HUMA Committee Meeting

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

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

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 31, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Colleagues, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we're here on access to post-secondary education and training and apprenticeship.

Before I welcome our witnesses and begin, I'd just like to remind members that this is the last of our hearings on this topic for this session. I suggest that we have some sort of draft report, dans les deux langues officielles, by next Wednesday. We obviously don't know when the House is going to adjourn, but I think Wednesday should give us enough time to look at a draft.

We're not looking at a comprehensive, encyclopedic report from these hearings—just something quite short that will summarize the testimony we've received, and make recommendations or point directions for the committee to follow up on the recommendations we've received. If that's in order with you, it will be by next Wednesday.

I'd like to welcome all our witnesses here today.

[Translation]

Monique Guay.

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Pardon me. What report are we talking about? There are several reports at this time of year. One was tabled this morning. There is also the subcommittee report, which was tabled yesterday. What report are you talking about?

[English]

The Chair: No, Monique, I'm talking about the main committee's report on these hearings. The joint subcommittees' report doesn't directly become the business of the main committee until they refer it to us. The way it works is that the two subcommittees are permanent and act on their own. But because they're subcommittees, they do not make recommendations directly to the House. So if there is a report from the subcommittees, it will come here and then we'll discuss it. At the moment, we don't have one.

Again, I welcome the witnesses—our apologies for the delay. As you know, there was a committee in here before us, and like us, they're very busy. We're getting toward the end of the parliamentary year, and we parliamentarians always leave things to the last minute, so these last few weeks are always very full.

You should also know that this committee tabled its report on employment insurance this morning, and many of us came from a press conference on that same topic. So I apologize to you all, and we're most grateful to you for coming.

Perhaps I can ask you to simply introduce yourselves by name and say who you represent—and you know we're on television, so do it slowly so the cameras can find you. We'll go around like that. After that, I thought we'd proceed in the order you're listed on the agenda. The idea then is that you make a short five-minute presentation, and then we'll go to questions and answers. Are you comfortable with that?

Could we start with you, Jennifer? Perhaps you could introduce yourself, and then we'll go to Keith.

Ms. Jennifer Steeves (Project Coordinator, Canadian Automotive Repair and Service (CARS) Council): Jennifer Steeves with the Canadian Automotive Repair and Service Council.

Mr. Keith Lancastle (Executive Director, Canadian Apprenticeship Forum): Good morning. My name is Keith Lancastle. I'm with the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, Forum canadien sur l'apprentissage.

Mr. Doug Muir (Chair of the Industrial Relations Committee and Saskatchewan's Director of Apprenticeship Training, Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship Training): Good morning. My name is Doug Muir. I'm the chair of the industrial relations committee of the Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship Training, and I'm the director of apprenticeship training from Saskatchewan.

Mr. Don DeJong (Acting Director General, Human Resources Partnerships, Department of Human Resources Development): I'm Don DeJong, acting director general, Human Resources Partnerships, representing HRDC.

Mr. David MacDonald (Director General, Skills and Learning Policy Directorate, Department of Human Resources Development): Good morning. David MacDonald, director general, skills and learning task force, HRDC.

Mr. Gary Greenman (Executive Director, Alliance of Sector Councils): Good morning. My name is Gary Greenman and I'm the executive director of the Alliance of Sector Councils.

Mr. Robert Blakely (Director of Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department): I'm Bob Blakely. I'm with the Canadian office of the Building and Construction Trades Department, the umbrella organization for the construction unions in Canada—and I'm proud to be a graduate of the apprenticeship system.

Ms. Robyn Gordon (Vice-President, Software Human Resources Council (Canada) Inc.): I'm Robyn Gordon. I'm the vice-president of the Software Human Resources Council (Canada) Inc.

The Chair: Again, welcome to you all.

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Bob Blakely is first on the agenda. Bob, would you care to make your presentation?

Mr. Robert Blakely: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, the building and construction trades represent about 400,000 construction workers in this province. Together with our employer partners, we have a very large infrastructure across this country that deals with skills development, apprenticeship, and training.

We believe quite fervently that the development of a highly skilled, nationally deployable, motivated and trained workforce is a national asset and a national resource.

When you start working on a job in the construction industry, you move yourself closer to unemployment with every passing day. The nature of our business is that an employer doesn't always have another job. So we have to function in an industry that has a transitory workforce, and that workforce needs to be able to move from areas of underemployment to higher employment.

Together with our employer partners, we've made investments in a training infrastructure. But that's not something we can do for ourselves.

Apprenticeship is a thousand-year-old system that, given the opportunity, can be the best possible training vehicle to teach a combination of hand skills and head skills, to move industrial development in this country, and to provide the required infrastructure.

Our trades are all now going through a demographic bulge. The average age of tradesmen in this country is now in the upper forties to late fifties. With the amount of work that's forecast, and the number of people about to leave our industry, we are now virtually in a crisis situation.

The baby boom generation is going to leave the construction industry in the next ten years. If we don't get the skills transfer, if we don't have the ability to attract bright young people into our trades, there is going to be a very difficult situation.

The truth is that Canadian society rests on the backs of the construction workers. Not a single watt of electricity in this country is produced in a power plant or dam that we haven't built; it isn't transmitted except through wires and cables we've stretched; and it doesn't power any equipment that we haven't installed.

As a national resource, we're in a very difficult situation. We've got considerable assistance from HRDC in this regard, and we've now started a sector council, which is looking at how to actually get a handle around our problem—to figure out the supply and demand curves of construction, to try to even out the dips and valleys.

In spite of the fact that our trades offer relatively high wages, we're having a difficult time attracting people. Most parents view the prospect of their child becoming a construction worker with the same degree of fervour they would if the child announced they were going to be a tattoo artist or a street peddler. We need to change that unfortunate image.

So we're in a mode where we need people—bright people, people with math and science skills, people who are able to exist in a difficult environment that requires bright people. And we're having a difficult time getting them.

I'm not going to beat the drum about the first two years of apprenticeship funding through the EI benefit. I just hope you actually put that into the reports you tabled.

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Our industry has a number of stakeholders that have to commit to where things are going. Part of the solution will come through HRDC, but a significant portion of the load will have to be taken up by the construction industry. Companies will have to make spaces available, change people's perceptions about the trades, and actually deliver the 80% of training apprentices acquire on the job.

The Chair: Thank you very much for keeping to time.

The written material you've all provided will be incorporated into the record. I know these initial presentations are short, but in the questions and answers you'll certainly have opportunities to develop themes if you wish.

The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, and Keith Lancastle.

Mr. Keith Lancastle: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, honourable members, mesdames et messieurs.

I'd like to begin by thanking you for the opportunity to appear before you today, to add some additional perspective to your discussions and deliberations in the area of apprenticeship and skilled trades training.

The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum—le Forum canadien sur l'apprentissage—is a newly established, multipartite organization that brings together the key participants in the Canadian apprenticeship community. CAF-FCA has a unique partnership within the Canadian labour market, one that's working hard to make a difference within the apprenticeship community.

The constituencies that make up our organization include representatives of business and of labour, the interprovincial alliance of apprenticeship board chairs, persons with disabilities, members of visible minorities, aboriginal persons, women, educators, the Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship, and Human Resources Development Canada.

The emergence of key issues and challenges to apprenticeship and skilled trades training emphasized the need for a collaborative, consultative, and pan-Canadian approach to the development of solutions. Following some extensive consultations among the key stakeholders, the decision was made to establish a new organization. As a result, CAF-FCA was incorporated on June 1, 2000.

Our organization operates with two key strategic objectives. One is to promote apprenticeship as an effective training and education system that contributes to the development of a skilled labour force. The other is to provide a mechanism for constituent groups to support the apprenticeship training delivery systems across the country.

CAF-FCA uses a consensus-based decision-making model to help ensure that the perspectives of all our constituent groups are considered in our initiatives. As we move forward, these perspectives should continue to be fully considered in planning our organization's activities.

Within the last year we have identified a number of priority areas for our initial activities. In all cases, the scope of these activities will be very broad. They will address nationwide issues and the concerns of a wide range of industrial sectors and occupations.

