Hello, and thank you again for the invitation to speak with you today.
I'm Mike Whelan, chair of Supply Chain Canada's board of directors. I'm joined virtually today by Martin Montanti, the president and CEO of Supply Chain Canada.
I would like to begin with an introduction to Supply Chain Canada and our association.
With its roots dating back to 1919, Supply Chain Canada, also known as SCC, is one of the oldest and largest supply chain associations in the world. Supply Chain Canada is a national organization that provides critical skills, networking opportunities and advocacy for its members.
Supply Chain Canada is one association with multiple parts. We are composed of eight institutes across the country, and through our eight provincial and territorial institutes, Supply Chain Canada grants the supply chain management professional, or SCMP, designation, the highest achievement in the field and the mark of a strategic leadership in a supply chain. Leaders from our institutes and from the national office form our federation council, bringing different perspectives from all parts of the country from coast to coast to coast.
With over 4,000 members across Canada, our goal is to provide leadership to the Canadian supply chain community and to work with government to address the ongoing needs of Canada's end-to-end supply chain. With our membership, we work to generate and share ideas to improve the supply chain system and ensure that Canada is a strong and competitive environment for domestic and international investment.
In 2022, Supply Chain Canada was pleased to see the Government of Canada move forward with a supply chain task force and was ready and willing to participate. We believe that this is a vital step in addressing some of the most pressing issues across our supply chains. Supply Chain Canada was honoured to provide valuable insight into the creation of the supply chain task force report—“Action. Collaboration. Transformation.”—which outlines specific goals across the supply chain.
In 2023, Supply Chain Canada held a town hall with its members across the country to review the report by the supply chain task force. Our members welcomed the opportunity to react and share their expert advice on how to ensure that the goals in the report are met in a timely and efficient manner.
Through our ongoing collaboration with the supply chain task force, Supply Chain Canada was able to provide our members' highest priorities to ensure that Canada addresses the needs and shortcomings of our supply chain. Supply Chain Canada members provided the task force with recommendations on three core themes: automation and technology, supply chain disruptions and labour shortages.
Under automation and technology, it was discussed that we need to introduce government grants that encourage automation at ports and other key points in the supply chain to support increased efficiency and reliability; prioritize the development of guidelines to ensure that our supply chains are safe from cybersecurity threats; and create jobs through the modernization and optimization of Canada's aging infrastructure to further increase Canada's economy.
Under supply chain disruptions, it was recommended to ensure that disruptions—environmental, protests, cybersecurity, etc.—are mitigated through intergovernmental partnerships. This would not only help to ensure stability across the chain but would specifically help to mitigate external and international threats related to our cybersecurity, whether they are caused by natural disasters, human mischief and/or labour disputes. Risk mitigation strategies must be developed. We also need to guarantee that new technology and automated infrastructure has a reliable cybersecurity network to make Canada a reliable global partner. As well, we need to introduce an intraprovincial communication channel for proactive messaging to enhance collaboration between provinces and territories on supply chains.
Under labour shortage, we provided recommendations such as familiarize high school students with a basic understanding of our supply chains and the ways they affect people across Canada and around the globe; ensure that Canada's training programs and designations are in line with the realities and experiences of modern supply chains; and shift toward a balanced training approach by ensuring that training programs return to in-person, ultimately allowing professionals to get hands-on experience during their training. Other recommendations were to address the elimination of red tape to ensure that foreign workers can fill labour gaps by obtaining timely work permits, including in sectors where domestic talent might not exist; explore accrediting qualified permanent residents and student visa holders to address some of our short-term as well as long-term labour goals; and promote professional careers across the supply chain to create competitiveness and increase investments in the manufacturing, distribution and production of goods and services.
Each of these recommendations can be found in the report entitled “Transforming Ideas into Action”, which was submitted to the supply chain task force in 2023.
Through the town hall with our members, it became clear that Canada's labour shortage is based on a skills shortage. Through its many training and skill development programs, Supply Chain Canada is poised to train and fill labour gaps through our competency benchmarking tool and education program. It can benefit both the practitioners and organizations in the supply chain industry, and it can be used to identify strengths, analyze skill gaps and benchmark the individual against peers.
It can be used to get an extensive look across functional skills, and for individual practitioners, there are more than 400 individual competencies that have been carefully chosen and laid out. Whether the individual wants to advance within their organization or pursue new opportunities, the competency benchmarking tool offers a clear road map to ensure—