HRPD Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, June 2, 1999

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[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.)): Ladies and gentlemen, we have a couple of presentations this afternoon. We have representatives of Centre Option 45, Mr. Proulx and Madame Aubert. I believe you have about a ten-minute presentation. Then we will have another presentation from Janice Prince of Opportunities 45+ Society.

Who's making the presentation? Mr. Proulx?

[Translation]

Mr. Onil Proulx (Director, Centre Option 45): Good afternoon. I'd like to introduce Ms. Aubert, who is with me today. She's the coordinator of Centre Option 45 Sherbrooke. I'm from Sherbrooke, Quebec, and I work at this centre which serves people who are 45 years of age and older, and wish to return to the labour market. We have provided a brief in connection with the presentation we are giving you today.

I'd like to point out that the Centre Option 45 was founded as a result of a statistical survey of the population in the Estrie (Eastern Townships) region, in the Sherbrooke area. We quickly agreed with the authorities of Human Resources Development Canada, the department which was responsible for this file at the time, that it was important to help workers aged 45 and older who had lost their jobs and wished to find other employment. This survey clearly indicated that there was an inevitable aging of the labour force and that steps should be taken as quickly as possible to avoid the worst for this clientele that wished to get back into the job market.

We presented a project with three components. The only one accepted was the one dealing with re-entry, that is, with people who were shut out of the job market and wanted to get back in. The project originally had another major component which was to study the whole notion of job retention. It is just as important to focus on prevention, and therefore on job retention, so as to reduce the need for re-entry assistance measures to bring people back to the job market.

As you requested, we have touched on the various aspects of our activities in our brief. Let me mention, at the outset, that a study done in 1997 by the economist André Grenier for the Société québécoise de la main-d'oeuvre, results which were released last year, predicted that the population in the 55- to -64 age group would increase by 17.6% by the year 2001 and by 50.3% by the year 2006. This will represent very substantial growth.

Mr. Grenier's study also showed that the labour force participation rate for the 55-64 age group has been dropping since the 1980s. In the last 20 years, the number of jobless has increased by 167% among workers in the 45-64 age group and doubled among those in the 55-64 group. Other statistics indicate that those in the 55-64 age group were hit even harder than those in the 45-54 group by periods of economic slow-down, and therefore by corporate restructuring, plant closing and other things which, taken together, meant that when there were massive lay-offs, they were the first to be hit.

It's important to remember that, in 1995, the average period of unemployment among those aged 45 and older was over 36 weeks, which is 33% longer than for an employed worker as a whole. Since 1995, this trend has grown stronger. In 1976, the labour force participation rate in the 55-64 age category was 75%, but by 1996 it had fallen to 50%, representing a decrease of 25%.

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These are some of the key statistics produced by this study, which lead us to believe that the situation is related to the aging of the labour force. Workers who are currently between the ages of 45 and 64, and particularly those aged between 55 and 64, are now finding themselves in unstable jobs. And the projections available lead us to believe that the situation will worsen in the coming years.

I will now speak of passive income support measures. There has been very little, if any, data available since the elimination of the Program for Older Worker Adjustment three years ago. We participated in field work of various kinds, including a labour reclassification exercise. We also took part in discussions with various associations, including an Emploi-Québec advisory committee on workers aged 45 and over. We think that it is important to restore one or more income support measures, which might include enhancing the social assistance system. An allowance could be provided for these people, which would allow them to keep their assets. We could ensure a fair employment insurance system by linking benefits paid to the contributions made by long-time contributors. We could also raise the amount of allowable earnings for eligible beneficiaries or offer a wage supplement, which would consist of reduced benefits; this would enable workers to receive part of their benefits when they have a job, because a number of these workers are interested in remaining in the labour market on a part-time basis rather than full time.

One thing is certain: we believe that there should be income support measures that are both flexible and accessible. And we should not limit ourselves to providing income support measures; a comprehensive approach should be adopted in dealing with these people. Although income support may be a solution for individuals who would like to leave the labour market, there should be other, active measures for workers who would like to receive support for training, for acquiring new competencies and for seeking employment, with a view to returning to the labour market.

We are therefore in favour of income support, but we believe that we also need active measures to encourage return to employment. Many workers do not have the financial means to take early retirement and consequently must remain in the labour market. Some of them would like to continue working, but in a different way. This brings to mind all kinds of programs that are aimed at modifying and sharing working hours, among other things. We must not ignore the need to make employers aware of these possibilities; they may have certain preconceptions regarding the aging workforce. Much work remains to be done in this area.

I'd like to mention that we have contributed to the work of Option 45 plus here in Ottawa. This organization received funding from La voix, a network of senior citizens in Canada, and its mandate was to make all Canadian businesses aware of the issue and do away with employers' prejudices. We don't know exactly how much progress they have made. We believe that the work begun by La voix, through the Option 45 plus project, was a very important and interesting proactive educational measure that needed to be carried out with employers across the country, which will increasingly be faced with managing an aging workforce.

