Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to be here today and to speak to this issue.
Our government is committed to helping young people participate in the labour market. In fact, we agree with the recommendations of the finance committee's recent report on youth employment.
Canada's future success is very much dependent on the academic and economic success of our young people. Our government is keenly focused on creating jobs, growth, and economic prosperity.
That said, we are very aware of the fact that it is not the government's job to create jobs. We need to help young Canadians actually get the jobs that are available.
From helping youth access education to encouraging entrepreneurship, we offer a wide range of supports to youth. Since 2006, our government has helped over six million youth obtain skills, training, and jobs, and there is still more to do. Today I am going to focus on the programs we offer to apprentices in the skilled trades.
First let me say a few words about the growing labour market demand for skilled trade workers. BuildForce Canada tells us that the construction sector will need 300,000 new workers in the next 10 years, that the mining sector will need 145,000 more workers over the next 10 years, and that the petroleum sector will need up to 150,000 workers by 2022.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce cites estimates that there will be 550,000 unskilled workers who will not be able to find work by 2016. By 2021, the chamber says that the number of unemployed unskilled workers could be well over a million.
At the same time, the Department of Employment and Social Development estimates that there will be 5.8 million job openings over the next decade, of which two-thirds will be in high-skilled occupations requiring a post-secondary education or management skills.
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business all say that skills shortages are the greatest obstacle they face right now.
The problem is further complicated because workers of the baby boom generation are beginning to retire, taking their skills with them. Over the next decade, the Department of Employment and Social Development estimates that 4.3 million existing positions will be freed up, mainly as a result of workers retiring. The largest number of retirements will be in occupations requiring college education or skilled trades training.
In certain sectors and regions of our country the demand for skilled trade workers is growing, yet at the same time, 13.7% of young Canadians were unemployed in 2013. There is obviously a disconnect here, and I spoke of it during my by-election last fall. The question is, how do we address it?
We need to give young Canadians the right kind of labour market information. They need to know the real value of a job in the skilled trades. Somehow we have come to see getting a university degree as the only way to get a good job. While earning a bachelor's degree can lead to a well-paying job, it will not prepare people for many of the jobs available in the trades. We need to start giving jobs in the trades the same respect that we give to other occupations. I always have, but this respect is being heightened nationally at this time, and we need to send that message to young people. The youth unemployment rate is too high. It is unacceptable.
The good news is that we can bring that rate down, because job opportunities do exist for Canadians with the right skills. Therefore, to encourage more participation in the trades, we included support for apprenticeship training in all our federal budgets, including the most recent one.
Currently we have a number of financial supports available to apprentices. First, we offer the apprenticeship incentive grant, which is a $1,000 taxable cash grant for apprentices who complete the first and/or second level of their apprenticeship program in a designated Red Seal trade. Through this grant, apprentices can receive up to $2,000.
Second, we offer the apprenticeship completion grant. This is a $2,000 taxable cash grant for apprentices who successfully complete their apprenticeship training and receive their journeyperson certification in a designated Red Seal trade.
By combining these two grants, apprentices who complete their apprenticeship training in a designated Red Seal trade and become certified journeypersons may be eligible to receive up to $4,000.
To date the government has issued more than 500,000 apprenticeship grants and has provided nearly $700 million in support to apprentices to help them pursue and complete their training programs. In Brandon—Souris alone we have had 477 apprentices receive these apprenticeship completion grants since 2009. It is very effective.
Apart from the grants, the government also offers tax credits and deductions to apprentices and their employers. These include the apprenticeship job creation tax credit for employers who hire apprentices; the tradesperson's tools deduction tax credit, which allows apprentices and tradespeople to deduct the cost of their tools; and the tuition tax credit for certification and examination fees, which allows apprentices to recover some of the cost of their examination fees.
In addition to these existing incentives, we expanded the Canada apprentice loan. When the apprentices are doing their formal block training, they will be able to apply for up to $4,000 in interest-free loans. At least 26,000 apprentices are expected to benefit from the Canada apprentice loan in the first year.
I think I have demonstrated that our government provides a full range of supports to apprentices. However, financial support is not enough. There is also the issue of labour mobility.
Because skilled trades shortages are restricted to certain sectors and regions, it is vital that workers are able to move to where they are needed and have their qualifications recognized. Harmonizing apprenticeship requirements across the country will help create new opportunities in skilled trades across all of Canada. We have to coordinate our efforts in the provinces and territories to facilitate labour mobility, not restrict it, and our government is doing just that.
The Atlantic provinces are currently leading the way on this front. In January 2014, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador agreed to remove the barriers created by different training and certification requirements for apprentices in that region. So far they have harmonized requirements for 10 trades, including bricklayers, instrumentation and control technicians, and construction electricians. This is a great step forward.
The provinces have agreed to recognize each other's requirements or otherwise reconcile any unnecessary differences in their standards and regulations. This will help more Canadians get the training they need for in-demand, well-paying jobs in the skilled trades. Hopefully it will encourage more young people to pursue this career path as well.
In addition to problems with labour mobility and harmonization, there are other barriers to pursuing a career in the skilled trades. At the end of 2012, there were 360,000 people enrolled in more than 300 apprenticeship training programs, but typically only half of them complete their training and move on to get their journeyman's certificate. This may be because it is costly for young people to leave their good-paying jobs as apprentices to go do their formal technical training. That is why we will soon launch a research pilot project to support flexibility in apprenticeship training. The idea is that instead of obliging apprentices to leave the workplace and move to a college for two months of technical training, we could find innovative ways to deliver this training in a more convenient way by putting it online, for example.
Young people are the future of our country.
We have new mining projects opening up in Quebec, offshore oil in Newfoundland and Labrador, and potash oil and gas in Saskatchewan, just to name a few. We are going to need skilled, qualified workers to support those projects in the natural resources industry. That is why our programs are increasingly focused on apprenticeship in the skilled trades. The skilled trades are where the jobs of the future will be, and those are the kinds of jobs we need more young people to pursue.