One area of activity will include the promotion of apprenticeship—the development of a cross-country effort designed to encourage more young Canadians to consider the option of careers in the skilled trades.

A second priority is an inventory and information project: a single point of contact, likely in the form of a web-based portal, for comprehensive and up-to-date information and data on apprenticeship training opportunities. It will also have the full range of information available within the system across the country.

Another activity is a 2002 apprenticeship conference. This will bring together the apprenticeship communities from across the country to discuss key and emerging issues that affect apprenticeship and skilled trades training, now and in the future.

Then there's accessibility to apprenticeship, and barriers. We will assess the nature and extent of systemic and other barriers that may prevent or reduce access to apprenticeship or skilled trades training for Canadians across the country.

The final activity is an examination of the key benefits and challenges of a common core approach to apprenticeship training delivery.

Developing and implementing initiatives in each of these areas will assist the apprenticeship community in its efforts to deal with the challenges we face, such as skill shortages. Our future direction and activities will be developed by consensus: each of our organization's constituent groups will take part in a consultative process to shape our future direction. Consideration will be given to emerging issues, as well as the key challenges to the apprenticeship system now.

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Our organization is very pleased to be part of a process that allows the various constituencies to openly and fully discuss and explore the issues and challenges we all face. We look forward to implementing our priority activities and to the opportunity to influence some positive degree of change within the system.

In closing, we would like to thank you once again for the opportunity to appear before you today. We look forward to your questions and comments. Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chair: Keith, thank you very much.

[English]

The report we tabled at 10 o'clock this morning, which is on EI, does include strong mention of training, including apprenticeships. It's on our website, but there are sufficient copies here. So at the end you might all be interested in picking it up.

We now go to the Canadian Automotive Repair and Service Council, Jennifer Steeves.

Ms. Jennifer Steeves: Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Canadian Automotive Repair and Service Council was established in 1988 to address on a national basis the human resource and training needs of the Canadian automotive repair and service industry. In June 1990 we completed a study that took a snapshot of issues in our industry, and we were finding a lot of things that have been spoken about this morning already. Over 40% of our current workforce is over the age of 45, but only 7.5% are under the age of 25, so we have some real recruitment issues.

I'll briefly mention some of the activities and strategies we've undertaken to try to address some of these issues. We're working in partnership with HRDC on a career awareness project for the recruitment issue, to try to increase the numbers of young people with the appropriate skills and attitudes to come into our industry. We need talented people. We need young people to consider careers in our industry as an equal choice with all the other careers out there. So we're developing a career information suite geared to young people in grades 8 and 9, and it will include profiles on over 45 occupations in our industry, posters, promotional materials, as well as a classroom guide, to help incorporate that information into the classroom, and an industry guide, to help bring industry into the classroom and make more of a connection between industry and the education system.

When we're talking about recruitment and retention of workers in our industry, there is one issue that keeps coming to the surface, that technicians are not able currently to write off the cost of their tools from their income tax. This is an issue that affects recruitment, in that young people have to purchase a set of tools to work in the industry and that costs approximately $4,000. But it's not a one-time cost. As they become a journeyperson and work throughout their career, tools they will need to diagnose and repair current technology could cost tens of thousands of dollars, and it's a real impediment for people to stay in the industry. So CARS continues to support industry's efforts to achieve tax relief for both the apprentice and the journeyperson's required purchase of tools.

We're also looking at skills gap and training needs assessment for the industry, to ensure that the current workforce has access to training and identifies the skills and training it requires.

CARS has also developed interactive distance learning, which uses satellite technology and brings a virtual classroom into the workplace to increase access to training. We're also working with the education committee to ensure that instructors at community colleges receive the professional development opportunities they need to provide training to those coming into the workplace.

We have a national accreditation program, which provides universal benchmarks for the delivery of applied post-secondary training and education. This is an industry-driven program, and the board of directors are industry representatives.

As far as training young people is concerned, it's recognized that apprentices will spend probably about 80% of their time in the workplace, it's part of their training, and to provide better training in the workplace, we've developed the mentor or coach program. A lot of technicians have excellent skills and abilities, but there's another skill they may be lacking to communicate those skills to the young person. This program gives them skills in leadership communication, human relations, and those sorts of things.

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As well, CARS has provided a number of manufacturers with assistance in distributing vehicles to schools, cutaway cars with the latest technology, to ensure young people have access to the latest technology in their environment.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much indeed. I appreciate it. This is not to threaten the others, but I really do appreciate the way you're keeping to time. It makes it much easier for us.

We proceed to the Department of Human Resources Development. In this case, gentlemen, I probably should indicate your directorates and so on. We have David MacDonald, who's the director general, skills and learning policy directorate, and Don DeJong, associate director general, human resources partnerships.

David MacDonald.

Mr. David MacDonald: I'll keep it brief as well, Mr. Chairman, and thank you.

The first thing I want to say is that HRDC is acutely sensitive to the value and importance of the skilled trades in Canada's economy. We view the skilled trades really as the heartbeat of our economy. We know that if we do not have a well-functioning system of skilled trades, it'll affect our standard of living and our quality of life.

We believe at HRDC we have three broad analytical challenges that are facing the skilled trades. The first one is the recruitment issue. We do have attitudinal challenges with society seeing skilled trades as a good career choice. Second, we have a completion challenge—the certification rates are declining. Third, we do have a macro-demographic crisis that we're facing in some of the skilled trades.

We also believe at HRDC that the skilled trades work best when they're rooted in partnership, when the different roles and responsibilities of the players are respected and invested in. Federally, we have a facilitation role, we have a research role, and we provide income support to approximately 30,000 eligible apprentices. We recognize and respect the provincial roles in regulating the apprenticeship system, and we recognize the role played by unions, employers, and educators in curriculum development and addressing labour market needs.

The next thing I want to do very quickly, Mr. Chairman, is give you a sense of the current federal role or investments in the skilled trade sector. First, we participate in the Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship. We have two members there. We provide support for the national red seal program. As most members will know, there are currently 44 skilled trades in the country that have red seal approval.

We also provide financial support and analytical support to the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, which will celebrate its first anniversary, I think, on June 1 of this year. As you know, the CAF brings together representatives of national labour groups, national business groups, provincial industry, educators, and equity groups.

We also fund—and you'll hear more about this through the morning—a national network of 26 sectoral councils, which have shown some real pioneer leadership work on the skilled trades in curriculum development, identifying skill shortages, doing promotional activities. We provide a lot of financial support to Skills Canada, which is a national consortium focused on recruiting youth into the skilled trades through national and world competitions.

Finally, through the EI system, we fund approximately 30,000 eligible apprentices for income support.

So we do know that in the skilled trades there are some macro policy challenges that we need to address with our partners. We realize that if we do not have some credible public policy responses, their contribution to our future economic success will be affected.

The Chair: Don, are you going to add anything?

Mr. Don DeJong: No, that's fine. Thank you.

The Chair: So we proceed to the Software Human Resources Council (Canada) Inc., Robyn Gordon.

Ms. Robyn Gordon: My organization exists to ensure that Canada has sufficient HR resources to compete globally in the software sector, both now and in the future. The original concept for an apprenticeship in the software industry came from our recognition that Canada must find alternative training processes to meet the growing need for IT skilled workers.

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What we are doing with this program is marrying the historic process of apprenticeship with the emerging worker of today. We feel that with this approach we will be able to offer our young people the many opportunities in the IT industry. We have proposed that we use the existing secondary system and combine it with an innovative approach to ensuring that an interested group of young people receives the necessary technical, communication, and employability skills necessary to enter into the industry. This, combined with a meaningful certification, will ensure their success, we believe.

We have completed a national feasibility study based on these concepts. It was very positive. The responses we got were very reassuring and very encouraging. We have also completed two more targeted studies, one in New Brunswick and one in British Columbia, that have also looked at the possibility of doing this provincially. We presently have a pilot that is proceeding in B.C. as we speak, which will have students in seats in September. We're going to be positioning about 60 to 75 students in that program starting in September.

We've been working with the CCDA to ensure that we are best positioned to eventually gain that very important red seal that's spoken of. We feel this will be the certification that will be meaningful. Our next step is to follow up on the recommendations resulting from the national study with an aim of having this program running in every province and territory within the next five years. We feel that those are actually reasonable expectations. So we're very excited about this.

Right now we have a proposal that is tabled with HRDC requesting the necessary funds to allow us to do this. So we're very positive that will move forward as well.

Thank you.

The Chair: Robyn, thank you very much. I understand that you're one of the newer sectoral councils that David referred to. Am I right in that?

Ms. Robyn Gordon: It depends on how you interpret new. We've been around since 1992, but this is the first time we've ever been approached to do anything at all associated with the apprenticeships.

The Chair: It's interesting. It's apprenticeships in non-traditional whatever.

Ms. Robyn Gordon: We're also approaching the structure of apprenticeship very non-traditionally as well, which is causing many people consternation.

The Chair: Thank you. I was indicating not that I wanted you to stop, but if you didn't stop the members would criticize me for interfering with the hearings here. But thank you very much for that.

We go now to the Alliance of Sector Councils, Gary Greenman.

Mr. Gary Greenman: Thank you for the invitation to appear today before the standing committee and bring you some of the perspective of the Alliance of Sector Councils and its members. The members are listed in the centre of the newsletter that was distributed to you.

What I will try to do is briefly and quickly explain what sector councils are and what they do, provide some observations on trades and apprenticeship training, and outline some measures where sector councils—and some of them have already presented—are making some inroads in the trades field. And then I will end with some general suggestions for the role of governments from our perspective.

Sector councils are a relatively unique made-in-Canada partnership of industry, labour, government, and education. They're primarily funded by Human Resources Development Canada, and have been in existence for approximately 15 years. They are established on the principle that they can provide a neutral forum for these parties to address industry priorities in the human resources development field on a national and a sectoral basis.

They are successful in things like developing national industry standards for occupations and skills competencies, addressing mobility factors for the workforce, national certification programs for a range of occupations, industry-developed and -delivered training programs, innovative approaches to training delivery, enhanced immigration processes for occupations with severe shortages, skills preparation, advancement, and transition for the employed and new entrants to the labour market.

By reviewing the current list of Alliance of Sector Councils members you will see that a number of our councils have a high percentage of their labour force who would be involved in apprenticeship and trades training.

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Research and recent presentations on apprenticeship and trades training point to a number of observations, some of which have already been mentioned by other speakers. Let me quickly go over what I see those as. They include the declining enrolment in trades and apprenticeship programs generally, and declining investments by governments at both levels. This has left many training facilities with outdated equipment and a lack of modern technology and resources. I think it's also fair to say that industry investment in apprenticeship and trades training has declined.

There is also the general poor image that Canadians have of work in apprenticeship and trades. We need to take steps to ensure that the attitudes of parents, educators, peers, and public are addressed and that these perceptions get changed.

Others have mentioned the aging workforce in the trades, that the current average age is in the high forties to the mid-fifties, and that with the exit of the baby boomers there's a crisis facing us in the very near future. An additional factor we see affecting trades training has been the devolution from the federal government to the provincial governments of responsibility for labour market training. It's had a huge impact on the work of sector councils.

Sector councils, as a group, address many of these areas. Let me quickly outline for you some of the options they are currently taking, or can take, to address labour market shortages or issues in the trades and apprenticeship training.

Better trades career information must be made available and used properly by the school systems and other information networks in the country.

Marketing campaigns need to highlight and promote the value and rewards of careers in trades. Support for industry leadership with the updating of occupational skills and competencies and the design, delivery, and implementation of new and innovative approaches is really critical.

Other options include industry development of training programs for emerging and new trades occupations; better and more effective networking among all of the stakeholders, including industry, labour, government, and educators; more effective partnerships to better involve and prepare, in our view, some of the labour force feeder groups, such as the aboriginal population, women, visible minorities, or new Canadians. They're not well represented in these occupations.

Sector councils can also obtain better labour market information to assess the current and future situation. We need assistance with and can provide assistance in national and industry standards and the removal of provincial and territorial barriers to the mobility of workers.

Sector councils are also involved in articulation agreements with colleges and education providers across the country for better recognition of courses or training, and also recognition of prior learning or foreign credentials.

Let me finish then by listing some of the roles we see for the government. Let me start by saying that there's this split jurisdiction in Canada, as I'm sure you are aware, as to the level of government and their responsibility for training and education.

Better cooperation is absolutely critical between all levels of government respecting national approaches and standards. It is important as well that there be recognition of the importance of industry participation and the leadership that can result from the partnerships industry can be involved with. Governments need to recognize the public good or public policy objectives, and provide appropriate funding to meet those.

Other roles for government are support for innovation and new developments that would be piloted and delivered by sector councils, which could be addressing issues such as lessening the length of time required for certification in the trades, developing more effective systems to recognize prior learning and current work experience, and developing dedicated measures to assist with participation rates of the groups I mentioned earlier.

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We think support of national standards and national approaches is very critical to the Canadian labour force being able to compete in a global economy. We need national standards in this country, we believe, as well as support for existing sector councils to do more in the trades training area, and for the development of more sector councils to cover other industries in the Canadian economy.

Finally, we need greater federal, provincial, and territorial cooperation to meet these challenges in partnerships with industry groups.

Thank you for inviting us to make this presentation and for the discussion that will follow.

The Chair: Gary, thank you very much.

Doug, we appreciate your patience.

The last presenter is the Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship Training, Doug Muir.

Mr. Doug Muir: Good morning. I can say that because it's still five to twelve.

I'll start by giving you an overview of the Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship. It's a group of people representing provinces and territories in Canada and the federal government. We're in the business of facilitating interprovincial mobility through the development, implementation, and recognition of interprovincial red seal occupation standards, examinations, and credentials.

We work on three guiding principles. All jurisdictions must have the opportunity to participate in a designation and development process. We believe that industry within each jurisdiction should have the opportunity to participate and aid development processes, and all processes will take into consideration the need for a timely response to industry's needs. So you can't stand behind the other two principles and say it takes too long to get things done; you have to respond quickly.

The council itself is represented by each province and territory with one individual, usually the director of apprenticeship. We also have two representatives from Human Resources Development Canada who participate on the council.

Another important group that was put together back in 1997 was the interprovincial alliance of apprenticeship board chairs. These are the industry representatives that play a very influential role in each province and territory in designating trades, in prescribing curriculum, and in deciding standards. Their mission is to strengthen interprovincial apprenticeship cooperation at an industry level by creating a vehicle which links the apprenticeship, trade certification, and related work-based training systems of the provinces and territories of Canada.

The structure of that committee is that where there's an apprenticeship board in place, it's a representative of that provincial apprenticeship board. Where no provincial apprenticeship board exists, a representative of industry who serves in some capacity on the provincial or territorial apprenticeship advisory boards may be named to sit on the council.

We had a typical hierarchical structure until a few years ago. We had a chair, a vice-chair, and a past chair, and that was the mechanism we used to do business. With the changing times, increased demands, and our ability to respond, we went to a standing committee structure. We have four standing committees. The executive committee is made up of the chair, the past chair, the vice-chair, and three representatives of the other three standing committees.

One of the committees is responsible for promotion, marketing, and information. It does such things as promoting awareness of CCDA and its role and mandate. It develops communication and marketing strategies. It promotes apprenticeship training. It fosters and promotes national standards. It also is the group that organizes our conferences and activities.

Another one of our committees is the products committee. It's a funny name for a committee whose responsibility is basically curriculum and exam development. But it is the group of people that are working on our occupational analysis. Occupational analysis is the foundation for our exams. The exams are being computerized with a new national, interprovincial computerized examination management system. That products committee is quite busy, when we have 44 red seal trades, keeping exams up to date and, since the basis of those exams is the national occupational analysis, keeping those up to date.

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The last committee, which is the one I chair, is the industry relations committee, and it's responsible for developing and maintaining linkages and relationships with national industry groups. We have, through our interprovincial alliance of board chairs, links between the provincial advisory groups, but we also needed to bridge that connection at the national level, and the industry relations committee does that.

