Thank you, Madam Chairman. Good afternoon, members of the committee and fellow witnesses. Thank you for inviting me to share my thoughts on your important study. On behalf of my organization, I hope to bring value to the committee, and I hope this is not the last time we will see each other.
Our organization is called the Canadian Building Trades. We represent about 550,000 organized construction workers from coast to coast to coast. Our members work in 15 different craft unions and over 50 trades. These include heavy-equipment operators, carpenters, welders, bricklayers, and everything in between. We build infrastructure: heavy industrial plants such as oil refineries, nuclear plants, schools, hospitals, and houses.
In preparation for my remarks today I found formal information and sought out first-hand accounts from our members. According to a 2008 study by the Construction Sector Council, 4% of our 550,000 membership are women. Some of the trades have a much lower penetration, approximately 2%. We have quite a number of women working as insulators, carpenters, and painters. There are fewer working as bricklayers, concrete finishers, steam fitters, and electricians. These percentages have held true for a good while. But nationally, the industry has grown by 45% over the last 10 years. In B.C. and Alberta, our industry has increased 100%. This means that, proportionally, there has been an increase in people engaged in construction.
I want to give you some background on the apprenticeship challenges we face today. Then the challenges facing our female apprentices will be self-evident. In Canada, apprenticeship registrations are at an all-time high, yet graduation numbers have been stagnant since about 1995. There is a systemic problem with apprenticeship completion in Canada. In the case of women in apprenticeships, particularly in construction, the completion rate of apprentices is less than 1%. This means that one out of 100 entrants we have managed to attract to our trades successfully progresses through the curriculum and work requirements to get journey status. This would help explain low female participation in our ranks today.
I don't think gender has much to do with completing an apprentice program. I've put together a small list of challenges any apprentice would face in our industry.
First, there is the lack of stability. This is a reality in construction. We are cyclical in nature, and this leads to movement to other industries where work is more predictable. In a bad year, construction can get you 700 to 1,000 hours of work. In a good year, you could get more than 2,200 hours. In a very good year, like the last number of years, you could have as much as 3,000 hours. Our workplaces do not have flexible hours, nor are the conditions at some of the remote work camps ideal.
Second, there are life events. No one can control what life is going to throw at an apprentice. Illnesses, children, marriage, a family move to another province—all of these can affect someone's ability to finish the program of study. The committee will be aware of the 2001 and 2006 census numbers. These figures give us a road map of which trades we need to work on. No doubt these numbers are why the committee is taking a look at these important issues.
The third thing I discovered when preparing for this presentation is kind of scary. Decisions we make in high school affect the rest of our lives. Don't ask my wife about that. The Construction Sector Council surveyed a number of young women in their formative years and discovered that if young women were exposed to trade competencies and opportunities, they were more likely to go on to careers in the trades.
In some parts of Canada, trade or shop classes have lost favour and have in many cases been pulled altogether, because of cost factors or risk of injury to students. In Austria and Germany, where students have significant exposure to these competencies, the participation rate in apprenticeships is much higher than it is in Canada, the U.S., or Australia.
The fourth thing I found in preparation for my remarks today was some of the work the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum did recently on why women enter the trades. They outlined a three-pronged hypothesis explaining why the women they surveyed entered their trades. The first hypothesis was the expectation of steady work, the second was interest in their work, and the third was the desire for self-employment.
I have a couple of comments on the study. Again, we are a very cyclical economy, and construction is also a late responder to economic conditions. The recession in the trades is still coming, and the largest majority of certified people in Canada are not self-employed but work for small and medium-sized contractors.
So it seems as if we have our work cut out for us, educating people about what to expect as a tradesperson. As I move along in my remarks, we will look to this committee and the Government of Canada to assist.
The final thing I've brought to you are some ancillary remarks and experiences I collected from our trades and contractor partners when I surveyed them last week. Large construction companies—I would consider a large construction company as one with more than 100 employees—are making some inroads on the construction management side of our business. According to Tony Fanelli, manager of labour relations at Bantrell Constructors Company out of Montreal and Toronto, women have grown in numbers in his organization in roles focused on inspection services, health and safety, representative services, logistics, and engineering. These are all positive steps. I would consider a small construction company as a company with less than 100 employees. There the challenges are greater, as many of the above competencies are generally subcontracted out to other companies. In this case, you get who you get when you subcontract work to other companies.
From my survey of our membership, I discovered a few organizations adding value in many regions of the country. There are initiatives like Alberta's Women Building Futures, Saskatchewan Women in Trades and Technology, the Women Unlimited project in Nova Scotia, and the STEP program in British Columbia. The STEP program is the skilled trades employment program, which is a joint initiative between the British Columbia Construction Association and the Government of B.C. This program concentrates on matching employers and those interested in trades opportunities. These are formal, not-for-profit pre-apprentice programs for women interested in a career in our industry.
Of note, our construction trades in Nova Scotia donate three cents per hour of work to a group called Texploration. Texploration promotes careers in the sciences, trades, and technical and technology-related occupations, and they promote this among women in grades 9 to 12. We're launching a similar program to Texplorations in Newfoundland in conjunction with the Vale Inco smelter project in Long Harbour.
To wrap up, your invitation to speak today stimulated a number of questions in our organization in regard to how we can do things better. Here are some questions we are now asking ourselves as it relates to workforce diversity. Are our workplace tasks attractive to women, and what can we do to improve things? Is our construction culture attractive to women? If we're not an attractive culture, how do we get there? How do young women find out about construction jobs? The last questions that were stimulated are, where and how do these women get trained and who is going to help women stay in apprenticeship programs?
Going forward, the message I'd like to deliver to you is as follows. The Canadian building trades would be willing to partner and work collaboratively with the Government of Canada and the provincial authorities responsible, to initiate a pilot program with our contractors. Perhaps a construction sector council could be a vehicle to move this initiative forward. We need continued support in promoting our trades as a viable career choice for young men and women alike. That support comes from the Government of Canada: it comes through the EI system, the apprenticeship incentive grant, and tangible places like the Parliament of Canada.
If this committee can advocate in any way that there is a great future in the trades, our industry would be grateful. In the new year—I believe it's March, and I feel like a billboard for the Construction Sector Council—the council is having a symposium focused on this very topic. I believe it is in March 2010, and I think they would extend an invitation to everyone on this committee.
Thank you for inviting the Canadian Building Trades. I look forward to your questions.
