INDY Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRY

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'INDUSTRIE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, February 17, 1998

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[English]

The Chair (Ms. Susan Whelan (Essex, Lib.)): Order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are continuing our hearings on information technology and preparedness for the year 2000. I would like to welcome our witnesses here today.

We have with us today three witnesses. Today we'll have each of the witnesses make their presentation, followed by questions and answers.

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We have with us today Joan Atkinson, director general of the selection branch from Citizenship and Immigration Canada; Mr. Paul Swinwood, president of the Software Human Resources Council; and Ms. Martha Nixon, from Human Resources Development Canada. Ms. Nixon is the associate executive head of the human resources investment branch.

I thought we would begin with the witnesses as they are listed in front of us. That means we would begin with Ms. Joan Atkinson, from Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Each of the witnesses will spend about five minutes with their opening comments. Then we'll turn to questions after all three witnesses have presented.

Ms. Atkinson, begin, please.

Ms. Joan Atkinson (Director General, Selection Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Thank you very much, Ms. Chairperson. I'm very glad to be here today to address the committee on the issue of year 2000 and the specific recommendation in the Industry Canada task force that addresses immigration concerns in the context of the challenges that face us with the year 2000.

As we know, there is an urgent need for skilled computer and software workers in Canada to address the year 2000 challenge as well as other areas. The demand for these and other key highly skilled workers is worldwide. There is global competition for the same type of skills as we require in Canada. In fact, Canadian workers are lured away from Canada to other countries in light of this intense competition globally for these workers. As a result of this intense competition, Citizenship and Immigration and Human Resources Development Canada are working together with the industry to try to facilitate the entry of these highly skilled workers into Canada.

I would like to take a minute to describe to you what the existing Canadian foreign worker policy is. In general, non-Canadians who wish to work in Canada require employment authorizations from Citizenship and Immigration Canada to work legally in Canada. Citizenship and Immigration Canada needs a labour market opinion from Human Resources Development Canada in order to issue those employment authorizations, to ensure there is no negative impact on employment opportunities for Canadians from bringing in the workers from outside of Canada. This Human Resources Development Canada opinion is called a “validation” and generally is done on a case-by-case basis for every job. It's very job specific and employer specific.

What we have tried to do in facilitating the entry of highly skilled workers in the software sector is to fast-track that validation procedure. Given that it is currently or normally done on a case-by-case basis, it can take a number of weeks for that validation to be obtained. This is one of the areas we have tried to streamline in order to facilitate the entry of temporary workers into Canada.

We have worked with the industry through the Software Human Resources Council to try to identify the specific jobs and the specific skill sets needed in this sector. As a result of the work we have done, Human Resources Development Canada, rather than a validation on a case-by-case, job-specific, employer-specific basis, has issued a national validation for seven specific job descriptions. The worker appears at one of our missions abroad for a job. Providing the job meets one of those seven specific job descriptions, an employment authorization can be issued, and generally can be issued very quickly.

As we know, the shortages in this sector are not general but fairly specific, so as I said before, we worked through the Software Human Resource Council to identify those specific skill sets that would be required, including those skills that are required by year 2000 projects. We have, during the course of our pilot project, through this national validation procedure, worked on looking at those job descriptions to ensure we continue to meet the needs of the industry. We have made changes to those job descriptions to ensure we are, amongst other things, meeting the skills we need to meet the year 2000 challenge.

As I said, the way the pilot works, the temporary worker approaches one of our missions abroad and is issued an employment authorization if they meet one of the seven job descriptions as covered by the national validation and if they meet the other requirements for coming to Canada as a temporary worker.

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The recommendation that the task force has put before us talks about obtaining employment authorizations at a port of entry. I have to say the traffic volumes at ports of entry are very large, very significant. We have over 50 million border crossings every year.

We believe that our missions abroad are better equipped to carry out the essential control functions necessary in any movement of temporary workers to Canada. Missions abroad, for example, can verify the worker's credentials to ensure that they do in fact meet the skill sets that are intended under national validation. We are also able to meet the medical and security concerns that are relevant in any movement of temporary workers to Canada, thus ensuring that our pilot project does not compromise important public policy concerns.

We believe that the performance of the pilot at our missions is meeting, in general terms, the industry's needs. Our statistics show that over 25% of the temporary workers who apply under the pilot receive their employment authorization the very same day that they make their application at a mission abroad. Over 50% of those temporary workers who apply to the pilot receive their employment authorization either the same day or the day after, and over three-quarters—that is, almost 75%—of those applying under the pilot receive their employment authorizations within a two-week period.

We believe the pilot is certainly making a major contribution in terms of meeting the year 2000 needs. We believe the enhanced ability to seek employment authorizations at ports of entry as opposed to going through our missions abroad is probably unnecessary given the performance to date that we have seen with our pilot, and it compromises our ability to manage admissions to Canada effectively. We are obviously committed to continuing to work with the industry and together in partnership with Human Resources and Development Canada to address the year 2000 needs and other needs in this important sector.

I'd like to end by emphasizing that immigration is, as you know, only one component of a complete human resource strategy to deal with the issues arising out of shortages in this sector. Temporary foreign workers can provide a quick fix, but they are not a long-term solution. Canada's attractiveness as a temporary or permanent destination for foreign workers can quickly change as competitor countries improve their environment. The long-term labour supply pool must be based, obviously, in a domestic labour market.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Atkinson.

Mr. Swinwood, please, from the Software Human Resource Council.

Mr. Paul Swinwood (President, Software Human Resource Council): Thank you, Madam Chair and members.

Let me just take a couple of minutes. I've provided you with a handout on the software development worker pilot project, and rather than go through it page by page, I just wanted to touch on a couple of the most important parts from the council's point of view.

As an industry organization, we're focusing on solving the problem from multiple areas. In fact, from the software council's point of view, looking at the educational systems, the immigration systems and the retraining systems is all part of our focus. That's what we've been up to since 1991.

We first identified the Y2K problem probably about three years ago—and this is not in the notes—and have been working with our partnership organizations at ITAC and CATA and the other industry associations to try to work towards some potential solutions. It was included in the software worker development pilot about six months ago. The Y2K need had become acute and at that time we started moving towards providing the Y2K focus on some of the job descriptions.

If you go to page 13 of the handout, you'll see that out of the seven job descriptions that are there on page 12 we focused in on the MIS software designer, those people who have been working in the mainframe systems for quite some time, and on the software developer, both for services and applications development.

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So we feel that the software worker pilot, where we're partnering with Citizenship and Immigration Canada and HRDC to make these applications happen, is covered off under the pilot. While it can always use more focus, we believe most of the companies—in fact we have a couple of testimonials—can bring people in under these job descriptions.

We expect to continue making modifications. We expect to be able to work with our partners at both HRDC and Citizenship and Immigration on modifying the job descriptions as they become more distinct.

We're finding that the processing and the process are working. We're finding that people who have proper credentials, where the industry partner has done its job before the perspective employee shows up at a port of entry or a mission, are getting processed quite quickly. There is the old anecdotal report that it takes 52 weeks to get through, but we are finding that in the processes where the people follow the project and work with both our council and the local visa officers, the fact that 50% are processed in two days is quite a stunning change in the processes. My industry partners are reporting tremendous satisfaction with what we have been able to accomplish together.

Rather than going through the whole document, we're finding that the visa officer still has the final discretion. I don't want to lose focus on that. If the companies research the process and do their job of making sure it's an employee they do want and they've checked out the credentials and references transcripts, it works very well.

The one thing we don't impact, of course, is medical or security. So if the person shows up from a country that has a medical or security issue, we do not short-circuit that one in any way. Neither you, nor I, nor anybody else wants to get us into those.

We're very pleased with the process. We're very pleased with how it's unfolding. We're looking for the support from our government partners to move forward and make sure we respond to the demands from industry for exactly the types of people and the specialties they need. We're seeing that happening.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Swinwood.

Next is Ms. Nixon from Human Resources Development Canada, please.

