Transport Committee on Oct. 19th, 2022

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you.

My question will be for Mr. Corey and Mr. Buy. You spoke about the labour shortage. There were similar shortages in the agricultural sector. That sector had serious problems with the ability to get their products to market and to get them on our tables. They came up with the seasonal agricultural worker program. Similarly, people who work shifts were unable to find reliable child care, and then the government came up with the live-in caregiver program. This program has the capacity for people to apply for permanent residency. That would attract really skilled people who probably ordinarily wouldn't go into that area, but afterwards sometimes they would even go on to become nurses and do things that enhance their lives and also our economy.

Do you project that a program similar to that could be put in place in order to induce strong candidates to come and work as truck drivers and in seafaring occupations? What would that look like?

[John Corey]

I'm not a labour expert, but I think if we do have a framework that can attract workers from other places that has the potential for them to have good-quality jobs, and not only for half a year but for the whole year, that would be extremely good. It would not be that difficult to do, because there are already people who want to come to Canada for various reasons. Having jobs available for them when they get here I think only enhances our stature as a place where people want to come.

[Serge Buy]

One of the key things that people look at when they come to Canada is that.... They've been trained in their own country, and they've done a lot of work to get that training, yet their credentials are not recognized. It's disappointing for them when they are training to international standards such as IMO standards and STCW standards, as well.

I think what we can do is look at the credential recognition on that. We are starting, as I mentioned, with bilateral agreements. We need to up our game on this and move faster on this. That will be a definite help, Dr. Lewis.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

If that program leads to permanent residency, what do you think would be a good number of years for those individuals to work to be completely trained so that they could really be good, strong contributing members for the long term? Would it be two years, one year?

[John Corey]

I would just say that whatever the requirements currently are for those industries, whether it's rail or trucking, they would obviously have to meet those requirements. There's often also a language issue involved, and I think that's a very important component of it.

[Serge Buy]

On our side, there's a bit less of a language issue. It does exist, but there is a bit less because some of the training is already done in English in other countries, or French in other countries as well, so it's a bit less on our side. For training, it depends. It can be one year to go up to the position that people want to be in.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

How much more time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have one minute and 20 seconds, Dr. Lewis.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I'm going to yield that time. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Dr. Lewis.

Finally tonight, we have Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers, you have five minutes. The floor is yours.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair

Thanks to our guests, and welcome to the committee.

I live on an island, and that's why I'm going to focus on the marine sector side. Mr. Lewis talked about how Newfoundlanders and Labradorians work on lake boats. That's been happening in our province for generations. Of course, the transportation mode in Newfoundland 60 to 80 years ago was primarily boats.

When I was a high school teacher, we implemented a program in grade 10 to bring the curriculum of the Marine Institute at Memorial University into the classroom in grade 10 to create awareness among high school students. It has generated dozens and dozens of students who have gone through the Marine Institute and are now working in offshore supply boats and different kinds of boats, fishery boats and all the rest.

I want to ask you this question, Mr. Buy. On the awareness side, do young people know that there are jobs available in this sector? What data do you have on this? How is the industry communicating with them? We did the programming in the high school, in Harbour Breton where I taught school, to create that awareness. What has the industry done to create awareness of what types of jobs are available and how well-paying some of these jobs are?

[Serge Buy]

Ultimately, the operators themselves are promoting the jobs, and indeed I'm aware of a number of operators that are in schools promoting the programs and explaining the jobs. Imagine Marine, of the Canadian Marine Industry Foundation, is also doing a great job on that front. Our operators are in schools and are promoting this.

One of your colleagues asked me what we do ourselves. We are actually putting a scholarship in place to help young women who want to train in the marine sector. So there are a lot of activities that are done by operators, by the association and others on that front. However, you're correct. I would say it's not even just high school now. It's elementary school where we need to reach out to the students.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Mr. Morel-Laforce, go ahead.

[Maguessa Morel-Laforce]

The industry is getting more and more active in spreading the good word on that and in attracting people to the training facilities. However, these training facilities are in a tough spot where provinces see these seafaring careers as a federal obligation and they often tell them that it's up to the federal government to fund them. We're talking about funding for simulators, for top-of-the-art machinery so that students can train in up-to-date classrooms. The industry is looking for the federal government to step in because it's federally regulated and provinces have a tendency of looking at the federal government for funding these initiatives from schools.

