Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I really appreciate the opportunity to address you today on the issue of labour availability in the transportation sector.
My name is Sean Strickland. I'm the executive director of Canada's Building Trades Unions. I represent 14 international construction unions, 60 different trades and over 600,000 members across Canada. These include Teamsters Canada, which appeared before the committee previously. They represent over 125,000 members. Members of the Teamsters locals in Canada provide packaging, transportation and warehousing of goods and materials in almost every sector of the economy, including the construction sector. According to StatsCan, as of 2017, 90% of freight shipments in Canada are hauled by truck. Truck drivers are an integral part of the construction industry supply chain.
As the committee has heard, labour availability across a broad range of sectors has been heavily impacted since the pandemic. The construction industry is no different. Supply chain disruptions caused by a shortage of truck drivers have caused project delays on construction projects right across Canada. This, combined with the skilled trades shortages that our unions are experiencing, means the construction industry is facing many challenges. According to BuildForce, the industry is likely to be short about 29,000 workers in 2027.
We need workers. Workers in construction and in the trucking sector are aging, and more young workers are needed to meet the demand. The median age of truck drivers in Canada is rising rapidly. StatsCan's data also shows very high levels of job vacancies, reaching over 26,000 vacancies in Q2 of this year. The Canadian Trucking Alliance estimates that by 2024, there could be as many as 50,000 job vacancies for truck drivers across the country.
Many believe these trucking labour issues are due in part to poor working conditions. These include inadequate rest areas, especially in more rural and remote parts of Canada, along with long hours with little notice of work starts. As well, long-haul drivers are required to spend significant time away from home, which makes it particularly difficult for parents to work in the industry, especially since new generations of workers place greater emphasis on work-life balance.
The trucking industry also grapples with negative perceptions, as do the skilled trades. We need to place more value on both sectors.
Recruiting, training and retaining workers is what Canada's Building Trades Unions has been doing for over 100 years. We have 195 training centres across the country and invest over $300 million of private sector funding into our training each and every year.
Based on our experience, we would say that to address labour shortages in the transportation sector, we need to consider a multipronged approach. We need to educate more Canadians about how the trades and transportation sectors offer professional career opportunities that are open to everyone. We need to value the professionalism, skills, training and opportunities that these professions offer and the important economic impact they have on Canada.
We need to continue to invest in apprenticeship and training through federally funded programs like the Apprenticeship Service grant and union training and innovation program, which we are using to fund the Office to Advance Women Apprentices to get more women into the construction trades and which our industry is also using to expand training capacity. Similar approaches to workforce development could be put into place for the trucking and transportation sector.
Employers and government also need to work together to maintain Canada's labour standards and strengthen labour standards in the trucking sector to retain workers. This includes, as I mentioned, having more rest areas, supporting workers with families and paying workers adequate wages.
To further ensure that Canada meets its labour supply needs today, we suggest some immediate changes to Canada's immigration policies. We strongly encourage the Government of Canada to develop a construction immigration stream to bring in skilled trades immigrants. This program could be modelled after the Atlantic immigration program, which has been successful in bringing in over 12,700 newcomers, both international students and skilled workers, including truck drivers.
Through the express entry system, the government has the ability to prioritize skilled trades workers to bring more workers in faster. Earlier this year, the express entry program was opened up to truckers, a step in the right direction to address labour shortages.
There is also an opportunity to improve and strengthen the temporary foreign worker program to support the trucking sector and the larger construction industry. Right now the trucking sector is one of the largest users of the temporary foreign worker program. In many cases, these TFWs are often exploited.
To strengthen the use of the temporary foreign worker program to support the industry's long-term labour needs, the Canadian government should return to requiring unions to be consulted prior to labour market impact assessment applications, strengthen compliance measures and penalties for bad-actor employers and change the method to calculate the prevailing wage.
Additionally, to meet long-term labour needs, a framework should be established to enable unions to sponsor TFWs to gain permanent resident status.
I wish to thank the committee for this opportunity to present today, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.