Ms. Martha Nixon (Associate Executive Head, Human Resources Investment Branch, Department of Human Resources Development): Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

I won't go through my speaking notes as I had planned, because we would be a little repetitive. In terms of speaking for Human Resources Development Canada, I can certainly underscore what Joan and Paul have said in that we have recognized the human resource challenges in the school shortages that exist in the software area, and in working through the issues together with our partners, I think we have come up with a very workable solution. I believe that really helps us address the year 2000 problems your committee was focusing on.

It's clear we have hit upon a process that works particularly well in this industry. We have committed to evaluating the outcomes, looking at the processes and trying to learn from that, so as we go forward there are ways to help us improve the larger processing issue.

I also want to stress that if it looks as though what we have in terms of the job descriptions is not sufficient to meet what we see as continuing Y2K problems working with the software council, we are committed, as Immigration is, to find ways to ensure that continues to work.

I might just take a few minutes to step back a little and deal with the issue Joan opened up in terms of this being a short-term problem. From a human resource perspective, our department is involved in a number of things that really attempt to look at the larger picture. I will just touch on some of those issues and things we currently have under way.

One of the big pieces is a capability to do some research. Some people would argue perhaps it's not enough, but we have done research through our applied research branch looking at the skill shortages issue in Canada. There is a piece that was done in November 1996 that's called “A Primer on Skill Shortages in Canada”, and maybe you're familiar with that piece.

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We also have the wherewithal to look at the underpinnings of the whole occupational system and to try to present material to Canadians to allow trend analysis and to, in a sense, give information to young people who are trying to choose careers. We do this through one of the publications you may be familiar with, which is Job Futures. That is available in high schools across the country and is available on-line as well.

Our work with the sectors and the sector-specific sector councils, of which Paul Swinwood represents one, allows us to work with employers to come up with occupational skill-based information that allows them to try to predict better what their resource needs will be in the future, and through working in partnership with them we feel we have a mechanism that does allow us to, in a sense, deal with this need in the way that we have through the software council in filling this particular need.

Certainly we're not covering every sector in the country. There's always room for more work in this area, but I think that is one of the important things we do. We also are still working toward having excellence in the area of matching the skills that employees represent and the skills that employers need through the electronic labour exchange that we now have currently available on Internet and across the country. We feel that we are working toward improvements in that particular network, but it is one, I think, that is beginning to serve us very well.

We are also focusing very much on the whole area of career information and how to improve on the range of products we have that are both generic and specifically oriented. We're working toward not just having passive information but having things like video games and ways of reaching young people to convince them to try to pursue careers and occupational areas that are in the area where the labour market has shortages and has needs.

I think we are probably getting much more mileage out of the work we're doing because we're working now in partnership with provinces and in partnership with people in the industry and in partnership with those organizations that are very much able to help us to present things in ways that will be appealing to younger people and will be based on good solid information.

I'll stop there. Those are a few of the ways that we feel we are starting to look at some pieces and elements that feed into dealing with the issue of skill shortages so that we will be better prepared in the future as we look at this across the country and as we deal with the global pressures that face this country and every other country.

I'll be happy to take any questions.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Nixon. Thank you to all the witnesses for their opening comments.

We'll begin with Mr. Schmidt.

Mr. Werner Schmidt (Kelowna, Ref.): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Also thank you, folks, for appearing here this afternoon.

I would like to ask you specifically, Ms. Atkinson, whether on page 13 these are the seven job skills you were referring to in the earlier presentation that you gave. Are those the seven?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Yes. Those are the seven job descriptions that form part of a national validation of the pilot project.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Would this be a complete description or is that just the title?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: That's just the title.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I wonder if you could explain in a little more detail what an MIS software designer would be.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I'll ask Mr. Swinwood to handle that one.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: What we attempted to do when we identified the shortages was to go out to industry and ask what were the most specific shortages, where they were having trouble filling jobs and filling positions. In bringing together multiple industry partners—with this one, I believe, we had everyone from Met Life to IBM to multiple other mainframe in-house focused corporations who were looking at the systems that your federal government runs and everything else.

Here we were looking at a management information system software designer, where the people were responsible for putting up the.... I'm trying to think of the name of the specific products that are being used these days on mainframes, having slipped out of that territory. It's the old COBOL people, but an MIS software designer is the person who would be responsible for the design of your systems in-house that support your corporate activities. These are the people who put together your finance systems, your management information systems, and the reports you need to run a corporation.

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Mr. Werner Schmidt: That's looking backwards so that these people understand what system is operating now. Now they also have to look forward to what happens on the front end of this thing.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Right.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: So what kinds of skills have these people developed that allow them to plug into this new demand that will be there to meet the requirements of 2000?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: We specifically have not reorganized the job descriptions on some of these with regard to past the year 2000. On this one here what we are attempting to do is to identify the MIS software designers and the skills they need to be able to handle the changes that have to be made to the systems in order to handle the year 2000.

We have not attempted to go out and get an MIS software designer who is going to be able to switch over immediately to the newer technologies that are just coming down. That's why we're looking at temporary workers. We're bringing in their expertise on the past.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I think we had it on a case-by-case specific basis. Does this mean then that in an industry that has this kind of a problem, where there's a major mainframe installation that's been there for many years, they would bring this kind of person on board because presumably they don't have one at the present time? Do they have to have another person then to virtually hold this person's hand to get them ready for this new system?

If I understood you correctly, and I may not have, all we're doing with bringing this kind of MIS person in is having him identify the problem. Somebody else needs to resolve the problem so that it will keep on working after the year 2000. Is that correct?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Let me see if I can get this one together. The year 2000 problem is a multifaceted issue.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Very much so. I understand that.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: It is going to take different levels of people to be able to solve the problem, one of which is a software designer who is going to be able to go in and look at what is there and design what it should look like to accommodate the year 2000.

Some of these people will also have the skills to be able to make that happen, but in a lot of cases we will be taking people out of Algonquin College, out of the career institutes that are around every city now, and have them do the coding that will make the changes to the programs. So it will be a multiple employee relationship.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Which group are we importing?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: We're importing the people who have the expertise and the experience to do the designing and the redesigning. We are taking the graduates of Algonquin, ITI, and maybe 200 or 300 places that have sprung up in the last year and employing them to actually do the coding changes. What you need is coders and those people are now becoming a valuable commodity as well.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: My question was who are we importing? Who are the immigrants who are coming in?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: The temporary workers we are bringing in are the designers with the experience, whom we have lost or have not replaced in our own systems.

For somebody who did the development work on the Department of Supply and Services payroll system in 1967-68, I've moved on from there. I'm not available to fix the problem that I helped create. We have people from overseas who are still working on those systems as current systems.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: That really raises another very serious question. If these people are now working in Europe and other places and we take them away from there and we fix our problem, what happens to the problem in Europe?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Am I allowed to answer that the way I'd like to?

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Answer it truthfully.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Truthfully, the problem is that in Europe, and especially in South Africa and a lot of the Iron Curtain countries, we still have a great number of the mainframe systems that were not replaced as quickly as we have done here in North America. As a result, there is a lot of expertise over there that is not being used to do the changes because they have sufficient people to work on it.

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What's happened in North America is that we moved along from those mainframe days into the client-server and PC technologies. As a result, we haven't kept turning out the people. But with the sanctions in South Africa and behind the Iron Curtain, they got stuck with a lot of the older technologies. They kept training courses up until the last year or two on these technologies.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: The real concern I have is that we are increasingly moving into a global economy. So it's all very well for us to be up to date, but if we're going to be dealing with these other people by communicating with them and exchanging information with them, and if they are not ready, then what good is it?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: But we are able to communicate with the older technologies.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Regardless?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Regardless.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: That's encouraging.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: One of the scary things about the Internet is that you don't know about the other end and whether it's a PC or an old IBM 360, IBM 370, or whatever, providing the information. That's because the interfaces that have been written allow the older machines and the newer machines to communicate.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Can the older machines communicate with the new machines?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Yes.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Then why are we concerned?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Because for the year 2000, the older machines have just the two-digit number capability. So when our newer machines, which have four digits, communicate with the older machines, that's when we're going to start to have problems.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: That's exactly my point. If they're still using those old machines, then how can we adapt ours to the new ones they don't have? How are we going to communicate with them?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Their job is to adapt their systems as well.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Yes, but suppose you don't or can't.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: I can't solve that problem all by myself.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: No, I appreciate that, but I think the reality is that we're importing to them and they're importing to us. So if they don't have the capability now of getting themselves up to snuff, then we're all in trouble.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: I can acknowledge that.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: That's exactly the concern I have. So are we just simply exchanging the locus of the problem?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: No, because you'll find that the North American economy is significantly more computerized than some other economies. As a result, as for the importance of making sure your banking transactions happen, we can at least control what the issues are within North America and within Canada, which is our major concern.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Schmidt. Thank you, Mr. Swinwood. Mr. Bellemare.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Carleton—Gloucester, Lib.): My question is addressed to Mr. Swinwood. You mentioned a few colleges in the Ottawa area. I suppose you live in Ottawa, or the Ottawa area.