The same can be said for supporting future seafarers to go through the curriculum and, once enrolled, to have similar benefits, like the Red Seal trades or other sectors of the economy that are supported by the federal government, to encourage the completion of the course, and their cadet years as well.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you very much.

I know the Marine Institute makes a tremendous contribution to the marine sector in Newfoundland and Labrador, and actually across the country.

Mr. Badawey wanted to ask another question, so I'm going to cede the rest of my time to my colleague, Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Rogers. I'll be quick.

Mr. Corey, I give you a lot of credit for looking forward and trying to modernize...“transportation specialists”, I'll call them. I want to go down that road, and I want to get a bit more granular on that.

We have people being trained to be truck drivers. Earlier I mentioned pilots, captains and train engineers. Do you see an opportunity to give more exposure or acceptance to those who don't simply want to be a truck driver or a captain or a pilot or an engineer? Do you see an opportunity to add more corporate value by introducing you, introducing the sector and introducing the rebranded “transportation specialist”, where they would not just drive a truck or fly a plane or captain a ship or be an engineer on a train, but in fact also be a data and logistics manager?

I think a perfect example of that is Dell computers. When they move their product around, they're eliminating warehousing. They're actually getting their product on the road before it even has a destination.

Do you see an opportunity there, once again, to add corporate value as well as attraction to those who may want to get into that business, more so than in what's available to each individual today?

[John Corey]

Let's face it, 10 years ago no one knew what a supply chain was, and now we're having committee meetings about it. It's very important now. But a supply chain is not just people sitting in a cab or on a train or on a boat. There is, as you point out, a whole layer with the digitalization of it and also the data component of it. I think there could be more done to attract people into that sector or into the supply chain business, whatever you may call it.

I think the data component of it is going to be huge. There was some discussion about data already. I think the ports are ahead of the game on that in collecting data. We need to get the railways in there. We need to get trucking in there. We need just-in-time data. Currently, the data that's collected is two years old before anyone sees it. Just-in-time data is what shippers need, and I think what operators need also. That's how you make good decisions, by knowing what's happening today and not what happened two years ago.

I think there's a lot of potential for those kinds of highly technical jobs in the supply chain industry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Badawey. That takes into consideration the time that Dr. Lewis had ceded to Mr. Rogers.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our witnesses for being here this afternoon and for contributing to this very important study.

This concludes the questioning for today. Please feel free to leave at your convenience.

Colleagues, we'll now turn to committee business. We have one item on the agenda. It's an item that I had a chance to speak to many of you about at the last meeting. It's a motion that we adopted in the previous session to approve committee travel for the visiting of various ports across the country.

Given that we didn't have an opportunity to plan that out for the time between now and December 31, the clerk has advised me that we need to adopt another motion to resubmit that funding request so that we have an opportunity, should we wish to do so, to visit these ports in the winter session.

I'm asking colleagues for unanimous consent. Is there any objection to us resubmitting the request?

Yes, Mr. Strahl.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Chair, just quickly, were you successful in having the Liaison Committee approve that? Do we need to modify it at all, or is it just a matter of changing dates?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

It's just a matter of changing dates, Mr. Strahl. We were successful in securing that funding.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Excuse me, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Yes, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

We have asked to resubmit the request to push back the committee meeting. We also have a request concerning shoreline erosion. Wouldn't it be better if we used this opportunity to resubmit it as well?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

I'll turn that over to the clerk to get his guidance. Can we do both?

That's great.

We will submit both requests at the same time.

Yes, Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

To add a bit more meat to the bone on this one, with respect to all the studies we've been doing—vis-à-vis the transportation logistics study and the supply chain study, and with the expectation that ports modernization may come to us, as well as the study we're doing right now with respect to labour shortages—these trips across the country and visiting these areas will add to the knowledge of the committee by seeing first-hand what we're dealing with.

I think what's most important is not only what we're dealing with today, but how we're going to deal with it in the future because, to some extent, it's archaic. If you live in a community like mine, which has transportation attached to it as a strength, it's very disheartening to see how archaic it is in comparison to when it's strengthened and the capacity builds.

It was mentioned that the St. Lawrence Seaway is only working at 50% capacity. There's a reason for that. As a committee, we have to see it, so that when we're moving with those strategies, we can put the meat to the bone on it. It will be wonderful if we can get out there to see it first-hand.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.