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In Quebec, where I live, active measures for labour force re-entry remain inadequate and in some cases inaccessible to a number of regions. Although this clientele represents 13% of the labour force of working age, there are clearly too few organizations serving it. In seven of Quebec's regions, there are no such organizations and therefore no special resources are available to address the specific case of these workers. It must be realized that the resources required to support workforce re-entry during mid-life are very different from those developed for 18 years-old.

We must improve access to these services, eliminate systemic barriers and ensure that services are offered in all regions to this age group, which is on the increase and currently includes the baby-boomers.

The majority of the present working population is between 30 and 45 years of age. Workers aged 30 to 45 represent overt 45% of the labour force and, toward the years 2005 and 2006, they will be situated in the age group of 45 years and older.

The conventional social wisdom is that workers leave the labour force at the age of 55. This is a goal for some people. However, we should not forget that many workers wish to remain in the labour force and that we will have to have enough workers available to meet the labour force needs. I would remind you that, at the same time, the birth rate has continued to decline in recent years.

Thank you for your attention.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): Thank you very much for your comments and your observations.

I now go to Janice Prince, coordinator for Workshop II, Comprehensive Job Placement Training, Opportunities 45+ Society. You have a maximum of five to ten minutes.

Ms. Janice Prince (Coordinator, Workshop II, Comprehensive Job Placement Training, Opportunities 45+ Society): Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to give you a highly localized glimpse of the kind of work we do that I hope will complement what my colleague has just given you in a broader perspective.

Opportunities 45+ Society in Calgary has existed since 1973 to assist mature—that is, 45 years or older—Calgarians and residents nearby Calgary who are displaced from the workplace. The organization began with the purpose of providing job placement and referral services. Employers in Calgary who seek mature workers can list employment with us for no charge, and we refer clients to those opportunities.

In 1991 I proposed a job-finding club to be administered by the provincial society, so for approximately seven years we had an interesting federally funded program attached to a provincial society program. Our success rate for the job-finding club in the five years leading up to March 31, 1998, was 85% to 89%. Participants in the program indicated that what mattered to them the most in the long run was that we were there as a resource of support for them; that the program itself helped them to regain a strong sense of self-trust and that led to a regained self-confidence. That smoothed many bumpy roads towards re-employment.

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The Province of Alberta has signed an agreement with the federal government, now taking the employment-related training dollars. So as of April 1, 1998, Opportunities 45+ has become three workshops.

Workshop I is for local mature residents who are displaced from work and who feel highly job ready and need just a small amount of assistance, say a day and a half or two days' worth of assistance in speeding their way back to work.

Workshop II, which I coordinate, was the job-finding club, and we have a program that has been diminished from its original, more spacious schedule. Our contract for workshops I and II is called a job placement contract, and we are expected to achieve a 70% employment rate.

Workshop III has already operated its first round and is awaiting assessment for renewal. It's a more extended job search assistance program, with 120 hours of basic computer training in Microsoft software.

Our typical client in workshop II we often describe as the invisible Canadian. These are men and women who have worked hard. They're typically from what we would call the middle class. They have been raised to be present, but not to speak much about themselves, and they find that the new workplace is an extraordinarily alien place to be.

Barbara Moses describes these people in her book, entitled Career intelligence, and she says “They are loathe to self-present”. They would much rather present their children than themselves. So the more assertive approach to self-marketing that our current marketplace requires is very difficult for them.

Typically, also, most of the women who are participants in our program are sole supporters. A good majority of them have been independent for many years. They have raised their families. They have felt that they have paid their dues, and they find themselves, at age 50, 55, or 58, a long way from bridging to retirement, still needing basically to earn their living.

Just to give you a few examples of the kinds of issues we're dealing with, yesterday a colleague of mine, who is very well connected with many employers through their human resources departments, spoke to someone on behalf of an immigrant who in his home country was a mechanical draftsman. He invested in AutoCAD drafting training to supplement what he had already done that was automated in his home country, but the HR person of the engineering firm she spoke to said employers require at least five years of Canadian experience. So the fact that he has invested in upgraded training is not going to do him any good. She asked “What would you suggest for my client then?” His answer was “I don't know what you're going to do about it. It's certainly not our problem. You perhaps should suggest that he take another trade.” For someone in his mid-fifties, starting an apprenticeship is not a very realistic prospect. He has a job. It's only $6 an hour, though, working in a large bakery.

So for us there is an issue of integrating workplace planning and labour market planning with immigrant planning. It seems extremely unkind to encourage immigrants to hope they will be able to make a direct crossover from their professional activities in their home countries into the same sorts of activities in...well, I'm speaking specifically now of Calgary, but I believe the Globe and Mail has recently offered coverage to the fact that immigrants typically cannot make a direct crossover.