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: I do.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: You mentioned Algonquin College. But you didn't mention the Cité collégiale. Is there a reason for that?

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: There's absolutely no reason at all. If I got into mentioning all of the colleges....

I was using Algonquin as an example, but there are community colleges from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Vancouver Island that are all at the present time creating training courses to take the new entrants and provide the coding and training at that level. I was using it as an example.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: I was looking at your publication titled Initiatives. Is it also published in French?

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Yes, I do. We can make a copy available to you.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: But you didn't bring it with you today.

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: I didn't have access to it today on the notice that we were given to appear.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: You had it in French?

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: We can make it available to you in French.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: It's funny; I get the impression your organization is giving a bad signal to the French-speaking community. You come to Parliament to meet a parliamentary committee and you don't have the documentation in French. When you address us, you mention several organizations, but you forget about the French- language organizations, which are very important in the Ottawa area, the most important area in Canada, as far as high technology is concerned. Don't you find you're giving a bad signal, maybe by mistake?

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: My apologies if I provided that impression.

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[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: You criticize the school system. Was your criticism addressed to the whole country or just to the education system in the Ottawa area, which in my opinion is the heart of high tech in Canada?

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: I don't remember specifically being critical of the educational system with regard to what they are doing. Would you refresh my memory on it?

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: I saw that in your documentation. They were talking about kindergarten to grade 13. I'm going to use my own expression to translate for you what I thought you were saying. It was a bit lame. I don't have the exact page. I received your document in English only,...

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Okay.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: ...30 seconds approximately before the beginning of the meeting. Despite my education, I can't read all your documentation that quickly, particularly in a language other than my mother tongue.

In any case, I noticed at some point that you were criticizing the school system at the elementary and secondary levels. As a former educator in the region, I'm wondering. That's not quite the picture of the school system in the Ottawa area I'm familiar with.

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: If that's the impression I have given, of being critical of the educational system itself, I think the council's and my industry partners' concerns are that the educational system has not been able to keep up with the changes in technology, and that through either lack of funding or the different levels of responsibility on it, we have found that the educational system has fallen behind in keeping up with the information technology age.

If there is any criticism we have of that, it's how do we help the system move forward? The goal of the council, in what we're doing, in partnering with the educational system, which we have done from JK right through to the post-secondary level, has been to get them the assistance they need to keep up.

I think from coast to coast we have been involved in almost every province with career information and assistance to the teachers. We have provided teachers' guides about the information technology and the software industry, we have provided mentor guides, and we have assigned industry people to come in and speak throughout the JK to grade 12 system and post-secondary. I would say that rather than standing back and criticizing we have identified some shortcomings and provided to the teachers and the educational systems some ways of solving those shortcomings.

[Translation]

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: To your comments, I say bravo, because that's exactly what has to be done. In short, it's a question of helping. Is the help proactive or is it a question of sending documentation to all educational institutions?

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: We are approaching it in three different ways, one of which is a national software development support program, where we have provided to 25,000 teachers across the country our posters and presentation documents so that they can work in the classrooms. That has been done at the JK level, involving Teach magazine and, at last count, 18 industry partners.

We have been working at the high school level in five different provinces to provide teachers with education and training they need to be able to keep up.

We have been dealing at the post-secondary level with a consortium among university, community colleges, private training companies, CEGEPs in Montreal, and the industry, providing the training that is needed to take non-IT-literate university graduates and college graduates and provide them with a one-year internship program, which then graduates them out into employment in the IT industry.

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So we've been approaching it—

Mr. Eugène Bellemare: You're aware of the federal government's summer student program, the SEED program? Did you ever get involved in that, encouraging companies of a high-tech nature to take on student help during the summer period for student employment and the cooperative education programs? Are you proactive with the industry and the educational system?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Through current programs at the Software Human Resource Council we have six institutions that are involved in cooperative work programs with industry. I believe that totals somewhere around 360 students who are in co-op work terms across the country this quarter and next quarter. So we have these going on from the University of Victoria to the Champlain CEGEP in Montreal, and on to the University of New Brunswick and Dalhousie, starting in September.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bellemare.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé, please.

Mr. Antoine Dubé (Lévis, BQ): I feel a bit uncomfortable, the way Mr. Bellemare does about the French aspect of the documents. However, I won't repeat his remarks, which he expressed very well.

I would first like you to enlighten me on one point. Is the Software Human Resources Council a private organization? If so, is it subsidized by the Canadian government? Could you tell me what the status of your organization is?

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: The Software Human Resource Council is a not-for-profit organization that was formed in 1991. It's a private corporation. It works with various levels of industry, industry associations, and government. At present it's receiving no subsidy from the federal government for its core operations, so it's self-funded and self-sufficient. I raise the funds from the industry partners to run the operation.

We partner with Industry Canada, Citizenship and Immigration, and HRDC on projects that are of common interest to all of us. At that time those government departments may put up as much as 50% of the funding to make some of these projects work.

It's a private institution. It's a private organization. We try to work as an organization among education, government, and industry to bring the players to a common table to achieve these results.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: I will therefore be more indulgent about the language.

Ms. Atkinson, in your presentation, you said that in this area, with regard to human resource needs, Canadians had gone elsewhere, to other countries. If that's the case, were you able to identify the approximate number of such persons that we've lost?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Unfortunately I don't have any statistics on the number of Canadians who have left and gone to other countries in this area.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: Even if you don't have any statistics, I'd like to know you opinion. Is the number of people who have left as large as the number we need, and should we make the norms more flexible with regard to work permits? Is it a minority, rather, that has left?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I don't know whether it balances out in terms of the number of Canadians who leave and the numbers who come in. Perhaps I can offer you some statistics for what we do know, and that is the number of temporary workers who have come in.

Under the pilot itself, the pilot program we've discussed with the national validation, approximately 300 temporary workers have come in under the pilot itself. But what we have found is that the pilot seems to have had an effect on the number of temporary workers coming in under the computer and software development sectors and we've seen quite a tremendous increase.

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In 1996 we had over 1,700 temporary workers come to Canada in the computer software occupations and for 1997 our figures show almost 4,000 coming in under this sector. So there has been quite a significant increase in the number of temporary workers.

As a point of clarification for all the members, under the terms of this pilot the people we are bringing in are coming in temporarily. They're not coming in as immigrants as such, they're not coming in for permanent residence, they're coming in for temporary periods of time.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: Since you're talking about the latest statistics, are you able to tell us which countries they come from mainly?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I don't have that breakdown of statistics with me, but if you are interested we can certainly provide that.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: You don't even have an idea?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I could certainly provide statistics on the source countries these workers are coming from.

I would say that in general a large number of our temporary workers come from the United States, but in this particular sector I would suspect it's much more widespread.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: I'm making a connection with Mr. Bellemare's question, between Quebec's particular needs and those of the francophone areas of Canada. Among the needs, have particular resources been identified for people who would be able to communicate in French? I imagine they need to work with people to understand how such and such a software or such and such a computer system works in a given business or organization. Language may be important. Have you identified particular needs for Quebec and the francophone parts of Canada?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I'm not sure we've identified any specific requirements over and above the language requirement. I don't have a breakdown in terms of province of destination and language capabilities of the temporary workers who have come in under this program. But I would say that regarding those destined to Quebec or other areas of the country where French language is a requirement, that would be so noted by the employer and the employer would obviously be recruiting individuals who would have those linguistic requirements over and above whatever the job description requirements are.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: Sir, would you like to finish?

