We would like to thank all of the witnesses that appeared before the HUMA committee during the course of the Better Jobs for Canadians: A Study on the Renewal of the Labour Market Development Agreements study. The Liberal Party supports the intent of the study and its recommendations; however, we feel the recommendations did not address all of the key concerns or suggestions of the stakeholder groups that appeared before the Committee or submitted briefs for consideration.

It has been almost 20 years since the original Labour Market Development Agreements (LDMA) were negotiated. Over that time, Canada’s labour market has under gone some major changes, including a rise in precarious employment (e.g. part-time, temporary) and an increase in the long term unemployed as a result of sector and industry restructuring (e.g. manufacturing industries). The renewal of the LMDAs must be realigned to better reflect the current reality for both the individual trying to find a job or a better one, and the employer seeking a worker to increase firm productivity and competitiveness.

The following are some areas that the Liberal Party believes the study could have been strengthened.

Labour Market Information – good information is necessary for good decisions

The study is correct that individuals, employers, educational/training institutions and governments “all need Canadian labour market information to make the best possible decisions with respect to careers, training, hiring, identifying best practices and using public funds.” Timely, accurate and useful LMI is critical, and Canada’s current LMI is simply inadequate to meet the needs of stakeholders in today’s labour market. Although we agree with the study’s recommendation that the government continue to invest in ways to improve LMI, we believe it does not go far enough to ensure positive outcomes.

Unfortunately over the last half decade the government has sacrificed supporting strong LMI for ideological or budget cutting purposes. For whatever reason there is no denying reliable and relevant LMI has not been a priority for this government.

Cuts to agencies like Statistics Canada is one example of how LMI has been diminished to the detriment of individuals, businesses and the government itself. Over the past two years alone, Statistics Canada’s core budget, excluding spending on the census or contracted surveys, has been slashed by $29.3 million (more than 7 per cent) and its staffing has been cut by 767 people, or 18.5 per cent.

It has been four and a half years since the federal government received the final report, Working Together to Build a Better Labour Market Information System for Canada from the Advisory Panel on Labour Market Information, chaired by Mr. Don Drummond. Yet the government has failed to fully implement many of the Advisory Panel’s report recommendations, including one of the most important dealing with governance.

The Panel had found that the lack of an accountable body to make a cohesive, coordinated plan for the identification, collection, dissemination and communication of information was the main source of confusion surrounding LMI at the time.[1] It had recommended the Forum of Labour Market Ministers become that governing body. It is now four and a half years later and that recommendation has yet to be implemented, and there is still confusion surrounding LMI.

The study recommends examining the benefits and costs of establishing a Canadian Institute for Labour Market Information. The Liberal Party supports this idea as it is based on the principle of “cooperative federalism”. The Liberal Party believes the federal government needs to take a leadership role in working collaboratively with the provinces/territories to create one coordinating body or organization for consistent LMI.

Having one accountable body for LMI is important, but equally important is ensuring the LMI is relevant, timely, and accurate for its users (i.e. individuals, businesses, governments and educational institutions).

Several witnesses, including the Parliamentary Budget Officer, as well as the 2014 Don Drummond report discussed critical information gaps in LMI; specifically related to labour supply and demand. The study is correct that:

“In order to make good public policy decisions with regard to the labour market, the federal and provincial/territorial governments need current data on labour demand by employers and labour supply by job seekers by region, industry and occupation. