Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join this debate tonight. I would like to speak to the importance of supporting the trades and encouraging apprenticeships.
As a member of the Standing Committee on Human Resources and Social Development, I have come to better understand the significant labour market challenges facing Canada during the course of this committee's employability study, specifically the testimony we heard last week as we traveled through eastern Canada, and specifically the ones I attended in Toronto and Montreal where there were certainly some impassioned discourses with the committee.
The reasons for these challenges are well known. One is demographic. Canada's workforce is aging. Large numbers of our workers in the baby boom generation are now close to retirement age and because of the low birth rate since that era, sufficient number of new workers have not been coming into the labour market to replace them.
Another reason we are experiencing labour shortages in key trades has to do with the booming regional economies. In Alberta, for example, the economy is creating more demand for workers than available in supply. In other areas, such as B.C. or parts of central Canada, skilled construction workers are in short supply. Factors like these are coming together to produce considerable challenges for our labour market.
According to the Conference Board of Canada, within the next 25 years, we will face a skills shortage of 1.2 million workers.
According to Len Crispino, president of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, my home province will face a shortage of 100,000 skilled workers within the next 15 years in the manufacturing sector alone. Moreover, Mr. Crispino has noted these challenges have extended beyond what we consider traditional trades. He stated:
It isn't just tool and die makers — or plumbers — or electricians. Ontario has a diverse — and diversifying — economy. That's one of our great strengths. But it creates challenges. We love attracting new sectors to the economy...but we need to create the workers to build and expand those sectors. Look at Niagara, a world-class wine region that has a shortage of vintners and a shortage of winery technicians. And yet we know that the wine industry will need to triple its number of employees within the next 15 to 20 years.
Clearly, the Government of Canada is concerned about the situation for two fundamental reasons. First, we have a duty to ensure our national labour market works efficiently and effectively. Second, we have a responsibility to work with stakeholders to identify and help the labour and skills needs of Canadian employers now and into the future. Nowhere are these responsibilities more important than in the area of skilled trades and apprenticeships.
We have relied and continue to rely upon the skilled trades to build our great country. For example, stop for a moment to consider the extent we rely upon skilled workers and rely upon each other as a team in the process of constructing a house. As the Calgary Herald's Tyee Bridge noted, building a single house requires the services of about 360 tradespeople. What is more, every tradesperson is dependent upon the previous trade. Tyee Bridge went on to say:
The carpet guy can't lay carpet if the stairs guys haven't done the stringer caps, the stairs guys can't start until the drywall's done, the drywallers wait on rough-ins by the electricians, plumbers and HVAC guys.
Skilled trades themselves rely upon the apprenticeship system to train and equip the succeeding generations to carry on in this tradition, but emerging traditions and trends within the trades have brought cause for concern.
A July 2006 Canadian Council on Learning apprenticeship training in Canada study made two interesting observations I would like to note today. First, among many of the skilled trades, the proportion of workers aged 55 and over is greater than that of the overall workforce. Second, the number of young workers available to replace those retiring is lower than the overall workforce. In some, the demographic trends contributing to labour market shortages are having a more pronounced impact on the trades.
The research also indicated that many young people and women are disinclined to enter the trades, mainly on account of outdated societal conventions. For far too long, young people have been counselled to avoid the trades in favour of white collar occupations. This was largely due to negative perceptions that such work was dangerous and low paying, a perception that does not bear out in practice. As Dave Benbow, president of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, noted, “We as adults never discussed the trades as a career option for our children”.
I look at my own family. My grandfather is 89 years old. He was involved, and still is, in the skilled trades, a small business in the automotive sector. He has 16 grandchildren, five kids, and none of them went into the trades. We see that generational divider where there are not enough young Canadians entering the skilled trades.
Moreover, women are not represented in the trades in sufficiently large numbers. As Toronto Star columnist Carol Goar remarked:
Gender roles haven't caught up to the reality of the marketplace. Although employers are willing to hire female electricians, carpenters and millwrights, many young women still consider these male occupations.
Without a doubt, Canada's new government recognizes that we must be proactive in encouraging entry into these trades. Entry into the trades traditionally occurs through apprenticeship. If we want to address these trends, we can start by encouraging apprenticeships. This is exactly what Canada's new government is doing, despite what Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty would suggest.
Budget 2006 introduced new measures to provide strong incentives for both employers to hire new apprentices and to encourage young Canadians to pursue apprenticeship training opportunities. The budget created a new apprenticeship job creation tax credit, providing employers with up to $2,000 per apprentice for each of the first two years of their contract in a red seal trade. It also introduced an apprenticeship incentive grant to provide apprentices with $1,000 for each of their first two years in a red seal apprenticeship program.
These two measures amount to more than a $500 million investment over the next two years that will benefit over 100,000 apprentices annually. On top of that, we brought in a tax deduction of $500 against the cost of tools over $1,000 that will benefit some 700,000 tradespeople, representing an additional investment of $155 million in the trades over the next two years by Canada's new government.
The reaction to these measures was overwhelmingly positive. Scott Macivor, chief executive officer of the Ontario Construction Secretariat, welcomed the higher profile given to the skilled trades than under the previous Liberal government stating, “We're very positive about these initiatives”.
Leah Myers, president of Durham College, was quoted as saying the budget 2006 measures were “an important step toward helping Canada develop a better skilled and educated workforce that is able to compete in today's global economy”.
In my own riding of Barrie, Ontario, Georgian College has a specific focus on the trades. The current Prime Minister in December visited Georgian College and told students that he was going to make this a priority. The trades were important to the Prime Minister. I can say there is a tremendous appreciation that we have a government that has kept its word and delivered for those involved in this important sector.
Peter Woodall, chair of the Automotive & Motorcycle Programs at Centennial College in Toronto lauded the emphasis placed on supporting employers and new apprentices, noting this is exactly what the industry really needs.
That is not all we are doing. As many members know, the Government of Canada is a strong supporter of the interprovincial red seal program established to provide greater mobility across Canada for skilled tradesworkers.
The preceding represented just a few examples of how Canada's new government is moving to address labour market pressures through targeted support for the trades and apprenticeships. Moreover, it is part of a broader commitment made by this government to invest in people, so that they in turn can help contribute to a more productive, competitive and sustainable future.
As I conclude, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the minister to comment on the work of her department through Service Canada.