By the way, the interprovincial alliance of board chairs sits on the three subcommittees of CCDA. So they'll sit on the products committee, the promotions and marketing committee, and the industry relations committee.

Being cognizant of time, I'll just move ahead to some of the discussion points. I wanted to just talk about a definition of apprenticeship training. I didn't hear it mentioned by the previous speakers, but I think it's important to recognize that apprenticeship training is employment. It's employment; it's work experience, and that's reinforced by technical training. It's also important to realize that apprentices are employees. They don't see themselves as students. They see themselves as plumbers, carpenters, and electricians.

An issue that has already been identified is the income support piece when apprentices attend the technical training. That's an issue. The cost of tools, as has been mentioned by the CARS representative, is also an issue. When we talk about the income support piece, it's not just the two-week waiting period that's a problem. One of the bigger challenges is dealing with individuals that are not EI-eligible for lots of various reasons. Traditionally, they happen to be many of the disadvantaged groups who are trying to get into the program—aboriginals, women, and a number of other people that do not qualify for any income support at all.

One of the other issues is demand for training. All provinces have seen an increase in the number of apprentices. That places capacity issues on the training institutions. There are infrastructure and human resource problems, including getting qualified teachers.

One other point is that when we're looking at options to address those kinds of things, I think we need to look at partnerships with employers, unions, and associations. They already in many cases have equipment and buildings and perhaps have to look at other ways to offer training in that context, but I think there are some possibilities there.

I just want to deal with some longer-term issues—and while I call these “longer-term issues”, I think maybe a better term would be “longer-term solutions”. We certainly heard from the construction people that certification is very important to the construction industry. Apprenticeship training in general is very important to the construction industry, because it's probably the one training mechanism they have, and perhaps the automotive industry and some of the other groups have other alternatives. But construction really needs apprenticeship training and the certification that follows it.

Major projects, for example, depend on certification and depend on that certificate being meaningful. If you have a certificate that doesn't imply what you can do, or you get employed on the worksite and you can't do the kinds of tasks required, then you have problems.

Challenges around that include changing work practices, technological change, and specialization, which have impacts on certification. Also, if you have changing work practices and provinces doing things differently, you have a difficult time designating new trades where you have a slightly different scope in some areas.

Quickly, I'll just touch on skill shortages and competition. When we talk about shortages of health professionals, teachers, and IT professionals, all those professions are going to be in competition with plumbers and electricians for the same individuals.

We need to talk about job satisfaction and career opportunities in order to address skill shortages, and of course we need to look at under-represented groups in the system and provide the necessary support structures, not only at the initial stage but up to journeyperson certification—

The Chair: Thank you very much. I do appreciate that they're very interesting topics. The written material we will use, and we'll proceed in a moment to our questions and answers.

The way we work is here is that it's roughly five minutes per exchange, and we go from either side of the House. That's essentially what we do. So you should simply know that I may be doing the same sort of thing when you're answering questions, or I may more often be doing it to members to keep us at five minutes. Then, if we can move around nicely, members often get a second chance to ask questions. We're very, very interested in what you have to say.

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Before we go to that, though, it's been suggested to me that I mentioned the report we tabled this morning, and, as this is being televised, it might be useful to viewers to know what we were talking about. The report this committee tabled this morning was Beyond Bill C-2: A Review of Other Proposals to Reform Employment Insurance. It's available on the government website, which is www.parl.gc.ca. You go to committees and then find our committee, which is the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, and you'll then find our report.

On my list are Carol Skelton, Alan Tonks, Monique Guay, Diane St-Jacques, Yvon Godin, Karen Redman, Carol Skelton again, and Raymonde Folco.

Ms. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Peter.

Recommendation 11 of the report that was tabled this morning said that the committee recommends that the two-week waiting period be eliminated for those engaged in approved training.

Yes, Mr. Blakely, my son did get his ticket. He's a licensed mechanic now, and I'm very proud of him.

I would like to know from the gentleman from HRDC whether the governments that signed the framework to improve the social union for Canadians will have complied with it by July 1 of this year.

The Chair: David MacDonald.

Mr. David MacDonald: As you know, Quebec did not sign that agreement, so it's the nine provinces plus the federal government. There has been a very aggressive effort under way to meet the mobility obligations set for July 1. That responsibility belongs to the Labour Mobility Working Group, which reports to the Forum of Labour Market Ministers. It is co-chaired currently by Minister Stewart and Manitoba. They met in April to discuss the status. They've sent out letters to the 40 or so self-regulated organizations in terms of giving them a status. Significant progress has been made.

I don't want to pre-empt any public statements that federal and provincial ministers may make on that, but I can tell this committee that the effort to meet that deadline has been intense and aggressive and a commitment by all the governments that signed the agreement. But in terms of the exact progress that is being made, we'll have to wait to hear officially from the Forum of Labour Market Ministers.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Thank you very much.

I would like to ask each of you to what extent you believe inadequate funding is a barrier for apprentices taking further schooling. Do you feel there could be a program, such as student loans, to assist these people to further their education?

Mr. Robert Blakely: There are at least a couple of aspects of that. A number of apprentices who are income supported through HRDC will go through their eight weeks of technical training before they get a cheque. That's a disincentive, particularly if you have a mortgage and two kids, and most apprentices do.

In terms of the training itself, in a number of provinces training is delivered by the community colleges as contract trainers. They do not have the sort of equipment that is going to produce the trained people we need. If someone is working as a mechanic and can point out the six circuits on a carburetor, that's great, but he's never going to work on a carburetor.

Capital has to come from somewhere, and a number of the provinces don't have the dough to do it. So there's a barrier there that needs to be overcome, and some of that capital funding can be overcome. In some provinces we the unions have the equipment. Perhaps somebody needs to approach us and make us the contract trainer, or we can do something to facilitate it with someone else. But that whole piece on capital is a big barrier.

Ms. Robyn Gordon: When you're also trying to approach it from a secondary school apprenticeship system point of view, then you're also impacting the secondary school system, which is already pressed for money. That again is a barrier. It slows down the process for change, which certainly can cause some problems in the future.

• 1210

Ms. Carol Skelton: I want to mention the technician's tools. The other night we voted on a bill about that in the House. I think that if you check the records, you may find there are some members you could get in touch with and could educate about that, because the bill was defeated. I was very disappointed about that whole thing. Maybe they don't understand just how important that is for technicians and people taking their training.

This is directed to the gentleman from HRDC. I know my son, the apprentice, waited two weeks to get his EI. Is there some way you could fast-track that? I know that under an old program you were paid immediately you started school. Right now there's a two-week waiting period. Could you give them the cheque two weeks after they've started school? Could it be given to them by the school or in some other way?

The Chair: Dave and Don, and I'll say this to all of you, feel free not to answer questions. I think it is marginal between political and public service. But it's up to you.

David, do you want to comment?

Mr. David MacDonald: I don't have direct responsibility for the management of the EI program. That belongs to another part. But I'll take note of the question and report it back to some of my colleagues.

The Chair: If you could, and if you could report it back to the committee, we will see that Carol Skelton receives whatever the response is.

Ms. Carol Skelton: I'd appreciate that.

The Chair: Next is Alan Tonks, followed by Monique Guay and Diane St-Jacques.

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I'm going to try to ask some questions, but I have laryngitis, so please bear with me.

I want to follow up on Carol Skelton's question with regard to the social union framework and the improvement of it. I understand the issue with regard to mobility. I appreciate the response and that the ministerial committee is ongoing as we speak.

With regard to certification issues in terms of gaps that have been identified in funding and support, could you tell us from your perspectives what remains to be done? Could you give us a feel for how close we are to a national standard that would be understood right across the country vis-à-vis certification, education, and universal support, if you could call it that? How far away are we from a more comprehensive program?

Mr. Don DeJong: Perhaps Doug and I can answer this one together.

Mr. Doug Muir: Okay.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Don DeJong: What we have in place now is some understanding of what national occupational analysis is about. We do a common understanding of what the trade standard is, such as what you need to be a full-fledged plumber or any of the 44 red seal trades. It's called an NOA. We do that with all provinces and territories and indeed the private sector. We also have a common national exam, which the federal government together with the provinces developed.

However, what we do not have is a common apprenticeship program. There are 13 different ones. Each one is operated by a province together with the private sector within their jurisdiction. They operate somewhat differently toward a relatively common standard. So you have differences between what may be offered in the first year in one province or territory and in another. There are differences in how you get there, but we move toward a common standard at the end. So you have more commonality around journeyperson status than you do around apprenticeship status.

Doug, do you want to correct me?

Mr. Doug Muir: No. That was correct. The red seal is accepted by all jurisdictions as a mobility instrument. It was put in place back in 1958. It has worked quite well. There might be some odd exceptions, but overall it has been a good process.

I agree with Don that at the journeyperson level there is a common understanding of what the national standard is.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Does anybody else want to respond?

Mr. Robert Blakely: The fact is that the journeyman is pretty much interchangeable from one end of the country to the other, but the apprentice isn't. That is a huge disincentive and a huge training problem. The person who starts his trade in New Brunswick, works on the Irving refinery, finds out there's no work, and then goes somewhere else may miss out on significant portions of his technical training.

• 1215

I agree that it's really important we get the journeymen across the board, but we also need to have some commonality with respect to apprenticeship training, delivery, and what people learn.

The Chair: Thank you.

Alan.

Mr. Alan Tonks: May I have one further? Thank you for that.

I wanted to mention to Jennifer that I thought the acronym CARS was just great. I'm a great car buff, and I also was at a school where they did receive equipment and cutaway cars they could work on through your industry. I appreciate that.

With the national survey that was referred to by Robyn, you were looking for HRDC support for the implementation portion of the survey. Could you tell the committee a little more about that?

Ms. Robyn Gordon: It was actually more than just a survey, it was a study centred on the feasibility of implementing a program such as we were suggesting. That's completed, and I have given copies of that, so they are available to you, if you wish. They're also available on our website, SHRC.ca, if anyone's interested. That national survey was funded by HRDC. It came forward with recommendations. So our next phase of funding is to be able to act on the recommendations that have resulted from that report.

We also did two other studies that were more specific to provincial experience, one in New Brunswick and one in British Columbia.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Okay, good. And those are on your website. We've received copies of those, have we? Have I missed them?

Ms. Robyn Gordon: You wouldn't necessarily have received a copy yet, but we can certainly make that happen for you.

The Chair: Would you do that? We would be most grateful.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you.

The Chair: Alan, thank you very much.

Ms. Robyn Gordon: Thank you.

The Chair: Before we go to Monique Guay, could I pose a couple of questions, which we could leave hanging. Either they're very easy to answer or you may need to get it.

I haven't heard yet a total number of apprentices in Canada, the percentage that are red seal, and the percentage of red seal that are truly national, in other words, function in all provinces and all territories. That could tick, and maybe if the chair ever gets a chance, you could reply to it then.

Monique Guay.

[Translation]

Ms. Monique Guay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank you all for coming here today. As my colleague Carol said earlier, one of my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois tabled a private member's bill. The purpose of this bill was to give mechanics who complete their technical courses—at great cost to them, moreover—an opportunity to purchase a set of tools so that they can work or start a business. Generally speaking, all mechanics are expected to provide their own basic tools when they begin working. Obviously, all of the opposition parties voted in favour of the bill, as well as a few brave Liberal members, but most voted against it. As Carol said, we are very disappointed because most members had voted in favour of this bill at the end of the previous session. Even the government had voted in favour of the bill. We re- submitted the bill this session however, but this time around, the government voted against it.

That being said, we are still hopeful that measures will be adopted and I hope that the unanimous report tabled this morning will benefit workers and the unemployed. All of the parties managed to come to an agreement and made basic recommendations to the government and to the Department of Human Resources Development.

It is true that Quebec is not part of the social union. Quebec has its own reasons for not joining. However, I believe that it is possible to work as a team and to complement each others' work, thereby avoiding duplication. Some of Quebec's requirements are different from those of the other provinces or territories. It is understandable that Quebec would want to manage its manpower and provide its own courses.

• 1220

We too are experiencing problems with respect to skilled labour. We have given our young people a great deal of education over the past 20 years. We have sent them to university, but we have neglected important trades such as plumbing and electricity. We have overlooked these trades somewhat, I am not quite sure why. We have even closed down some trade schools. We are changing direction, however, because we realize that we are going to be faced with a scarcity of tradespeople.

Mr. Blakely, you no doubt have comments to make on this issue. I would like to hear your viewpoint. How do you see the situation throughout the country and what tangible measures could we take, in your opinion, to reverse this trend?

[English]

Mr. Robert Blakely: If you look at trades training in the country, we only get around to training people when we see the crisis. We do not have a base case we're going to train to. In my province, Alberta, we had 40,000 apprentices. When the world collapsed in 1983, we dropped down to 15,000 very shortly thereafter. We didn't maintain the training infrastructure, we didn't maintain the training system, so by the time the world, economically, started to turn around again, we were unable to backfill.

If in fact trained people are a national resource, what we need to do is look at the base case and always train to the base case. We'll train enough doctors, enough nurses, enough IT people, and enough tradespeople that we will not get ourselves into these incredible peaks and valleys.

The Chair: Is there anyone else?

Mr. Don DeJong: The only thing I might point out is that Quebec does participate as a full member of the CCDA very actively, so they're quite concerned with the red seal program and the management of it. There has been absolute cooperation and a lot of leadership from the Province of Quebec.

The Chair: Doug.

Mr. Doug Muir: I just wanted to comment—and I mentioned this before—that apprentices are employees. Increasing participation rates means that we have to influence employer hiring practices. It means that we have to impress upon employers that job satisfaction is important, that career options are important as an apprentice goes through the system. We have 80% of the training taking place in the workplace, and if there's no work in the workplace, you can't train a journeyperson electrician, a plumber, or any of the other trades.

Mr. Don DeJong: But that said, it seems to me that we want to find a way to help people move from one particular job to another when the training dries up. There needs to be a more flexible approach to moving from one job site to another, and there has been—some instances in the construction industry have been particularly interesting. We might wish to learn from that in the future, to see whether or not we can do it on a more sectoral or occupational basis, as opposed to one firm at a time. There are some ways we could make this a bit more flexible, so that workers are not discontinued simply because an individual employer can't employ them any more.

The Chair: Monique, a short comment.

[Translation]

Ms. Monique Guay: What do you think of the Quebec program whereby certain companies are obliged to allocate 1% of revenue to manpower training? According to my observations, I think that this has been a good policy. What is being done in other provinces?

[English]

The Chair: Very briefly, whoever is going to speak.

Mr. Don DeJong: It's an interesting experiment. I'm very interested in hearing what the results are from Quebec's perspective in the future, to see whether or not there's been an increase in policy. Sometimes they just prefer to write the cheque, which I find disturbing, as in the tourism industry. They decline to actually divest themselves. So I wonder if it's working. I hope it does. I hope it's a very big success, and I hope to learn from it.

The Chair: Diane St-Jacques, Yvon Godin, Karen Redman.

[Translation]

Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I would like to respond to the comments made by my two colleagues with respect to the bill on mechanics. The government is currently examining other options because most members voted against this bill. We felt that the bill was not fair with respect to other sectors. We will see what happens.

My question is along the same lines as the one raised by Ms. Guay with respect to certain overlooked trades. We have clearly put more effort into promoting the so-called white collar jobs.

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Perhaps I did not hear the answer correctly, but I am wondering what the government could do to get young people interested in these trades. These trades do not appear to attract most young people for a variety of reasons. The job does not seem to be held in high esteem, the work is dirty, etc. How can we reverse this trend? What could the government do to convince people that these trades are in fact interesting? We provide training to those who are interested, but what can we do to attract those who are not?

[English]

Mr. Don DeJong: I'll start.

First of all, one of the things we always have to understand about apprenticeship is that there are lots of jurisdictions involved. Everyone's involved. So it's really important that whatever promotional kind of—

The Chair: Don, I'm sorry. I should interrupt and say to you all, and to people in the audience, that there is some food here. The food comes from a committee that did not need it. So this is a very special thing. Witnesses, you should know that we normally don't do this. I don't want you to all rush away, but I've been advised that the food is there, and people, including the audience, should help themselves, either now or afterwards.

Don, please continue.

Mr. Don DeJong: The notion that because we're in partnership...the partnership notion is extraordinarily important to a promotional idea. So it will be important for the provinces, the federal government, and industry to all be promoting together at the same time, if for no other reason than it would be important to respond at the same time. There's not much point in promoting if important parts of the apprenticeship systems aren't prepared to respond.

So I think that's an important message. Then I would turn it over to Doug, and to Keith maybe.

Mr. Doug Muir: Yes, I would...especially the last statement. There need to be opportunities. One of the concerns we've looked at with different promotional initiatives is that they get young people really enthusiastic about becoming whatever, and then they go out and find that job opportunities perhaps don't exist.

But I just want to touch on another piece, when we talk about promotion. In this area, we're really talking about changing attitudes. There's no quick fix for this, but you do have to get started. And we need to change the attitudes of parents, who influence many of the career choices of their children. So it's not just putting material out there; it's convincing people that there are good opportunities here and that there's good money to be made.

Mr. Keith Lancastle: Just to pick up on that comment, we see our challenge in that as one of increasing the profile of apprenticeship trades to make it more of a top-of-mind choice for young people and the people that influence their decision-making. But to echo Doug's and Don's comments, we understand that there is a need not only to create the supply, if you will, of young people that are considering careers in the skilled trades, but to make sure that the demand infrastructure is in place in terms of employment and in terms of educational space, and that the infrastructure is in place to support those efforts.

It does no one any good if the awakening of interest in a skilled trades career is not followed up by an ability to take in these young people as the next generation of skilled trades employees. So it's certainly not a quick fix, but we believe that the partnership approach that we're going to be working with in our organization is perhaps going to be pivotal in addressing that.

[Translation]

The Chair: Robyn would like to respond as well.

[English]

Ms. Robyn Gordon: I'd just like to add to that.

Having said that, I think it's really important that we get to kids really early. We can't come to them in grade 10 or grade 11 or grade 12 and say, gee, be an apprentice. We know that for career awareness information they need to be reached at least by grade five, if not before that. There have to be opportunities created to do that, and we have to find the government money that reinforces that.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Thank you.

The Chair: Okay. Yvon Godin, Karen Redman, Carol Skelton, Raymonde Folco.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all I would like to thank you for coming here. We are proud of the fact that this committee has unanimously recommended that the two-week period be abolished for apprentices attending a trade school or community college. This was a punitive measure that was contrary to the objectives we hoped to achieve through the changes made to the employment insurance system. We wanted to encourage people to work and, at the same time, they were punished for two weeks if they attended college in order to learn a trade. The recommendation made by the committee this morning to Parliament and to Minister Stewart is, therefore, going in the right direction.

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I would like to make this comment because everyone else has. I would like to join the other members of the group in stating how pleased I am that these recommendations have been made. I think that we made a major mistake in 1996 and it is hoped that the minister will be able to rectify the situation as quickly as possible.

I also agree with the comment to the effect that we need to remove the tax paid by mechanics. I recently tabled a motion in the House of Commons to eliminate the tax for all tradespeople. I feel that this tax is not right, it is not fair. If a company hires an individual and pays for this person's tools, the company gets a tax deduction. However, if employees pay for their own tools, they are not entitled to a tax deduction. This is unfair for the apprentice who is just starting to work in a trade and has spent a lot of money on tuition and who must now buy tools, which can cost $4,000 and even more. The government refused to make my motion votable, which means that it did not have the will to do this. Your comments on this issue may be beneficial.

In addition, my predecessor and other people have told me that there will be a scarcity of tradespeople in 10 or so years. We must therefore prepare ourselves for this possibility.

I would like to hear your comments on how we should be getting prepared. You know that we cannot use human beings just like that. We prepare these people 10 years in advance. It takes four years to learn a trade and there will not be any jobs in four years; jobs will not be available for another 10 years. What type of program could we give to our young people so that they are trained to meet the needs in 10 years? How can we train them and support them until the demand is there, 10 years down the road?

Mr. Blakely, you said that we always wait for a crisis to occur before we react. Would it not be more important to do some in-depth studies of the industry four years ahead of time, or at least in advance, in order to determine how many people we will need and when we will really need them? Once this is done, we could do some promotion work to encourage people to learn the trades when we need them so that we would not be training them in areas where there are no subsequent jobs. These are human beings. It's not very interesting to take a course and not have a job at the end of the day. I think that we really have to examine this aspect. I know people in my region who have taken courses to learn a trade and who have no work today. If the demand is going to occur later on, this is not right.

That is precisely the question I wish to raise. If the government and everybody are set to encourage the industry and to encourage people to take a course, what are we doing to support those people until they get a permanent job?

[English]

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Robert Blakely: The short answer is you also need to figure out what the market is going to look like.

You know, my dad was a tradesman, and he said that getting your ticket was getting yourself a licence to practice. It took another five or ten years before you actually learned what you didn't know. It took you fifteen years to be a really good tradesman and to be able to be a supervisor.

This whole issue... For us, just certifying people isn't enough. There is a transfer of skill and knowledge beyond the threshold that we need to get to. We need to develop the people you give the blueprints and the material to and say “We'll be back in three and a half years, and you'll have this $1.6-billion diamond mine built, won't you?”

The whole issue here is how do we get people in and how do we make the trades attractive? A number of people need to say that trades are vital—you, as the legislators. Ministerial statements that say that the trades are important and you going to your local carpentry training school, bringing the press with you, talking to the apprentices, and having people say, gee, my MP thinks this is a pretty important thing for Canada—that is going to help draw focus on this.

As it sits now, trades training is the red-headed stepchild of secondary education. It is the thing that is mentioned with the absolute last breath before somebody closes off. It needs to come from the bottom of the pile and go up to the top.

The Chair: Okay.

Very briefly, if there's another comment on that, we can have it as long as it's quite short.

• 1235

Yvon, a comment—not a question, but a comment.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: The reason I ask, Mr. Chairman, is that I am doing an experiment in my region for someone who is a rigger. In New Brunswick, the individual is short 27 hours and cannot get them even though the individual is unionized. This individual cannot even be scheduled to work 27 hours. That concerns me. That is why I say there needs to be a study to find out what is going to become of the market later, so that these people can plan ahead. They are human beings, not machines. That is what I wanted to say, and I recommend everyone set such goals so as not to miss the boat.

As for encouraging our young people who have a trade, I will say that personally, whether you work as a janitor, a mechanic or the Prime Minister of Canada, everyone is an equally important member of society.

The Chair: Thank you, Yvon.

[English]

Karen Redman, Carol Skelton, and Raymonde Folco.

Mrs. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have to tell you, Mr. Blakely, when you started out saying you were a proud graduate of the apprenticeship program, I think that's the kind of testimony we need to hear far more of.

Skills Canada is situated in Kitchener and housed at Conestoga College, which is in my community. I'm sure everybody here is aware of—and if you're not, I would really encourage you to see—the commercial that focuses in on licence plates on cars. I've never seen a more effective job of marketing to the age group we intend to address. It's in descending value. The last one's a BMW or something and it says “Skills work”. I think that's the kind of message we need to get out.

Ms. Robyn Gordon: It was a Porsche.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Oh, it was a Porsche. I'm sorry, I don't know cars. I just knew it was hot, because my kids reacted to it.

I think that kind of marketing is really key. That kind of generic marketing when we're not trying to slot individuals into connect-the-dots is very important.

I'm going by memory from talking to some educators, so forgive me if I'm some percentages out, but the predictor was something like 80% of students in middle schools see themselves as going to post-secondary education. That goes down to somewhere around 53% in high school. And the reality is somewhat less than 40% of Canadians actually go on to post-secondary education. I think skills need to be seen as desirable and viable.

There are two questions I want to put out. I won't necessarily direct them at anybody. Anyone who wants to answer, please feel free to.

First, do we—and when I say we, I mean government in the structures set up to facilitate and support apprenticeship—do we have a clear profile on who the apprentice currently is? Are we meeting the kinds of needs that apprentices have today, or are we stuck back in the 1950s, when we were seeing a different profile of young person coming out of grade 12?

My other question is one the superintendent of the Waterloo public board was talking about last week when I was in the community. He was talking about sectoral certification of high school students. It seemed to me a more broad-based approach to the skills piece of it while young people are still in high school. Again, I would reiterate that I really agree with the comment made earlier that we have to reach down in the educational system to change attitudes of both children and their parents.

It's a major problem having state-of-the-art equipment and technology in high schools. Actually that would be my third question. Obviously I think we need to look to partnerships. How can the government support having equipment that hasn't been donated from a print company because it was frankly so out of date that they could no longer use it? Yet we're trying to train young people and put them into a job market. Clearly we should recognize that what they're being trained on is already archaic.

I was just wondering if anyone would like to comment on those questions.

The Chair: Does anyone have comments? Doug Muir.

Mr. Doug Muir: I'll just make a couple of comments and perhaps start this out by talking about apprenticeship training. It was related to me as an onion: you peel back the pieces and there's another piece underneath.

How complex our environment is is echoed in the question you ask. When we talk about K to 12, we're dealing with ministries of education. When you talk about apprenticeship, you're on the post-secondary side. You talk about jurisdictional, territorial responsibility for this. You talk about industry and our advisory committees. So it's a very complex area.

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As to your question concerning what is a profile of a typical apprentice, it probably changes from trade to trade. What exists in one trade would be different in something else. The majority of people entering apprenticeship training are dictated by employers' hiring policies, or if you're in a unionized environment, it very much depends on a seniority clause within collective agreements. In some ways those clauses in collective agreements where seniority plays a role on who gets into the apprenticeship programs raises the age of an apprentice. But most employers look at a grade 12 graduate—that's what they're looking for. While the academic requirements in provincial legislation may be lower, most employers want to see grade 12 graduates or higher in some cases.

Sectoral certification, that was an interesting question. In Saskatchewan we're the first ones in the country to build in a process that can designate sectors as a trade. It will allow for a multiple of certifications and mobility within that particular sector. The film and motion picture industry comes to mind when we talk about that.

I have the last one, but I can't read my writing. I guess it was around the infrastructure in place in high school. The challenges with high schools are echoed by the challenges of the post-secondary institutions. Keeping material and equipment up to date today is an expensive problem. I don't think any jurisdiction in Canada has really maintained a viable vocational education program. The demand hasn't been there, so there was no need to keep the equipment and so on up to date.

The Chair: Gary.

Mr. Gary Greenman: Let me just throw in a few things from the perspective of sector councils.

Trades training and apprenticeship—training in general in education—is a huge and complex issue in Canada, because we don't have any national policy. These are provincial policies and we try to bring some kind of national cohesion. One of the ways we're trying to do that at the moment is through industry councils or sector councils. But the problem that has just been alluded to is that we are now asking these councils to try to resolve some of those huge national issues around standards and delivery.

Imagine the example of a small industry council at the national level trying to deal with 13 other jurisdictions times three ministries in each of those jurisdictions for some of these issues. It's very huge and complex.

Now, at the end of the day, we somehow find a way to make it work in many very wonderful cases, and there are lots of very sterling success stories out there. But I think we have to face the fact that we do not have a national training or education policy in this country. And I don't think we're heading in that direction.

The Chair: Before we go on, I think all members of the committee know that the Ontario Association for Community Living is holding its national conference. I know members of our subcommittee on persons with disabilities were there last evening, and we're very pleased to see some representatives of that group with us in the audience.

We'll go to Carol Skelton, Raymonde Folco, Monique Guay, and then the chair. Carol and Monique, when we get to you, as it is your second turn, please be a little bit shorter, then we'll be able to get around.

Carol Skelton.

Ms. Carol Skelton: To what extent have the sector councils developed prior learning assessment and recognition systems for adult learners? I'd like to know numbers.

Mr. Gary Greenman: Several of the councils have already ventured down that road. They're entering into agreements with the colleges to have a system in place to recognize those issues. But it's a new priority for councils at this point. I would guess that maybe five or six out of the 27 have already started on programs in that direction.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Since I am from the province of Saskatchewan and our agricultural community has been in dire straits over the last few years, we have a lot of adults with very good backgrounds. We need training for them and we're finding it very difficult to get them into training programs.

• 1245

Mr. Doug Muir: I just wanted to touch on a couple of points there.

All jurisdictions will recognize prior work experience of individuals for entry into the apprenticeship training program. There are also possibilities of exemptions from pieces of the technical training.

The difficulty was echoed earlier about the mobility of apprentices from jurisdiction to jurisdiction where the training mix isn't quite right. What we do there is acknowledge that if an apprentice was a year-two apprentice in Saskatchewan and moved to Manitoba, he would be a year-two apprentice in Manitoba. The dislocation would be in trying to match the technical training he took up in Saskatchewan with how the technical training is in Manitoba, but we would try to deal with it.

Every jurisdiction has a PLAR. While they might not call it that, it's very much a PLAR approach.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Thank you.

The Chair: Anyone else? Jennifer.

Ms. Jennifer Steeves: Regarding our sector specifically, that's one issue that came out of that human resource study we completed in 1999—that there's no universal method being used in our industry to identify the skills a person has and those they need to get to their next juncture of their career. So it's something we're actually in the process right now of exploring. We want to look at a lot of the different issues that impact that, and we're exploring strategies now.

The Chair: If I could just follow up, Doug, I listened to what Carol said, and you answered it with respect to somebody who is in the system. What about in terms of entering the system—for example, the two provinces you mentioned?

Mr. Doug Muir: If you had worked in the trade in Canada or internationally and came to the province of Saskatchewan, we would have to have some documentation that indicated what tasks you had performed, what kind of activity you had done, and we would recognize that for experience for entry into the apprenticeship program. Or, depending on the trade, there is an alternate route to certification, and it's not through apprenticeship but through what we call the tradesperson route, which is just an experience route.

The Chair: How would that apply? So that's Saskatchewan. Could I expect the same thing in Ontario?

Mr. Doug Muir: Yes, you could.

The Chair: Okay, thank you very much.

It's Raymonde Folco for her first turn.

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Does that mean I'm going to get a second question, Monsieur le Président? I have two questions.

The Chair: It means you have the full five minutes.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Oh, wonderful.

[Translation]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I find it a real pity that trades are considered so unappealing. When I need to call a plumber or electrician or someone to fix my furnace, and when I talk to those tradespeople, they all tell me that they really like their work, which allows them some independence, and above all, their earnings seem quite good. It is truly a shame that there is this kind of atmosphere associated with entering these trades, because they all have a future. When someone comes to fix my furnace on a Saturday or Sunday morning in February, believe me, the money is well-earned by the time the job is done.

Having said that, I come back to what we heard from witnesses who appeared before this committee when we were studying the employment insurance bill. Much to my surprise, I learned that the vast majority of people becoming apprentices were not high-school graduates, but in fact were people—I think someone said this before me—with wives and children, past work experience, perhaps a mortgage on their house and so on.

I do not know how many times we were told that the two-week waiting period from the time the person signs up for an apprenticeship and the time that person receives an employment insurance cheque causes great hardship and prevents some people who cannot wait two weeks. That is the basis for my question.

The first question I will ask is the following. What can be done about those two weeks? Do you agree that this causes hardship for people who want to become apprentices? I would also like Mr. MacDonald and Mr. DeJong to tell me how the Department of Human Resources Development would react.

And then, given in particular the fact that the ASC has very close connections with the Department of Human Resources Development Canada, I would like to hear what you have to say about initiatives the Department of Human Resources Development could take to further broaden its role and assist the whole area of apprenticeship. What could be improved in this regard to help young people, and especially those less young, to go this route?