[English]

Mr. Paul Swinwood: I would like to make one thing very clear on this one. The people who are coming in have been interviewed and have been hired by the companies that are bringing the people in. And so anyone being hired, anyone being brought into the country, is being brought in following the rules and the legislation of various provincial and government organizations.

So for the issues around the need for communications in French, it's all there in the process, it's all in the documentation. It's what's up on the home page of both Citizenship and Immigration and ourselves in French, so that if there is a Quebec company using the process it's all there.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: With regard to the immigration process, there is a special agreement with the Quebec government. Of course, these are not temporary employees. At the Department of Immigration, do you work together with the Quebec government, and, if you do, how do you make sure that special needs are being met properly, for instance, in French?

[English]

Ms. Joan Atkinson: As you pointed out, the federal government has an immigration accord with the Province of Quebec, and Quebec on the immigration side for permanent residents has selection powers under the terms of that accord so that Quebec selects immigrants according to their own economic criteria.

On the temporary workers side, there is a process and a system in place with Quebec where Quebec would normally, under most types of employment authorizations, also issue a document to indicate that the temporary worker had been approved by the Province of Quebec.

For the purposes of the software development pilot, we obviously worked with our counterparts in the Quebec provincial government and they have agreed for the terms of this pilot that they will waive the requirement to issue a separate document to each temporary worker destined to the province of Quebec, because the shortages that have been identified by the industry are prevalent in the province of Quebec as well.

• 1615

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Atkinson. Merci, Monsieur Dubé.

Mr. Malhi.

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi (Bramalea—Gore—Malton, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

How do the small and medium-sized firms find the talented people abroad, and how do the people abroad know about this program?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Certainly the program is fairly well known in the industry, and as Mr. Swinwood has said, all of the temporary workers who come in under this program have been interviewed by the respective employers in Canada. So through the council and through the websites that both Citizenship and Immigration and HRDC have, we've certainly advertised this pilot so that the industry is aware of the pilot.

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi: So Immigration advertises these projects abroad too?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Again, we have to make the distinction between those who apply for immigration to Canada and those who are coming temporarily. It is true that under our regular immigration program we are also selecting people who have skills in the high-tech sector, individuals who can meet our selection criteria as immigrants and come as permanent residents. That is a normal part of our ongoing immigration program. But this pilot is a special program, as it were, and we have certainly, through the council, advertised or promoted this program throughout the industry.

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi: You mentioned earlier that these people are coming as temporary workers, but still they need some other requirements to come to Canada besides this. What are the other requirements they need besides this?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Any temporary worker, like any visitor to Canada, has to meet the requirements under Canada's Immigration Act to ensure that they have no communicable diseases that would be a danger to public health or cause excess demand on Canada's health and social services. They must be of good character, that is, not have a criminal conviction or pose a security threat to the Canadian public. They must have a travel document and they must convince the visa officer that they are coming for a temporary purpose and that they will return to their country of origin at the end of their temporary stay in Canada.

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi: So how does this pilot project work here and abroad?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Overseas, as Mr. Swinwood said, individual employers will find and recruit a prospective employee. That individual, once they have the offer of employment from the Canadian employer, will contact one of our missions or visa offices abroad and make an application for an employment authorization. They must submit their documents, including their travel document; proof of their credentials, because they have to meet the qualifications described in one of those seven job descriptions; and proof of their educational qualifications. Providing that they have all of their documents and meet the requirements of the job description, they can be issued an employment authorization.

If they are coming to Canada from an area of the world that is considered an increased public health risk and they are coming to Canada for longer than six months, they may be required to undergo a medical examination, the results of which are reviewed by a Canadian medical officer posted at one of our missions abroad. Providing that they meet the medical requirements and all the other requirements, they can be issued the employment authorization.

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi: Can they set up one part of the current pilot project abroad when the other people are not aware of that?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: I'm sorry; I didn't understand the question.

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi: If there is a pilot project abroad, can they just set up in one part of the country, for example in the south, when there are some people in the north who have the talent too but don't know about this project?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Well, again, since the project is very much employer-driven, if the employer is recruiting in that part of the country, then individuals will potentially obtain job offers and know about the pilot project.

• 1620

I should also add that besides employers, there are other individuals and organizations who are spreading word or advertising or promoting this pilot project.

There are recruitment agencies, for example, that are aware of this pilot project and are recruiting software development workers for a number of Canadian employers. There are immigration lawyers and consultants as well who are aware of this pilot and are assisting individuals to make applications under this pilot. So there are other agencies besides the Software Council and CIC and HRDC that have been passing word, if you will, of this pilot project.

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi: Do you have an estimate of the numbers of workers they need until 2001, for this software...?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Under the pilot project, as I mentioned before, thus far just under 300 workers have come forward under the terms of the pilot project. In the computer and software occupation sector generally, we have seen a big increase in the number of temporary workers coming in. In 1997, our figures show just under 4,000 temporary workers have come in under computer and software occupations that year.

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi: After 2001, are they going to carry on?

The Chair: Last question, Mr. Malhi.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Where are they destined?

Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi: Are they going to carry this on after 2001?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: The pilot project itself is running until the end of March 1998. We are looking at how long we might want to extend the pilot project, and we're currently discussing that with our partners.

The Chair: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Malhi.

Mr. Jones, did you have a question?

Mr. Jim Jones (Markham, PC): Yes, I do.

I noticed on your job descriptions here, you seem to have designers and developers. Maybe it's implied, but I don't see any need on here for programmers. For most of the problems when it comes to mainframes and that, you're going to need COBOL, Fortran, Assembler programmers. Why isn't that one of the criteria of the job descriptions?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: One of the things the software council is very interested in making sure happens is that, considering the entry level positions and the availability of the skills of those entry levels and the unemployment rates amongst our youth in Canada, we want to make sure that if it is a lower-level entry position, we won't continue to hear the complaints we have such as, “I can't get a job. I can't get that first job”.

What we are doing is working with industry to say, how do we get a lot of our youth trained on these things? We are working with the Cité collégiale and with the CEGEP in Montreal and a lot of other organizations to turn out the people who can take on the coding and the programmer jobs.

Mr. Jim Jones: Isn't it just fixing code versus taking on coding?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Part of the solution—and we're talking here just about the Y2K problem—is not only does it involve fixing code, but as one of the people who created the problem, I can tell you that a lot of coding has to be done to solve the problem, and it's not just changing two columns here or two characters here.

Mr. Jim Jones: But most of the students coming out of the universities or the community colleges are programming in C and in the higher-level languages. There's probably not really a long-term future for them investing their time in COBOL, Fortran, Assembler.

I've seen situations where people just didn't even want to touch this problem because there was no future in it for them. A lot of the types of people you would need are the people with grey hair, like you, and white hair, like me, who have worked on these problems and have acquired the skills in these areas. Thinking you're going to get university students...first of all, I don't think any of the larger clients would trust somebody who is a C programmer to go in and try to fix their CICS, or IMS or DB2 type databases.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: But under the guidance and direction of some of the mature people we are bringing in.... And what we were looking at originally on the worker pilot was a minimum of three years' experience or more. Around the Y2K, it's up to the companies and the people they want to bring in to ensure they have the experience, so they can come in at this level.

• 1626

What we're looking at is a multi-tactic solution, where if we can have these people coming in, and partner them with two or three of our young people who will take some of the training and retraining, then when these people have to leave and go back to their home country, the young people will have gained some experience and knowledge from them, and they will have left behind a much more capable young person to help move the system from there.

Mr. Jim Jones: As for the job descriptions you have set here, where is the demand coming from? Is it from the larger accounts, or is it from the small and medium-sized accounts?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: What we're seeing is that the major demand for the Y2K is from the more mature companies that are possibly a little bit larger.

Mr. Jim Jones: Is it fair to say that within a few months from now those medium or large companies that have IS resources will probably stop the development of any of their new projects and put all their head count and resources onto the Y2K problem?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: That's one of the scenarios being put forth these days, yes—but only one.

Mr. Jim Jones: This program doesn't sound like it's addressing the small and medium-sized companies. Does it? These skills here—is this going to resolve the small companies' problems?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: You're mixing two things at the present time. One is that these skills are needed in the small and medium companies, when you look at the overall set of job descriptions. The small and medium companies are desperately looking for the project manager or project designer who can lead a team of other young people in the development of new products and new services, and that's what this original pilot was set up to do.

If we're looking just at the Y2K problem, then there are only a couple of these descriptions that we've identified fit for the Y2K. So there are the two different approaches to the problem.

But the majority of small companies we have contacted through pulling together this pilot have identified the shortage of these skills—of the people with three or more years' experience in their area—that they are desperately short of.

Mr. Jim Jones: What is the estimated manpower shortfall for the Y2K problem?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: I don't think anyone has a handle on that one yet.

Mr. Jim Jones: Okay; that's fine for right now.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Jones. Thank you, Mr. Swinwood.

Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Walt Lastewka (St. Catharines, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank also the witnesses for being here today. I have three questions I'm going to try to get in, if I may, Madam Chair.

One thing that comes up once in a while, since the program was announced about temporary workers—you mentioned, Ms. Atkinson, 1,700 in 1996, 4,000 in 1997, and of course more in 1998—is that these are all temporary workers' jobs and are not taking away from Canadian jobs because we have an overall lack of people in this field. The last time I worked with HRD, when they looked at the whole country they found we had something like 45,000 to 50,000 openings of some sort in this field.

My concern is not only the Y2K program. My concern also is that we still look at computers and software and the studies in this field in the high school area—and that's mainly what I've been communicating with—as not a field for young people to be in. That impression is still there, no matter how much publicity we have had on Y2K or the job openings. I get asked when I go into the high school, where are the jobs of the future? It's still a surprise that the jobs of the future today are in the computer field, and the jobs of tomorrow will be in the computer field.

Why do you think we have what I'll call the old “nerdy” type of attachment to being in the software and computer field? I guess I can say that, too, since I have two daughters in the field. Why do we have that attachment still going on in the high schools? I guess I can be critical after hearing the discussion earlier. There's still that feeling in the high schools.

• 1630

Ms. Martha Nixon: I feel I haven't done my share here yet.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Okay. Go to it.

Ms. Martha Nixon: I'll start on this question and perhaps Paul can add to it.

The impression I get from sitting where I sit in Human Resources Development Canada, where we're dealing with a lot of issues around learning technology—for instance, what new applications we can encourage and help to grow—is that there is probably more interest than we know from young people in computer technology if it's introduced early in the classroom and if people get to understand that in fact it's a lot of fun to do your work on a computer and to look at it.

I think the problem is probably how many high schools across the country are well enough equipped to actually have computers in every classroom and how many of the homes—I think still only 30% of homes have computers in them—allow children in their off-school hours to actually have access to technology.

I think the problem is more getting the technology to the students than it is trying to get students interested in technology. There's a Canadian speaker by the name of Don Tapscott who has spoken to our group in HRD and does a lot of speeches around the country. He talks about the digital economy and this new generation of young people who are so attuned to technology that the big problem is how to communicate between our generation and this generation coming up.

He was talking about being on television one night and helping people learn how to surf the net. His wife tried to get his young son interested in watching. He was embarrassed that his father was teaching people how to surf the net. He asked his father, “Would you teach people how to surf the refrigerator?” This young person sees the refrigerator as a piece of technology and he sees the computer as a piece of technology and the two are equivalent to him. He thought it was dumb of his dad to be out there trying to educate people.

All I'm trying to say is that I think young people are attuned to technology. The problem is how to get computers to them. I know that through the Industry Canada program, the SchoolNet program, they are making a lot of progress in that regard. There is increasing capability in schools today, but I think there is probably still a lot more to be done.

Also, in Industry Canada they are looking at the Community Access program, which is attempting to put computers in specific strategic points in different communities across the country, particularly rural communities, so there will be at least one point of access where people can go to access Internet.

In Human Resources we are also trying to look at turning some of our centres into human resource learning centres so that people in places like Glace Bay can actually go in and sit down and have access to computers, Internet and so on, to become more familiar with the information that's available.

That's a long-winded way of saying that I think the problem is probably supply of technology as opposed to.... Paul.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: I have to agree. The scary thing I see these days is children going through the primary grades and coming out computer illiterate and stumbling into high school, when we have labs that the students only have access to during school hours; they are not allowed to use it for doing their work. They are only allowed to program on it.

I apologize, Mr. Bellemare, but this is my criticism of the educational process. Having computers as a lab is the incorrect application of the technology. If you use them as a tool for the development of all your other needs, then quite quickly people lose their fear of them, they lose their awe of them. There are some exceptional schools out there that have become computer literate, and whether you are doing a math project, arts project or a research project, you have access to that.

I can speak from experience. My son is currently in grade 10 and at school he signs up one week in advance for his fifteen minutes of access to the Internet at school. That's a high school here in the city of Ottawa. Luckily, he can come home and get on and find whatever research he needs, but my household, I understand, is in the 30% minority.

• 1635

What we have is kids today in the primary schools, where they are using them in a lot of cases to do the education, running into a roadblock at a later level and losing interest. When you're 27th in line at 1 p.m. for your 15 minutes....

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Does that act as almost...? You frighten me a bit here, with what you just said.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Frightened you! You should be in my shoes.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: What I'm getting from what you said is we could be developing people with interests and developing people in the primary grades wanting to go into it, and then they get turned off in high school, rather than really turned on to be in the computer field. Now comes the shortage. That's what I heard you say.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: That's what I said.

Our educational system is evolving, and evolving as quickly as it financially can. This is not exactly an inexpensive way. As a taxpayer, I have my concerns about the ever-increasing costs, but I also believe there are opportunities and ways for people to do that. I see what Industry Canada is doing in its computers to schools program, and we're supporting that across the country. Now any of our industry partners that have excess computers make them available to schools rather than trashing them.

The Chair: Mr. Lowther.

Mr. Eric Lowther (Calgary Centre, Ref.): Thank you, Madam Chair. I certainly applaud the initiative of trying to tackle the 2000 problem. That's really where we're going with this. We've branched off into other things.

I would just invite you to reflect on a couple of things. All of us here are sitting in an industry committee on Parliament Hill and we're talking about a problem that has been described to me to be almost on the scale of a national disaster. It all stems from the fact that we didn't think to carry two extra fields for the year date when we were designing programming. When we start to think about what we're doing here and what has caused this problem, I think we start to understand the scope and the depth of how the information age has actually impacted on the world. I think we miss the boat when we start talking about our throwing computers and access at kids.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: That's right.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Computers aren't going to do it. What we're talking about here is information management techniques. We're in a wholly different day. You can take all the information in the world today and 20 years from now it's 3% of the total. If you take an engineering degree today, they say you have to take it three more times just to stay current in a 30-year career. Throwing computers in and connecting people are not the answer. We need skills on how to manage this great amount of information.

Getting back to this particular issue—and I applaud you, as I say, for trying to tackle it or at least help it along—I'm concerned about a couple of things. You have these job descriptions. My understanding is that these problems are fairly specific to various organizations and the particular software they use, their particular infrastructure. To try to hire somebody based on a broad-based description and say you're going to solve this company's problem or you're going to help with it may be somewhat suspect. I think there has to be a tight fit.

Before you get into answering that, I would also like to get some perspective. I think I heard 300 workers who have gone through this pilot project so far, but 4,000 have come into Canada in the last year. Then I heard 50,000 are needed. I'm thinking, how significant is this pilot project, really, and is it a pilot or is it going to go on for a long time? It seems like such a minor drop in the bucket that I wonder why we're spending so much time on it here, unless it's going to become something more substantive, really to address the issue.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Maybe I could start by addressing your question on the substantial nature of the pilot and whether it's making a difference.

• 1640

As Paul indicated, with the job descriptions we have, the people we are bringing in under this pilot will often be the project managers who will manage projects that will be able to push something forward in small to medium-sized enterprises or even the larger enterprises. So while the numbers are small the quality is high, and the skill sets these people bring in have a multiplier effect in terms of what they're able to do in individual companies and for individual employers.

In terms of whether the pilot will continue, as I indicated before, the shortages are still very much with us. We are looking right now at how long we might want to extend the nature of this pilot. As Martha indicated, it provides us with an opportunity to look at new and innovative ways to address skill shortages in other sectors as well.