Moving to a different example, we have a client who was 62 when she came into Workshop II. She had been working for one of the regional health authorities in Alberta, and her unit was asked to disband. Her last project, before they disbanded for lack of funds, was to establish a shelter and support program for women experiencing abuse. After the group was disbanded, she was hospitalized with what her doctor diagnosed as severe stress. He told her he wasn't sure she would be able to work again. She needs to continue to work, and so what she is doing is the kind of work that Charles Handy, the British commentator, called portfolio work. That is, she is, for example, doing some project work related to setting up conferences. That will employ her for the equivalent of six Saturdays in a row. She is, for example, marketing certain kinds of products from a home base. She's also marketing a personal development or self-improvement program for which she receives a commission. We can't count her as a success because we can't say she's employed 30 hours per week, which is the minimum the province allows us for counting. So she's marginalized from being considered in any statistical analysis and yet she is earning her living.

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A third client is a gentleman who began his career as a teenager managing theatres in England and then in Belfast. Then he became afraid of the aggression in Ireland and so he came to Canada. He ultimately had a very successful career in Calgary until his theatre chain was taken over by a fairly famous, now well-noted, figure in the entertainment industry. He then shifted over into managing fast food restaurants, and ironically he has the special gift of motivating and training and retaining young people who will only earn minimum wage. He has, it seems, a knack for them.

When he came to the program he said “I've always just done my job. I've never had to speak about it. This is very awkward. This is very difficult.” But through the course of the program we insisted that he and all the other participants prepare for highly structured interviews and learn to articulate themselves. He was interviewed by another fast food franchise. That led to what was supposed to have been another conversation, but when he met for the apparent conversation, it turned out to be a very awkward, structured interview. Our participant said if he hadn't had the preparation we had been insisting he go through, he would not have been able to cope with the strangeness of the recruitment process. As it turns out, he was able to help the rather unprepared interviewer get through what we call in Calgary a behavioural descriptive interview. As of last Sunday, he started the new job, and he'll be earning about $35,000, which is nowhere near what he earned at the peak of his career. He's one of the ones who has landed moderately successfully.

Our main concern is that in Calgary also, and possibly here even at the level of this committee—so we have from local to national—there is a perceptible drift in the thinking that being mature equates to being disabled. My colleague was invited to a workshop on best practices in workplace accessibility through an employment mentoring program for persons with disabilities. She was invited simply because the people she works with are over the age of 45. That's an issue that I believe the subcommittee must have some concern for. To be mature is normal. I always say if a person doesn't get to be 50, you'd be dead. Right?

The other concern has to do with integrating with other services, such as immigration and, importantly, with the ministries of health, not just nationally, of course, but locally and provincially.

I'm happy to answer questions on any of those issues.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): Thank you for your presentation.

In the interest of time, I'm going to go to five-minute rounds. Then we have another presentation afterwards.

Mr. Crête, I'm going to start with you.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata —Les Basques, BQ): I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I'm very pleased to see that you work at the grassroots level and that you have a good grasp of the issues. Thank you for coming to address the situation of these workers. Many organizations have described the problem fairly well to us. But we seem to have trouble identifying possible solutions.

I would like you to elaborate on one point. I believe I heard you propose that employment insurance legislation be amended so that a worker who had paid contributions for a number of years would be able to receive benefits that exceeded the 55% ceiling, or so that benefits could be paid for a longer period. If you have other concrete solutions—be they passive or active measures—I would like to hear about them.

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Mr. Onil Proulx: The document that we provided to you describes several active measures. As for passive measures, you alluded to one of them which is related to income support. The POWA was another one, and it targeted workers aged 55 to 65. In Quebec, it was a measure that was half-way between employment insurance and income security.

Mr. Paul Crête: Do you think that the POWA was an important tool and should be revived?

Mr. Onil Proulx: Yes, absolutely. Let me describe what happened recently in Sherbrooke after the Beloit plant closed and laid off its 270 workers, whose average age was 43 and who had an average seniority of 32 years. A reclassification committee was set up, and one year later, 80% of these workers had found a new job; 80% of the 20% remaining were workers over 55 years of age who have greater difficulty finding a new job, as they generally have very little education. I have already given you some statistics in this area.

We will have to adopt passive income support measures that offer choices and are flexible. I have referred to measures that would allow individuals to work part-time, to collect employment insurance benefits and to remain connected to the labour market while working at the pace they wish.

As I've already mentioned, active measures are almost exclusively related to labour force re-entry. Such measures are not used until workers have left the labour force. The labour force is currently shifting and there will be an increasing number of workers aged 45 and older. If we don't do something now at the industry level, workers will continue to leave the labour force in increasing numbers, with serious social and economic repercussions. Those who currently have jobs must be given adequate training and development opportunities. We must develop formulas for work organization that are based on modifying and sharing work hours. We must take preventive measures so that workers can keep their jobs if they so wish, as well as passive measures for workers who want to leave the workforce.

