Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank you and committee members for providing the Canadian Construction Association with the opportunity to appear before you today. Our association represents the non-residential side of the construction industry. We build Canada's infrastructure. We

Human Resources committee  Yes?

Human Resources committee  Okay.

Human Resources committee  First of all, there is immigration reform, and I think there have been some positive steps in that area right away. There is no question that, despite our best efforts at home, we will still need to look for foreign-trained workers—if not to do anything more than act as journeype

Human Resources committee  It helps. Whether it's a panacea or can, on its own, address the kinds of shortages we're looking at, I don't believe so. In many cases those individuals who are looking for that retraining or re-employment are middle aged. In those circumstances, because of some of the job requi

Human Resources committee  May I respond to that?

Human Resources committee  We have shortages. We would love to be able to fill all of our needs domestically, but we can't right now and it's simple math. When we have a fertility rate of 1.58, we are losing our labour pool quickly. The other important thing to stress here is that this is not cyclical fo

Human Resources committee  My quick response is, absolutely.

Human Resources committee  One problem we see all the time, which was also mentioned in the earlier session, is that there doesn't seem to be the streaming that used to go on. Way back when I went to high school, there was a place where people could be nurtured and introduced to the trades through shop and

Human Resources committee  Maybe I could start quickly. One thing that we ran into, even 7 or 8 years ago, when trying to get into the junior highs, was an initial resistance to our industry’s coming in on career day to talk to kids. The attitude was: “What are you doing coming in here? All our kids are go

Human Resources committee  Some of our local construction associations run youth employment programs. Some people might call them pre-apprenticeship programs. If my memory is correct the one in Calgary, for example, run by the Calgary Construction Association with employers is for kids who have dropped out

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  Mr. Chair, the Canadian Construction Association would like to thank you for the opportunity to present here today. Our organization represents the non-residential sector of the construction industry, so we build everything except single-family dwellings. We build Canada's infr

Environment committee  In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the Canadian Construction Association strongly suggests that the committee propose significant changes to federal environmental assessment by recommending that the Government of Canada adopt a leadership position in establishing a national framework f

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be giving most of my time to Mr. Barnes. Good morning, and thank you very much for the invitation to appear. My name is Michael Atkinson. I'm the president of the Canadian Construction Association. I'm accompanied today by Mr. Jeff Barnes, who is a se