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[English]

The Chair: Don DeJong.

Mr. Don DeJong: Thank you for that easy question.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: You're welcome.

Mr. Don DeJong: Firstly, the average age of a new apprentice is 26, so that does make a difference.

Mr. Robert Blakely: It's dropped down two in the last two years.

Mr. Don DeJong: Down to 24?

Mr. Robert Blakely: No, no, it's gone down from 28 to 26.

Mr. Don DeJong: Ah, okay.

So we're not talking about teenagers or students. As Doug said before, they are employees and they see themselves as employees. So one could anticipate that things of this nature, discontinuation of wages, would be a factor.

Now, to what extent is this a real barrier? I don't really know. One could anticipate that it is. Lots of my colleagues here—and HRP essentially works in partnership with all of these people at this table—tell me that it is. I suspect, too, that province to province it varies. One reason might be that in some provinces, say Alberta, the average wage of apprentices might be quite a bit higher than in some of the Atlantic province, and if you're in a higher-wage area, then maybe a two-week disincentive is less a problem than if you were in a lower-wage area. So those kinds of things would be a factor.

So maybe the answer isn't exactly the same across Canada, in terms of whether or not it's a disincentive. This is simply an opinion. I really don't know.

The reality is what we're trying to do right now, in terms of the approach we're taking, is Human Resources Partnerships, for which I'm responsible, works with sector councils to help industry bring their messages to the educational system, whether it's apprenticeship or community colleges or universities, or their workplace training issues. We also work with the apprenticeship system in terms of mobility and in terms of enhancing and promoting interprovincial mobility and the quality of collective work together, respecting jurisdictions. We also work in the area of research or on occupational analysis. So we try to understand, as quickly as we can, what the changing skills sets are within occupations, so that we can do something about it as quickly as possible. And then we turn that information into career information, along with our private sector colleagues.

That's our approach so far: always in partnership, with provinces, with the private sector, and we use information and partnerships to affect systems as best we can.

The Chair: Sorry, you have to wind up fairly quickly if Raymonde's going to have any sort of a comment.

Mr. Don DeJong: Yes.

Essentially, the area where we need to kind of work together probably more specifically would be to find ways and means of making sure we understand the emerging imbalances more quickly and expeditiously. Can we find ways and means of ensuring that employers and young people have the economic incentives to take the training and support the training as quickly and as fully as possible, especially in down time? And lastly, we have to make sure that people are relatively well informed, starting at an early age, but also throughout their life, because people will change their jobs later in life.

The Chair: Raymonde, do you have a comment?

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Thank you very much for your answer, by the way.

The Chair: I'm sorry, it has to be a comment, Raymonde. We're over six minutes.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: It has to be a comment, but it will be a comment in the form of a question, if you don't mind, Mr. Chair.

I may not get the answer, but perhaps you might manage to give an answer between now and the time you leave this committee.

[Translation]

I would have liked some of you to tell me how employment insurance could help. What can be incorporated into the employment insurance plan to help young people, and especially those less young, to get training in a trade?

[English]

The Chair: You can answer that during the chair's questions.

[Translation]

Ms. Monique Guay: But not during mine, Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind. Actually, I will only make a few quick comments. I do not have any actual questions as such.

I think it is very important to focus, for the good of workers in every province, on eliminating the existing barriers to plying their various trades. Often, specialized workers go to work in Ontario, New Brunswick or elsewhere. I have seen this happen in my riding. These workers are penalized because of cross-border disputes. I think this situation needs serious examination with a view to finding a solution.

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There is another thing I think is very important, Mr. Chairman. The subcommittee of which I am a member has to report to the main committee on the state and functioning of the social union so that we know where it is at. Is it producing good or bad results? Even though Quebec is not part of it, we are still interested to know what the results are.

Third, Mr. Chairman, I will say that I sense among the witnesses gathered around the table an obvious desire to establish so-called national standards for student job training. I can tell you that this is not the case in Quebec. At present, I do not think it is in the government's interest. However, I think it is possible to find common ground on specific subjects in certain areas.

I do not think we have reached the point of wanting national standards, but there is a certain willingness to co-operate. If something good is being done in a particular area in a given province, that should certainly be of use to all the others. You, who represent these various groups, will have to spread the word. If there are programs that work well, let's take advantage of that by spreading the word to everyone so that they can all benefit from them. But let's respect one another's jurisdiction. This is very important to us.

I think it would be workable that way, provided everyone is willing.

Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, that's fine.

If I could, and I have to be brief, I posed the question before about the total number of apprentices, the percentage in red seal, and how many of them are truly national. I did that, by the way, in part because these hearings are on access and mobility in higher education and training. That's what we're dealing with. We were told, for example, that in institutions of higher education, our colleges and universities, less than 9% of our students go outside their province for education. And that's just the start of it, because we've had people here dealing with professional qualifications, for example, which often are tied, or at least they make it difficult to move from province to province.

So if we start off with less than 9% moving out their province for education, and if you could imagine it getting more difficult to move the more qualified they become, this mobility is a serious matter. It has to do with national standards, which you've discussed, and it has to do with taking advantage of the diverse economy of our confederation. At the moment, we have at least one province that is booming, some that are not doing very well, and others that are somewhere in between. Ideally, all citizens should be able to move.

Any further comments you have on mobility and national standards, I'd be grateful for. And do you have an answer to my question about the total numbers, please?

Mr. David MacDonald: I'll do it quickly, and I hope these numbers are up to date.

First of all, just on the red seals, as you probably know, there are 44 skilled trades that actually have the red seal stamp. I think in the total there are 216 skilled trade categories, but the 44 cover the vast majority of the workforce. So that's basically the universe of the red seal program.

In terms of absolute numbers, the total number of registered apprentices and apprentice completions has decreased since 1991. For example, in 1998 the total number of registered apprentices was 177,741, compared to 192,946 in 1991, an 8% decrease. Similarly, in 1998 the number of completed apprentices was 16,476, compared to 19,724 in 1991, a 16% decrease.

As one comment, if I may, Mr. Chairman, on your general point about mobility, moving slightly outside of the skilled trade profession, I think your observations about the value of mobility as a national goal and a national value is quite important. I think the social union framework agreement has made progress, in that we now have a higher degree of portability in our student financial regime than we did prior to the SUFA being signed. So I think governments are becoming more attentive to the premium of mobility as a feature of Canadian citizenship, and progress is being made.

The Chair: Yes, Bob.

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Mr. Robert Blakely: Our industry could not thrive if we didn't have portability of trades people. We could not build what we need to build. The truth is, virtually every construction worker will travel at some time in his career in order to work. So we're not 9% travelling; we're 99% travelling.

The Chair: Robyn.

Ms. Robyn Gordon: My industry is more of a global issue. It's not just mobility and portability within Canada, it's globally. There are very few teams that work on a software project that don't involve people from all around the world.

The Chair: The statement for colleges and universities was that less than 1% of our students spend any time for their education—this includes short courses as well as full programs—overseas.

Yvon Godin, very briefly. Do you want to conclude? It has to be brief.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: I will conclude by saying that I appreciate your coming to this committee. I think we have a fair way yet to go. I agree that we have to encourage our young people, and their parents, to change their opinion of trades. The trades are an honourable occupation.

I was saying earlier to Mr. Blakely that tradespeople themselves do not encourage their children to get into the same trade, because often, in almost 90% of cases, they have to travel all over the country. That is not always easy for a family, to have to move, or for the worker to be far away from his or her family. I think we need to find solutions to this situation too.

We need to focus not only on training, but also on the required mobility. When we think of a person's mobility, we have to understand that that person comes with a family, and it is not always easy for them.

Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

On behalf of the committee, first of all I remind you that there are copies of our report here if you wish. I assume there is still some food left, and we'd be glad to join you there.

We want to thank you for all the work you do in this very important area. We do understand, I think, the message you're all carrying to us. We will do our best with the material we have at this time, and I hope we can improve the training in this particular area in Canada. Thank you all very much.

The committee is adjourned until next Thursday at the same time.