Mr. Paul Crête: Are you appealing to a kind of social responsibility on the part of industry, or do you have some incentives or other solutions that you could propose to us? Employers have to be in agreement if 45-year-old workers are going to be able to adapt, adjust and prepare themselves for other jobs. Some businesses are doing very well in this area, while others, especially those whose workers have less education, seem to be dragging behind. If that's a misconception on my part, please let me know.

Mr. Onil Proulx: Yes and no. The experience gained by workers over the years is valuable in itself and a factor that is often neglected.

Over the years, we have succeeded in gradually raising the awareness of a certain number of employers. More and more employers are turning to experienced workers for all kinds of reasons, including stability, reliability and experience. If they receive training and continuously upgrade their expertise, in technological areas especially, workers in the 45-year-and-older category will be able to keep up with labour market developments. Employers are increasingly aware of these issues and a number of them have come to realize that it's perhaps better to hire a worker who is willing to stay in the labour market for 5 to 10 years, than to hire a young person who will want to leave at the first opportunity because he or she wants to explore different workplaces. There is some open-mindedness out there that we can take advantage of, but adequate technical support must be put in place as part of the series of active measures targeting this clientele.

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[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): And indeed we do. I thank you.

I'm going to go over to Mr. Clouthier.

Mr. Hec Clouthier (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Lib.): Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): If the questions are short and the answers are short, you can get more questions in.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: Janice, I had the advantage of looking at the book you're reading, which is entitled The Age of Paradox. I believe it was Freud who at one time said we are in a strange paradox, decided only to be undecided.

With regard to older workers, there doesn't seem to be anything definitive here. We've made the decision that there is a large problem because they're unemployed, but we seem to be undecided as to how we're going to rectify that problem, what avenue we're going to take to try to straighten matters out. Where do you believe, Janice, we should prioritize the solutions to these problems that, without question, we do face?

Ms. Janice Prince: I believe Charles Handy is quite right. Portfolio workers, or so-called independent workers, have been commonplace in Europe because they've been ahead of us in becoming an aging society.

What has been suggested, and he's been the instigator of this movement, is something similar to the very old guilds in which various mature potential workers can come together in one set of offices where they will have services that can support them as associated business people or associated workers, and others could contract their services through this quasi-guild.

In an earlier book to this most recent one, where he talks about these new style of guilds, he talks about how independent workers really need a club, a learning organization, where they can go for support, so if they need to update some computer skills or if they need to update their marketing materials, they can do so.

What we have always tried to do, with considerable success, is to operate rather as a municipal resource for the mature worker, but it's a highly localized activity, and I think for the mature, community by community is how it needs to be resolved.

We've demonstrated that when people restore confidence they can get back to work. They may not be at the same income level, but they will be actively working. If they don't get their confidence restored, demoralization sets in and then depression and then more serious illness. It's a break point, like a paradox.

[Translation]

Mr. Hec Clouthier: Thank you very much.

Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Proulx. Do you think unemployed men and women have different needs and problems?

Mr. Onil Proulx: No, not really.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: The situation is the same.

Mr. Onil Proulx: The clients we have been working with over the last eight years are 50% men and 50% women.

Women who left the labour force may have different adjustment problems from those of individuals who remained in the labour force. Generally speaking, however, a period of readjustment is required in both cases when they go back into the labour force. This may have to do with looking for a job, development training, not just for computer skills, but also for trades learned on the job over the years, or other such things.

Mr. Hec Clouthier: Thank you very much.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): Mr. Vellacott, do you have a question?

Mr. Scott.

Mr. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.): Thank you.

I would like to explore a little bit, first of all, the nature of the way the project in Calgary is financed. You mentioned the labour market agreement, and it occurs to me, and I suspect to those who've heard other witnesses, that there are probably regional, local, and municipal responses to this. Invariably you have a resource problem, which is a different problem. It's a service provision and NGO resource problem, as opposed to the income replacement problem that has been mentioned by others. Since we've devolved the labour market money to the provinces, what was a federal source of funding in your mind now comes from a provincial program in any case.

Ms. Janice Prince: I regard it as federal funding. I know the money was devolved, so I still think of it as that pool that has come from the federal system. It's being administered by the province.

Mr. Andy Scott: Could you move to Fredericton and tell everyone there for me? Nobody in Fredericton knows it.

That's one. Consequently, do you have municipal funding and provincial funding?

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Ms. Janice Prince: No. The province is exclusively administering what it has signed an agreement to administer from the formerly federally sourced employment training-related funds. We're now on a cost-recovery, fee-for-service basis. The province assigned us the structure of the contract. We had no negotiation in it.

Mr. Andy Scott: Did I understand you to say when you were making your presentation that the province was also a financial supporter before?

Ms. Janice Prince: Originally the province supported the Opportunities 45+ Society by two operating grants a year under the Societies Act. But under Premier Klein's administration, over 365 societies were examined and removed from the province's books. So we're now effectively a non-profit, fee, cost-recovery organization.

Mr. Andy Scott: I think it's important for the record to show too that one of the things we need to look at as a committee in the context of older workers, and as the labour market agreements apply to older workers, is to make sure the exercise of devolution has not simply caused the federal dollars to go to jurisdictions to replace programming that was already in existence. I can point to the same examples in New Brunswick, where programs that used to be financed by the province are now being financed by money that's been devolved to the province, and they're using their money to do other things that are unrelated to the original idea, which was never anyone's plan. I was curious about that.

I'm curious, Monsieur Proulx et Madame Aubert, about what happens to those people who exhaust their benefits. You were talking more generally about people who do not get benefits long enough. They may go back to work in a year, but they only get benefits for half a year or something, let's say. What happens in the period between the time their benefits are finished and when they might find another job? What happens then?

[Translation]

Mr. Onil Proulx: In Quebec, people can turn to the Income Security Program. Their personal assets are also used to maintain a certain standard of living. Those are the resources available to individuals at the moment.

Earlier, I gave a concrete example of some people who are on a reclassification committee. Some use the assets from their own retirement savings or stock savings plan to maintain their current standard of living. Nevertheless, the fact remains that these people paid into the employment insurance fund for 30, 35 or 40 years and are restricted to 40 or 45 weeks of benefits, even though they may have been working for up to 40 years. The number of weeks of benefits should be somewhat proportional to the length of time a person has worked.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): I have a comment with regard to labour management agreements and the fact that Ontario has not signed with the federal government. It is obvious that we, certainly those of us from Ontario, would like to have a re-evaluation of the programs that have already been devolved in other provinces to see in fact whether or not there are those who have slipped through the cracks. The dollars may or may not be there, but the question, of course, is whether they are being applied with the infrastructure in place to serve the needs of those who most need it in the community.

This is one of the things a number of my colleagues are very concerned about, and I think in terms of older workers this is obviously an issue. Certainly before we in Ontario can do anything we must ask, is the infrastructure there to provide the necessary tools? That's not a question you can answer, but it certainly follows up on Mr. Scott's comments.

Monsieur Crête. Madame Brown, will you have a question? No. Okay.

[Translation]

Mr. Crête, five minutes.

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Mr. Paul Crête: You gave us an example earlier, and I would like you to tell us a little more about it. You said that people drew on their savings. There are some discrepancies as well.

For example, in order to qualify for social assistance, people's homes must not be worth more than approximately $60,000. As a result, we find people quietly moving down the social ladder. They have to sell their home, because it is worth $80,000 or $90,000 before they can qualify for social assistance. In your view, is there really a group of people that is getting poorer? We have created poverty, and we have seen the results.

Companies have to make justified technological changes to keep pace with the competition. Looking at the problem from the other side, is there not a cost involved for companies that have to get rid of some of their employees? Some companies simply close down, but others have to close down because of the introduction of new technologies. When they invest one million dollars rather than creating jobs, the result is often fewer jobs.

Could something be done to give companies attractive incentives for making these decisions? Could we ensure more reasonable conditions for people leaving their jobs? At the moment, we are depending totally on the government's social responsibility, but this has not changed in the case of the employment insurance plan.

Mr. Onil Proulx: I've seen a number of concrete examples of this situation myself. It is true that an investment in new technologies may result in some layoffs. In other cases, it may result in the creation of new jobs.

I think the company has some responsibility. That is why I was speaking earlier about job maintenance and the importance of investing money to maintain jobs. At the moment, massive investments are being made to get people back to work. Significant amounts should be invested to maintain the jobs of those who are working.

Let me give you an example. Domtar, in Windsor, started with an obsolete plant and built a one-billion dollar plant in the same city, with exactly the same number of employees. Since that time, 100 new workers have been hired. The average age of the employees was between 45 and 50, and they all had to take training over a two-year period. This approach made it possible for the company to maintain these jobs.

Yes, companies do have a social responsibility; yes, there must be some incentives to maintain these people's jobs.

With your permission, I would like to add that we are gradually starting to see a number of problems related to managing the aging labour force. A number of companies that got rid of their employees who were 55 and older, in order to have a younger labour force and to save money on wages, were sorry that they did so and had to rehire these experienced people.

For almost 20 years now, people have been told to leave the labour market at age 55 to make room for younger workers. If we want to do the right thing for younger people, we must start by doing the right thing for workers aged 45 and over.

Mr. Paul Crête: Employees contribute $2.55 to the Employment Insurance Fund, while employers contribute about $3.00. Would it be attractive for employers if they were to be given a premium holiday, to a certain maximum, of course, if they had a training program for workers in the 35 to 45 age group? Would this be attractive to employers? In addition, such a program could mean that the same problem would not recur in 10 years.

Mr. Onil Proulx: That might be an attractive measure, but I don't think that employers are the only people at issue here. We must not make any mistake about the fact that some workers want to keep working, and others do not. This important point must be made. A new suggestion is a type of measure that could be examined.

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[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): The last questioner will be Mr. Scott, and then we'll move to our next presenter.