So it's important we don't simply carry on doing what we're doing without stepping back and evaluating its effectiveness and its broader application to shortages in other sectors besides this one. That's something we very much want to be able to do, and we will be evaluating the effectiveness of this particular pilot.

I go back to the point I made that bringing in temporary foreign workers is only one component of the strategy we collectively have to put in place to deal with shortages in this sector and in other sectors.

Mr. Eric Lowther: I heard you say 50% of these people are processed in two days as opposed to 52 weeks. Does this impact other immigration cases where resources are taken from those people in order to fast-track these, so other people have to wait longer so these people can get in?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: It's a good question. The resource picture in Citizenship and Immigration, as with all other federal government departments, is always a balancing act. This has a high priority for us because of the known shortages in the sector, so we do attempt to fast-track these cases, and the pilot has allowed us to do that through the national validation procedure.

It's primarily through the validation procedure we've put in place through the pilot that we've been able to speed up the process quite considerably. That's not to say there isn't a workload implication for us at missions abroad, but we have been able thus far in this pilot to assume to take care of those cases within our existing resources.

Mr. Eric Lowther: The Chinese have an expression for crisis; they call it a dangerous opportunity. Maybe there are some lessons to be learned for improvement in the immigration department out of this challenge we have. Certainly there are some major challenges in that department as far as efficiency gains, so maybe there's an upside to this.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Do I have any more time?

The Chair: Mr. Lowther asked one more question before I moved on. Before we start another train I'll move on and come back.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Fair enough.

The Chair: Mr. Shepherd.

Mr. Alex Shepherd (Durham, Lib.): Yes, thank you.

It seems to me what we're doing worldwide is stealing each other's knowledge base workers. I know you're talking about the year 2K problem but we know the graduating classes from Waterloo University in science and technology are all southbound. How do you rationalize this?

More importantly, are you finding resistance among Canadian employers to not pay appropriate pay levels for knowledge base workers? A statement I've heard is why are those graduates going from Waterloo down to Microsoft? The reason is that they pay them better.

A lot of our high-tech industries here are crying out that they can't attract those knowledge base workers in Canada, but is it a matter of remuneration? Is it also a problem in resolving this year 2000 problem that people don't want to pay to put the resources behind it and make it work?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: It's my belief it's not an issue of compensation. I will address this in various steps.

• 1645

What we have here are young people who are looking for the greatest challenge they can possibly find. In the software industry today, if you're a software developer, Microsoft is the sexiest place in the world to work. Microsoft, as a result, is setting up a lab in Toronto and had a lab in Vancouver. We're also seeing that they have bought companies. In fact, they have one in Montreal as part of their research.

One of the greatest things about being a University of Waterloo science and engineering graduate is that you have your choice of where you are going to work in the world and what you want to do. As an employer of choice, Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, is the place to be in the computer industry today. When I graduated a number of years ago, the place to be in Canada was at the Bell Northern Research labs out on Carling Avenue, and it still is. I chose to go to Bell Northern Research rather than to Automatic Electric in Northlake, Illinois. I still think I made the right decision there.

When they're on the leading edge of technologies and when they have their choice, what Microsoft has done to attract them—and I'll carry on with that one—is not pay that much more in cash, but offer stock options. They offer a lot of things that Canadian companies have been slow to get to, but are now doing.

We have a graduate from the University of Calgary who is graduating this year with his Ph.D. He has turned down an IBM offer of $110,000 to start in order to work in Calgary, and he's going back to school for another couple of years because he thinks he can do better than that. I hope he's paying his own tuition; I hope it's not his parents.

So I believe Canadian companies are not way out of line when it comes to salaries. There is no question in my mind that right now we're talking about 20,000 or possibly 50,000 open jobs. At the conference we were at in San Francisco, when we were speaking there in January, the United States Department of Commerce used a number of 350,000 unfilled jobs in the U.S. Microsoft stood up and argued with them, saying the number is over 450,000 just from our partners.

Salaries are going up quickly. In the U.S. right now, they're seeing a 1% increase per month in the salary offer letters, and they are now seeing things such as signing bonuses of $10,000, $20,000 and $30,000 to recruit people. Canadian companies are having to match that, and it will have some impact on a lot of things in the future.

So we're seeing engineering graduates here in Canada today starting at anywhere between $39,000 and $55,000 with an engineering degree.

Mr. Alex Shepherd: Tell me something—and I only know this from my own profession as an accountant. There was a period of time when we brought all these accountants in from the United Kingdom because there was a deviation. We could pay them less. That's the bottom line. Why hire a Canadian when we could get these people at 75¢ on the dollar?

I hear of a lot of knowledge base workers coming from non-North American countries, and I'm sure that must be one of the major incentives. Those industries will not fulfil the compensation rates that possibly Canadians can get in the United States when we're trying to short-circuit this by bringing other workers in from other countries. It may well be an industrial problem of compensation. Or maybe it's a foreign exchange problem. I don't know. There are other factors in here that are playing.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: There are many different factors impacting on that one, including perceived tax rates, perceived working conditions, perceived compensation plans, and quality of life. For some of the workers going through the software development pilot, what I've heard anecdotally is that the highest-paid worker coming in so far was at around $106,000 a year, so I don't think we're bringing people in and undercutting the Canadian market on that one.

It's a global issue. It's a global problem that we are dealing with. We are involved in a global marketplace. To be competitive worldwide, Northern Telecom has employees in 52 countries, so they can't afford to have their employees in Canada being paid less or more than their employees in the U.S., for instance. It's a global economy and it's a global issue.

• 1650

I wish I had a simple answer.

The Chair: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Shepherd.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé, do you have another question? No?

[English]

Mr. Jones? No?

Mr. Schmidt, we're back to you.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm intrigued by the direction this discussion has been taking. I'm very pleased with it, actually, because we're well beyond solving the year 2000 problem with this last set of questions and answers. I like that, because I think what we're dealing with here now is preparation for a knowledge-based economy. I think that's really where you people are headed, and I like that. That's very encouraging.

The other part of that is the development of an educational system as well as an attitudinal system on the part of individuals, on the part of industry, and on the part of government that allows knowledge to become the driving force. It seems to me what we're really talking about here is the management of information, the transmission of information, and the ability to apply that information so that productivity can increase and competitiveness can be advanced. That's where we're ultimately headed with all of this.

It seems to me that if that's the issue, the issue is not primarily one of getting the skilled people to fix the year 2000 problem. The issue is a far bigger and far more fundamental one. I ask you, what is being done at the present time to deal with those kinds of issues?

On the one hand, we have the concern with the bottom line: to have profitability and make our companies and our operations profitable. On the other hand, we have to have the development of the human skills and the social cohesion that's necessary for all of this to actually work so that people will feel comfortable and secure, because simply making money without the feeling of security and having a relationship with other people is a pretty meaningless kind of world to live in.

So I ask you, what kinds of skills do we need in the management of information and in the application of that information? That, I think, is ultimately the key. As my colleague said, it's not the issue of providing computers. That we can do. In fact, a lot of these computers that are being put into the schools are old, obsolete computers that have been upgraded to fit into the present connection system, but really, they're not going to do the job, and we know that already. This is really just a stop-gap measure.

I hope this pilot project isn't simply a stop-gap measure that gets us into the year 2000, and lo and behold, all our computers will do year 2000 stuff and it will be up to date. It has to go way beyond that. What's happening in that regard?

Ms. Martha Nixon: This is a very big question. I can probably only address some parts of it, but I believe you're touching the heart of how we can start ensuring that our country is going to be competitive and that we have the skills and knowledge base we need to work in a global economy.

I know that our minister, Minister Pettigrew, working with many of his colleagues, such as Minister Manley and Minister Martin, have been looking at issues around these questions. It stems partly from how you look at the educational system. It looks very much at how we're connected, how we start to ensure that we have the standards and the opportunities we need through things such as the information highway, and how we are prepared to deal with the technology challenges that face not just industry but education and citizens wherever they live.

A number of pieces are being worked towards a fairly large strategy that will emerge from this governmental mandate, around learning, around connectedness, around preparing citizens. An attempt is being made to look at what skills are necessary.

