Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to pick up where I left off on this when we last debated it. I do again want to thank the member for Mississauga EastâCooksville for bringing forward this motion.
I know that one of the criticisms that we heard a little bit when the debate happened in the first hour was the fact that this was only focused on one particular area of the country. I think that when we look at one area rather than the entire country as a whole, we have the opportunity to see exactly and to dive deeper into the issues that are affecting the trades and why we are getting people to start work and careers in the trades.
For that reason, it would be very prudent of this House to pass this motion that directs the HUMA committee to look specifically at this one area of the country, a very important and largely populated area, so that decisions and recommendations can be made to this House in terms of how the government can bring policy forward that will better create opportunities and encourage people to get into the trades.
I know that when I was last speaking in the first hour of debate that I briefly mentioned an individual who is a TV personality named Mike Rowe in the U.S. who has programs called Dirty Jobs and Somebody's Gotta Do It. Basically, what he attempts to do in these shows is to highlight the fact that there are jobs out there that for some reason many people are no longer interested in getting. He exposes us to why it is important that people fill these jobs and how the jobs can be huge opportunities for people to make a lot of money and have well-meaning jobs for years to come. To understand why there is this shortage, we might want to look back at how we got to this shortage. Something else that I mentioned in the first hour of debate is that I think, personally, it has to do a little bit with the fact that when we as parents look at our children, we want to encourage them to grow up to be better than we are.
I think back to my grandparents who immigrated here after the Second World War, from Holland and Italy. When they got here, they were individuals on both sides of the family who worked tough, rigorous construction jobs in various trades and fields of employment. For that matter, it was both my grandmothers and grandfathers. All they wanted was to see their children become better people than what they thought they were, in professions such as doctors, lawyers and politicians. Therefore, they encouraged them to go to school, to graduate and go to university so that their children could have what they perceived as more professionally aspiring careers.
What we have done through this process over several generations is to create a stereotype that says if one wants to be a carpenter, mason, plumber or an electrician, there is something wrong. That means one has decided to take a second-tier career. In reality, as we see today, those jobs can pay massive dividends in terms of one's ability to grow as an individual or to provide for themselves and their families. As a matter of fact, it has been said that by the year 2020 in Canada, we will have a skilled trade shortage of roughly a million people.
There are some interesting statistics that I have been able to research, between the time we first debated this and now. A 2007 study found that Canada has 361,000 job vacancies, of which 38,000 are in the construction industry, which equates to more than 10% in Canada. Construction is the third-largest industry for job vacancies in Canada. A shortage of skilled labour could bring a challenge to delivering infrastructure projects in Ontario, which is exactly what we are seeing here and why the hon. member has brought this forward. He is relating this back to the housing shortage. There are just not enough people to work in various different jobs.
Therefore, what we are seeing is an opportunity. I am really happy to see that the way this has been brought forward is to look at how the government could develop policy and bring in direction to make sure these opportunities can be realized by people who might have an interest in them.
While I am on the topic of opportunities, I will relate this back to a private member's bill I introduced into the House that is currently before the Senate. It has to do with females who want to get into construction and hazardous work. It would probably be even more burdensome for a female than a male to become a plumber or electrician or carpenter. That is why we see in Canada only 4% of the skilled trades are currently held by women. In the construction fields, more specifically, only 0.5% of the construction jobs are filled by women. This would give an amazing opportunity to start to fill some of these positions with women who want to get into trades. There are many women who do, like Melodie Ballard, a welder, who comes from my community. She has faced some challenges because the government does not have the necessary programs and policies in place to make sure that happens.
I am very supportive of the motion. I am glad to see that the member for Mississauga EastâCooksville has brought it forward. There is a great opportunity here to study what is going on in the GTA, and the Hamilton area specifically, to develop some policies that could be brought forward that the government could implement. Later on down the road, we can see how we could extend those to other parts of the country.
This is exactly what we need. It is extremely timely, given some of the shortages we have. I look forward to seeing how we can continue to advance not just this particular bill, but this topic. This is going to become one of the biggest challenges for Canada in terms of how we are going to continue to physically build the infrastructure we need to sustain our country.
Thank you, Madam Speaker, for allowing me to finish my speech in the second hour of debate on this. I look forward to continuing to hear the debate this morning and voting in favour of the bill when we get to that point.