Mr. Andy Scott: In regard to the use of EI for passive income support, the people you are referring to who only qualify for between 40 and 45 weeks, after having contributed for a long time, are they people who have never drawn before? The reason I ask the question is that as we look at EI in the face of the monitoring report that HRDC has released—and there's no secret that a lot of ideas are being tossed around—one of the ways one could perhaps remedy that is to establish a first-time benefit, a longer benefit, which would allow people who have never drawn before, who have been laid off—older workers in particular—to get an extended benefit that would be based on the fact that.... Maybe it could be two times, or something like that. Or are these people you're referring to people who have drawn repeatedly over the years?

[Translation]

Mr. Onil Proulx: Not really.

[English]

Mr. Andy Scott: No. So it's just their first time.

Mr. Onil Proulx: The first or second time after 30 years of work.

Mr. Andy Scott: Right.

Do I have another one, or am I done?

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): You can have another one.

Mr. Andy Scott: I'm going to try to draw Mr. Crête into the second one, because it becomes a question again of using the EI fund.... I don't think there's any problem, Mr. Crête, in terms of using the EI fund on income. But he talked a lot about prevention programs and the fact that everything we do now is remedial when we should be doing prevention, and I agree.

Perhaps we could use the EI fund to fund training. I'm looking at you, but I'm thinking about him. Ultimately, would that be seen as encroaching—and I ask this as a legitimate, honest question—on labour market training, which is now provincial, because it isn't income any more at that point and it might be seen as training? How would you view it?

[Translation]

Mr. Onil Proulx: I will not get into federal-provincial wrangling. Under the Canada-Québec Labour Market Development Agreement, for example, a number of investments are ongoing, and are made once the person is out of the labour market.

I said earlier that this may be the problem with the Employment Insurance Fund, particularly in the case of people 45 or 55 or more. We need to do something now about labour market training. If the government does not allow the employment insurance surplus to be used for the training and development of workers in this age group, we will soon have to pay the price for this decision.

[English]

Mr. Andy Scott: Even if we had a special benefit that was an upgrading benefit, a training benefit, such as we have for maternity and sickness now, it becomes a way for the federal government to make a contribution to the kind of upgrading and training you speak of. I didn't mean to draw you into that, in any case, but I was concerned that it might be perceived as our being involved in training. When I'm talking about income, I'm talking about income while one is training.

[Translation]

Mr. Onil Proulx: I don't want to get into politics with budgets in the Canada-Québec agreement, but rather than investing 80 or 90 p. 100 of the budget under this agreement to enable people to get back into the labour market, could a greater percentage of this funding from the federal government not go to training and developing this group of employees, using the EI surplus? This is just as valid an approach as the one you mentioned.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): Merci. I'd like to thank our presenters for their insights today. Thank you very much.

Mr. Onil Proulx: Thank you. Merci.

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The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): We will now go to our next presenter, Madame Beauchamp, from Association québécoise de défense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées. You have up to ten minutes for your presentation.

[Translation]

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp (President, Association québécoise de défense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées): The Association québécoise de défense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées, which was founded in 1979 and is better known under its acronym AQDR, now has more than 40 sections in most of the regions of Quebec and their mission is to defend the economic, cultural and social rights of all persons who have retired, have taken early retirement, or are approaching retirement.

Over the last 20 years, thousands of members of the AQDR, both men and women of every origin and background, have struggled to ensure that their rights would be respected and to improve the conditions in which people who are aging live. The primary objective of the AQDR is to gain recognition for all persons, without any exception being made for age, as full participants in our society.

As we prepare to enter the third millennium, with the mass movement toward retirement that has occurred over the past few years by workers aged 50 and over from the public service, among other employers, there has been a tendency for members of the public to take the position that when a person reaches the age of 50, he or she does not have to work in order to live; that all men and women in this age group, that is those who are 55 and over, have well-funded pension plans that allow them to enjoy a "gilded retirement" or to retire when they feel like doing so; that, if all the workers who are 55 and over actually retire, young people could gain access to the labour force without any difficulty; that mandatory retirement at the age of 60 is a miraculous solution that would make room in the labour force for young people. The reality is, unfortunately, somewhat different from this vision of paradise.

The AQDR is concerned not only about the defence of the rights of people who have retired, but also those of people who will have to retire. Under what conditions will this happen? Is retirement a right and is it an option for people at this time? This is a question that must be asked if we hope to understand the current situation of workers who are 55 and over, who are forgotten or discarded in this wave of early retirement and the limited number of places for young people in the labour force.

In the view of the AQDR, workers of 55 and over are at the present time the playthings of employers. Some of them are often underpaid in relation to their experience and their qualifications. Others experience the "syndrome of those who are left behind" in companies that are restructuring or undergoing budget cuts that lead to unprecedented numbers of layoffs.

Those people who have the misfortune to lose their jobs experience a large number of problems, despite the experience that they are recognized as having, in finding other jobs at the same salary level in the field in which they have acquired their skills.

Without admitting as much, selection boards are displaying increasingly discriminatory attitudes as regards the age of candidates.

More than for men in the same age group, the future of the jobs held by women of 50 and over is very uncertain. Many of them have been working for more than ten years in community organizations that do not provide them with any fringe benefits, let alone pension plans, and these employees do not have the resources to contribute to private pension plans.

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There are many self-employed working women because they are unable to find a job in the regular work force or a job that pays a salary equal to that which they received in their previous job. They have not opted for self-employment but have no choice other than to work for organizations, some of which are charitable organizations, that give them no option but to work under contract. For example, these employers do not wish to pay their "share" of the contributions to pension plans, employment insurance, health insurance and other such schemes, often because they cannot afford to do so.

A large number of not-for-profit organizations have seen their employees become unionized and they do not wish to provide newly hired staff with the fringe benefits that they are required to pay to their permanent employees.

Many women of 55 and over have returned late to the labour force following a divorce or even because they gave birth to their children after turning 40. Nowadays, it is not altogether unusual to see before selection boards women who are 55 and who are looking for a job in order to support children who may be eight or ten years of age.

There are also all those who have gone through labour force re-entry programs or been reclassified following the closure of companies or plants in various areas of activity in all parts of Quebec, including both rural and urban communities. Sometimes these people had held the same job for more than 20 years. You know that it is unrealistic to assume that all these workers will be able to work again. The luckiest of them will obtain temporary jobs but be unable to support their families as they did before they lost their jobs.

Workers who are 55 and over also have to deal with the competition from people who have retired but now realize after taking early retirement that the compensation they receive is not sufficient for them to live on and, above all to allow them to survive the boredom of spending their days being treated as "old-timers or seniors". These retired people have skills and incomes and are happy with a reduced salary that a worker of the same age could not accept without retirement income.

An article in the Globe and Mail in June 1998 noted that Canadian companies—unlike those in other countries around the world—were recruiting more and more older, experienced managers over 55 years of age. Under what conditions were they doing so, however? It was noted that approximately 14% of retired people in Canada return to the labour force. Dorval airport is a good example. There they've hired retired employees to greet people coming into the airport.

The AQDR believes that drastic measures need to be taken to improve the situation of older workers while at the same time not harming young people who would like to have more opportunities to join the work force more easily. To ensure that any solution chosen can be applied, the AQDR proposes first that a communications plan be adopted in order to counter the effects of the negative publicity circulating concerning workers of 50 and over to the effect that they have stolen "the jobs of young people", that means be implemented to prevent the gap between the generations from growing wider and that significant resources be devoted to advertising campaigns to counter the increasing number of people who maintain that in the future young people will be working exclusively to pay "fat" pensions to their elders who have retired.

Once this awareness campaign has been set up, the AQDR recommends that the Standing Committee take the following actions in order to improve the living conditions of older workers and, consequently, the conditions of the labour force as a whole: implementation of gradual retirement and of a tax credit to compensate people for their reduced time at work.

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Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay and Daniel Villeneuve, who are researchers at the Université du Québec à Montréal, suggest this solution and thus confirm the position taken by the AQDR in the study published in 1998 on the reorganization of work time.

It would be necessary to amend the Supplemental Pension Plans Act (Quebec) in order to ensure that part of the pension capital could be transferred while ensuring that workers could participate in the plan in all cases.

In those countries where such requirements exist, mandatory or compulsory retirement at age 60 has not made it possible to create more jobs for younger people.

In Canada, few employers provide gradual retirement, whereas the popularity of early retirement is in decline as retired people are forced to learn on a daily basis to live with their new incomes.

On the other hand, a tax credit to provide compensation for the reduction in work time might allow many of these people to reduce the time they spend at work without necessarily reducing their incomes. The employers could be required to contribute.

The federal government could reduce the tax payable by any corporations that adopted measures to reduce the time worked by older workers.

The tax credit to compensate workers for reduced work time could also be applied to older working couples and be calculated and adjusted on the basis of their family income.

In conclusion, the AQDR is concerned about the fate in store for low-and middle-income workers of 50 and over because the future of their employment is uncertain. Any reason seems to provide sufficient justification for laying these people off. However, they have to work, because very many of them are still and will remain for a number of years the breadwinners of their families. They are experienced and skilled and government must protect them and take a look, as we have done today, at their situation in order to apply imaginative solutions quickly to resolve their employment problems.

Retirement is certainly not the solution for everyone. Has anyone ever taken the trouble to calculate the social cost of all these unemployed workers? That is the question that we have not considered here, but the impact could be substantial.

Thank you for your kind attention.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): Thank you very much.

[English]

All right, since that worked so well the last time, we'll go to five-minute rounds again, so we can get lots of questions in.

