayer support. I am alarmed that, in some cases, a lot of groups and individuals seem to assume that what we need to do any time there is a problem with a business or an industry is to run to the rescue with a bucket of taxpayer money. I think that should be an instinct that we need to check.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

If I understand correctly, you would, nevertheless, be in favour of a national strategy supporting the industry and proposing solutions to do so.

As you said yourself, we are in a competitive global market. If all countries, be it Germany, France or other major G7 or G20 countries, continue to support their aerospace industry with hundreds of billions of dollars, and Canada stops supporting its industry, don't you think that we would inevitably lose a definite advantage over all other countries and our competitors around the world?

[Aaron Wudrick]

First of all, I want to be clear. I am a big supporter of the marketplace and business, and I wish all the best to any business and any industry that can do well in the marketplace. I'm not anti-business by any stretch of the imagination.

With regard to your point about the reality of the global marketplace, I acknowledge that, but I also point out that we'll have to pick and choose who we support. We cannot support every industry that goes up against global competitors that are subsidized. That, in itself, is a choice. We are not going to be able to subsidize every business in every industry to survive against global competition that is also subsidized, especially—

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

So how do you make that choice?

[Aaron Wudrick]

That's for the politicians to make, but you have to recognize that it is a choice and that you are essentially going to be saying to the public that some industries and some jobs are more important than others.

How are people who are not in those industries going to receive that kind of news?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Based on your remarks, you are saying that the oil and automobile sectors are more important than the aviation sector. So you are supporting the Bloc Québécois argument that there will never be a majority government in Canada. Is that it?

[Aaron Wudrick]

I don't support subsidies to any business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Jaczek.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses. This has been a very interesting discussion this morning.

I am also on the transport committee, so I've heard a great deal about the devastation that COVID-19 has had on the aviation sector as well as the aerospace industry. However, as Mr. Donald has told us very clearly, we're looking at a dramatic resurgence, no doubt, of the need for airplanes and flights, and people.... There will be a certain pent-up demand, clearly, that will occur.

I was particularly struck by Ms. Medve's investment in the training facility that she told us about in Hamilton. It's a sort of vertical integration of her business, obviously, having those maintenance workers available to grow her business.

I am wondering if Boeing has similarly invested in training in any particular sector in the aerospace industry.

Michael or—I would really be interested in any investment in Canada—maybe Mr. Sullivan, would either of you please tell us about your investments in training specifically?

[Michael Arthur]

There are two things I would say. First, we have partnerships with seven different Canadian universities where we do a bit of research, but we also invest for recruitment purposes.

If you look at what I was mentioning earlier in Vancouver and the cluster work we have there, you see that the workforce there comes out of Canadian universities with a very close association with us. This is not training pilots in the conventional sense, but it's part of our workforce development.

The second point I would make, which is perhaps tangential, goes back to the subsidy issues. I don't want to enter into that, but if the customer is the government—and, for example, we are campaigning on the defence side for your future fighter, and the customer is the taxpayer and thus the government.... If that project goes through, Doyletech Corporation has calculated that over a 40-year period, 250,000 jobs will be created as a sort of follow-on to it.

Necessarily, as we develop all that, we will have to be a part of the training of the workforce we bring on. Yes is the basic answer. We do take training of our workforce very seriously, but we don't actually have a pilot training school in Canada.

Does Duff want to add to that?

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Could you just clarify, on the partnership issue, whether you actually flow funds from Boeing for these training opportunities?

[Michael Arthur]

They tend to be more research grants, as well as student scholarship types of funds.