Some of the federal ministers are trying to work more closely with, for instance, the Council of Ministers of Education in the provinces, who have been engaged in trying to look at the tools they have to measure, for instance, what's coming out of secondary schools. They're doing a series of school achievement indicator projects that tell you what level we are producing out of the secondary school system in the area of science and technology, for instance. The provinces are starting to use that to redesign the curriculum they have in classrooms today.

• 1655

We are working with them on a post-secondary expectations project, which will try to tell us a little bit about what we should be having as a standard coming out of these post-secondary educations like colleges and universities and how we ensure that we have standards so that people are in fact coming out prepared to meet the challenges of the day. One of the key indicators we work with in our department is the literacy studies, which tell us that in Canada today we have a fair proportion of our population, over 40%, who are not really well equipped with basic literacy skills, let alone the skills we need to meet the larger demands of a global economy.

There is a really large number of elements that have to come together to design what you're calling the need to be sure we are prepared to meet the challenges of a knowledge-based economy. That's probably for another day and a much larger group of people to feed into that kind of discussion.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: This is a really good follow-up because on—

The Chair: We have some other questions on the year 2000, so if you can relate it to the year 2000 directly—

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Well, I am. That's exactly what I'm going to do.

The Chair: One last question.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: There's a reason for my first question.

The Chair: I'm not disputing that, but we're running out of time.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: You're tough, but that's good. You're a good chairperson. We like you very much.

The Chair: Last question, Mr. Schmidt.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I think the whole point behind the job descriptions that exist here ties right into this question of literacy. That's exactly where it lies, and I think this is the point Mr. Swinwood made so very clearly before. There is the understanding that there was a different computer language that existed when these mainframes were installed compared to what there is now. That's precisely a question of literacy. It's nothing more than that. I think that's the key issue here.

What is it that these schools in Europe and other countries have done to create a literacy that we don't have that allows them to fix our 2000 problems?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: There's not one single answer to that. One of them is the fact that given the economic conditions and the different approach to computers and development, we can say there are a lot of people in a lot of the foreign countries who are on the generation of machines and who we need now to assist us in resolving the Y2K problems. If you have purchased a brand-new Macintosh or one of the brand new PC systems or one of the latest systems, the SAP systems, none of those have the Y2K problem in them. The problem is in the older systems and the older software that has been brought forward on these systems.

I can give you one prime example of the cause of the problem. When we were working on the Department of Supply and Services payroll system in the 1960s, we were looking at cards to keep track of all of your names and everything else. To go to the fourth card in the database for each person meant we would have had to switch over to three-week payrolls, not two-week, because we couldn't read the cards in two weeks. So the decision was not to put that fourth card into place and to go and find everywhere we could to save space. In 1966, taking out the 19 was a no-brainer. It was really simple or you could have gone to three-week payroll systems.

Those were the sorts of decisions that were made. Those were the systems that were running. A lot of them are still running overseas. A lot of people still have relevant experience with them and that's what we're looking at bringing in.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Brown.

Ms. Bonnie Brown (Oakville, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. I know you're running out of time, so I'm going to combine my comments and my questions and hope the witnesses will grab one question each perhaps.

My questions revolve around really understanding who is responsible for this year 2000 problem. Is the partnership that our witnesses represent the pre-eminent body responsible for preventing a year 2000 disaster of the kind we've heard about? If so, can the witnesses assure us that the problem is in hand, so that we will not have airplanes that crash because computer systems didn't work, or elevators that fall, or any of those kinds of things that could end up with actual physical repercussions for our citizens?

• 1700

Everything I'm hearing today from our three witnesses is telling me that everything is fine. They have this wonderful partnership. Everybody's happy. The government departments and the industry groupings are all working together marvellously. We have a pilot project that's working.

So my question is this: is the pilot project going to fill Canada's need for all the IT professionals Canada needs to solve the year 2000 problem? Or do you even know? Do we have an assessment of how many we need?

Other questions strike me. Does the list of job descriptions need to be expanded, for example, or are you absolutely sure that it's adequate?

The other thing that concerns me is that the whole process seems to be driven by the private sector. Unlike my friends in the Reform Party, I do not have total faith in the private sector to take care of everything super efficiently.

For example, the employer has to find an employee somewhere in the world and begin the whole process that ends up in the pilot project by giving that unknown person in an unknown country an offer of employment. Are there enough employers out there running around the world finding these people in order to get them into the pilot project in Canada to solve our problem and prevent this disaster? Are the validation certificates being issued fast enough? In countries where a visa is required, are the visas being issued by our embassies quickly enough?

What I really want to know as a legislator is whether any of you or all of you think there are things that we, the Government of Canada, should do quickly in order to assist your partnership to get the number of people here quickly enough to prevent the disaster.

The Chair: Ms. Atkinson.

Ms. Joan Atkinson: Perhaps I can start by addressing the immigration components of your questions.

The pilot is but one factor in the strategy to deal with the year 2000 challenge. It's certainly not the only answer. It's certainly not the only answer in terms of bringing in the number of skilled workers that we need to address the shortages generally in the IT sector, including the year 2000.

It's helping. As we described it, employers are able to find overseas workers who have the specific types of skill sets and the knowledge of the languages and the systems we require in order to deal with the year 2000. But I don't think any of us are claiming that the pilot project is going to address all of the needs and meet all of the shortages in the sector dealing with the year 2000 or other issues.

In terms of whether we're getting these people to Canada fast enough, that has been our primary objective in this pilot project. It was to try to facilitate and speed up the entry of these workers.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: Can I interrupt here? My problem is that I have the person from Immigration who's hurrying these people through as best she can and telling me again that everything is all right.

In other words, I would like Mr. Swinwood to comment on the immigration stuff, and I would like the Immigration representative to comment on the HRD validation. I would like the government people to comment on whether they think there are enough industry people out there finding this out.

In other words, your presentation said that your piece of the puzzle is really going well. You're doing the best you can. I appreciate that. I think you have to do that. But it's not helping me to understand what our role could be to assist you if you keep telling me that everything is hunky-dory.

Ms. Martha Nixon: I think there's perhaps an understanding here in terms of the overall condition. You asked whether there was someone who was responsible overall for Y2K, and I think the answer to that question is no.

I think that when we looked at Y2K, we tended to see it this way. Government as a sector is certainly preparing for Y2K, and it has a huge number of people around the system engaged in making sure that government systems are going to be ready for Y2K. So that's a whole other question. I think you would have to get your Treasury Board people here to talk about how they're managing that, but there's a huge amount of effort going into that. It is then assumed that industry is taking the same care to prepare themselves for Y2K.

• 1705

What we're responding to through this pilot and through other efforts that we're working on is not specifically Y2K. When this pilot was initiated it was to deal with the overall large shortage in the software sector, which has been ongoing. Y2K is very much now a current and critical part of that shortage but the pilot was not designed for it. What we found in dealing with the Y2K problem is that the two job descriptions we have as part of the seven do assist in trying to expedite the people who are needed. But that's only one small part of it and we'd never make a claim that it is going to solve any part of the huger problem.

I think it's fair to say that this is a micro-effort in a macro-problem. The macro-problem is how do we as a country deal with skill shortages and have we got the systems in place to deal with that. It can only be a benefit that we learn from the pilot that working together helps. We have learned long since in our department that when we're trying to deal with a macro-problem of shortages we can't do it on our own, we have to involve our industry partners. Sometimes we have to beat them up and say, we think you should be doing this. We also hope that we're going to be dealing with our education partners and saying, you're not going about this in the right way. It is not, I think, something that we, specifically in terms of Y2K, have an overall government responsibility to deal with in the way you seem to be expecting.

Does that help?

Ms. Bonnie Brown: So really no one is in charge of Y2K and the potential disaster? It's just an attempt by all the players to help each other, to nudge each other to get us ready?

Ms. Martha Nixon: If you talk about air transport disasters, yes, NAVCAN and the Transport people would be very much concerned and working very hard. We are linking all the government department efforts to make sure that, for instance, in our department CPP benefits don't go down in the year 2000 but we continue to pay EI cheques and that all the things we're responsible for are going to work, and every department in town would be doing that. That's our feeling, that we're trying to prevent a disaster from happening.