Madame Girard-Bujold, five minutes.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold (Jonquière, BQ): Good afternoon, Ms. Beauchamp. Thank you for coming here today to talk to us about a subject important to us all. I was unable to hear all of your brief, because I was at another committee meeting, but I think you have suggested some solutions, at least in the last part of your presentation. Governments could introduce these solutions to offset what is happening at the moment to older people and to young people as well. I appreciated your referring to both young people and old people, without pitting one group against the other. I very much liked what you had to say about complementarity. You spoke about progressive retirement and a compensatory tax credit for reduced work time.

I would like to hear more about progressive retirement. I was working in a situation in which progressive retirement could be applied, but the idea of a compensatory tax credit for reduced work time is new. I would like to hear more about these two topics.

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: We see progressive retirement as a way of allowing workers to gradually reduce their work time and also pass on the benefits of their experience and expertise to upcoming generations. We think it is more and more essential to turn to gradual retirement because we have an aging population and young people are leaving university and entering the work force directly. It is essential that older workers pass on their expertise and experience to the people just starting out to help them do a better job.

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Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Please tell me a little more about the compensatory tax credit. How do you define it?

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: The compensatory tax credit would be designed to enable workers 55 and over who have to work part-time to be considered full-time workers for the purposes of the Canada Pension Plan of the Quebec Pension Plan. We could offer to pay their share and the employer's share, if necessary, so that they can get a decent pension.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Ms. Beauchamp, the people covered by these programs have paid employment insurance premiums throughout their whole lives. They used to be called unemployment insurance premiums, but now they are employment insurance premiums. Do you think that the current employment insurance measures help them out of their situation, or do they not equip them to move to a different job, a different career, or perhaps wait for their retirement? How would you change employment insurance to enable these people to continue working for a company?

You also say that you would like companies to get tax credits and to participate in this program. Could you explain your overall vision? What are the good features of this, in your view?

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: In the case of employment insurance, the waiting period could be shortened for workers aged 55 and over, or they should be allowed to receive part of their employment insurance because they are taking progressive retirement. We could also reduce the number of hours required in order to qualify for benefits. This would allow workers 55 and over to deal with their uncertain situation better.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: You said in your presentation that employers could be involved. How would you want employers to take part in this new way of helping older workers have a decent income for the rest of their working lives? Have you spoken to factory workers or owners to find out what they think of this problem?

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: No, we have not really spoken to all these people. We were simply making this suggestion. If we put forward solutions that are beneficial to both employees and employers, the latter may agree more readily to pay 50% for workers 55 and over who have to reduce their hours of work. The employees would pay the other 50%. This could be another incentive to encourage workers 55 and over to take progressive retirement. This would be a solution for them.

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Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: I am very close to the Association québécoise des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées; Ms. Weaner was the president of the association in my riding, and now a gentleman is in that position. I know that the association has a number of concerns that are quite relevant and very much at the forefront. Your membership is very large, and you represent an extremely important lobby in Quebec. Your association represents people who are approaching retirement as well as those who have already retired. How many of your members are approaching retirement, and what areas do they come from?

I know that you held a national convention not so long ago and that you came out with a number of resolutions. Did you discuss these issues in your workshops, and did people suggest solutions as innovative as your own? Did more specific points come out of your discussions as well?

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: We have at least 25,000 members in the province, and our convention was a policy one. We didn't really talk about older workers, the issue that we are looking at today. We primarily discussed internal matters.

However, I can tell you that our retired members and our members approaching retirement come from the areas of education and health care; we also have former factory workers too. Our members come from all lines of work.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Since you have come to appear before a parliamentary committee that is very much concerned about what is happening to older workers, are you going to focus on this issue in the future so that you can provide us with more information and feedback? People will say what they want to, but we are somewhat distant from people and their day-to-day reality, even though we do try to be as close to people as possible. The members of associations such as your own are not always well-off; I know this for a fact, because I met with many of them in the riding of Jonquière. These people came to see me asking for tax credits in exchange for volunteer work. I don't know whether you heard about this. They would do volunteer work, and the government would grant them tax credits for their hours of volunteer work. Have you heard of this suggestion before?

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: No, unfortunately, it hasn't come to the provincial office yet.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Do you have any thoughts on the suggestion?

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: I suppose we will have a meeting in the fall, and we will discuss these points in our workshops. Judging by what I've heard today, this suggestion could be discussed in our workshops.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: You also mentioned two researchers. In your opening remarks, you said:

Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay and Daniel Villeneuve, who are researchers at the University of Quebec at Montreal, suggest this solution and thus confirm the position taken by the AQDR in a study published in 1996 on the reorganization of work time.

Is that study available? Do you have it with you?

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: I think we have it back at the office.

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Mr. Chairman, it's important for us to get that study.

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: It should be possible to get it. The title of the study was Le réaménagement du temps de travail.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): If you have that available and could send it to us, we would distribute it.

[Translation]

Ms. Huguette Beauchamp: All right.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Bryon Wilfert): Thank you.

[English]

I'd like to thank you for your presentation. I'd like to thank the members of the committee today and the staff.

We stand adjourned.