In terms of the companies like IBM and all the other private sector folks, we'll help them insofar as we can to get skilled workers in, but beyond that—I've said enough.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Thank you, let me try to take it from there.

I wrote down seven questions you had and I can quite quickly go through and say five nos, one definitely not, and the last one is multiple approaches.

In interpreting that, do I believe that the Y2K problem is under control? The answer is definitely no. I believe the proposal that was put together has multiple approaches to the problem. I think they all have to be looked at and queried.

The software development pilot is one very small micro-portion of that, it is not the solution. It's also not the solution that my industry partners are working on. Is the pilot adequate? When I look at the forecast we had of 20,000 unfilled positions and we brought in 300, I see we have a small shortfall yet to overcome, so we have to look at what else we can do around that one. And it's not just immigration.

The private sector, I believe, is attempting to solve its problems and I believe it is taking the same approach the federal government has taken—that is, critical systems will be fixed. So the critical systems that are responsible for keeping the elevators going up and coming down and airplanes taking off and landing and things like that probably will be fixed. I use the word “probably” because there are a lot of people with a lot at stake.

Are there enough employers doing things about it? They are just starting to catch on and checking out what the problems are, so there's a lot of interest now coming there.

Are we moving fast enough? The answer is probably not fast enough. As you saw in the Ottawa newspapers just a couple of weeks ago, the region has put an estimate of $30 million in trying to solve their problems with some of their systems, and that's an estimate. I'm really hoping it will only be $5 million.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Brown.

Mrs. Jennings, please.

• 1710

Ms. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Thank you.

The worst-case scenario is that even if every single employer, every organization, which uses the information technology wakes up tomorrow, we're not going to have the human resources to handle the year 2000 problem. The best-case scenario in education is that even if our educational institutions addressed tomorrow the problems Mr. Swinwood was mentioning, where our high school students don't get turned off and they don't have to sign up a week ahead of time to get their 15 minutes of light in front of a computer terminal, we're still going to have a real problem in human resources in the information technology field, because there would be a lag time. Therefore the pilot project—which was not developed to address the year 2000 but which was a result of everybody's light bulb going on and their saying, look, we have a problem here; you're looking at reviewing and seeing if you can modify—will not solve the problem either.

Are there even studies that show there are enough information technology people across the world to fill the 20,000 jobs we have empty here in Canada? Even if we were able to go and get them, are there enough unemployed people, or people who are employed with the skills, who would be interested in coming here?

The other issue is this. With the temporary worker program that has been set in place, the general program and then the pilot program, is tracking being done to determine the length of stay, whether or not the individual who gets that employment authorization for a specific job with a specific employer is with that employer the entire period of his or her visa, what percentage of those visas are actually being extended or renewed, and what percentage of those employees who are coming in, the 3,000 and something...have they been here long enough to have perhaps become interested in staying here permanently, which would help us with that lag time? Is a mechanism in place where they can apply for resident status from within Canada, in the same way as when Canada developed its domestic worker program at one point it recruited women to come in under that program on the promise that if they did their two or three years they could actually apply for resident status here and then would be able to sponsor their families in? Are we looking at that as a possible solution not just to the year 2000 but to the general shortage of human resources in information technology?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: About extensions, we're just beginning now to see the first of the extensions to the employment authorizations that were issued to the first group of people who came in under the pilot. Yes, we will be tracking those people through the system to determine how many are still here, and those extensions.

About converting to permanent status and how many of these people would be able actually to stay and become landed immigrants or permanent residents, that's a bit more difficult for us to get a handle on; how many of those temporary workers will avail themselves of the opportunity to stay. Under current immigration regulations they cannot apply from within Canada. However, that's not to say they can't apply for permanent residence in Canada. As you know, we have consulates in the United States, including one in Buffalo, and there's a phenomenon known as the “Buffalo shuffle”, in which people who are in Canada on temporary employment authorizations or other types of temporary status make application for permanent residence through our consulate in Buffalo.

As I say, we don't have any figures to know how many of these people have availed or will in the future avail themselves of that opportunity, but since these are highly skilled workers, many of them will meet our selection criteria for permanent residence under our skilled worker movement. So it's possible numbers of them could apply for permanent residence.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Under the domestic worker program, an incentive for.... At the time when it was first developed, back in the early 1950s, there were barriers in the Immigration Act that precluded or created less access for people from certain countries; in the main, visible minorities.

• 1715

People were able to come in through the domestic worker program, but the incentive for getting people to actually be interested in the program was the lure of the fact that they could apply if they completed their—I forget what the period was, but I believe it was three years. Under the domestic worker program they could actually apply for permanent status within Canada and didn't have to go through the Buffalo shuffle. Some people can't do it because in order to get into the United States, they have to have a visa issued by the United States. They're from a country where you have to have a visa to go to the U.S. as a visitor, so some cannot avail themselves of that.

Is there any consideration in the immigration department of the fact that this may be one small piece that could actually be a lure for more information technology specialists to want to come here on a temporary work visa and actually assist the private sector in going to recruit them?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: It's an interesting question. In fact, the recent report that was given to the minister, our Minister of Immigration, Madame Robillard, by the legislative review advisory group, had that as one of their recommendations, that temporary workers be given the opportunity to apply for permanent residence from within Canada. It is one of a group of recommendations in that report that the department will be considering.

The Chair: Mr. Swinwood, do you wish to reply to Ms. Jennings' original question?

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Yes, just one quick thing on it. The number I was using of 20,000 open jobs was across the sector. It was not just the Y2K number.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: I understand that.

Mr. Paul Swinwood: Just so there's no publication of my saying 20,000 Y2K openings.

The Chair: I would like some clarification. Ms. Jennings asked a question—the first question she asked and went on to the second issue in the same topic. One of the reasons we asked the three of you to appear before us today as witnesses was the task force recommendation and the fact that there is a problem, perceived at least by the CEOs who sat on the task force, that all is not working well through immigration, all is not working well through the pilot project.

The pilot project, which wasn't set up for the year 2000 problem, is scheduled to end March 31. We're looking at what's going to happen or what are you willing to do for the year 2000. Although it's not necessarily government's responsibility to solve all the problems of the year 2000, the task force has identified a very specific area that is government's responsibility and I'm hearing that things are working well. I don't think the CEOs would have sat around the table and wrote this recommendation if they thought things were working well and if there were enough people in Canada.

So we need to know, as a committee, are you looking at this recommendation that they put forward—recommendation 14—and what are we going to do about it, or what are you proposing that the government do about it?

Ms. Atkinson, it says very specifically that they're looking for foreign workers to secure temporary employment authorization directly at a point of entry. Is that feasible or not feasible? Are we looking at the recommendation? Are we talking about special legislation or special permission? What's being discussed?

Ms. Joan Atkinson: As I indicated in my opening statement, we believe we're meeting the industry's needs in terms of the speed at which the foreign workers come in through the pilot. We are able in.... At least one in four of these workers are getting their employment authorizations the same day they apply and almost over 50% of them are getting their employment authorizations, if not the same day then the second day, the day after they've applied for their employment authorization.

We're not supporting the recommendation that talks about getting employment authorizations at the port of entry. We would prefer that employment authorizations be applied for and obtained overseas, because it allows us to manage the program much more effectively. We believe the pilot is meeting the needs of the industry in terms of getting the temporary workers to Canada much, much more quickly.

As we said previously, previous to the pilot, it was weeks and weeks, sometimes months, once an employer had identified a worker overseas before they were able to bring that worker to Canada. Now, we're able to do that in a matter of days.

The Chair: I have to apologize. There is supposed to be a vote at 5.30 p.m., and the bells have started. Unfortunately, they're not ringing in here. The lights should be blinking.

I appreciate your answer. That was my question and my concern—the task force recommendation.

• 1720

It's been a very interesting discussion. We appreciate your coming before us. On behalf of the committee, I thank you. We may have several of you back as we continue our long-term study that Mr. Schmidt started. Again, we hope you'll address the year 2000 needs as you see fit. We know you're working with industry and we appreciate that.

Thank you very much for coming.

The meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair.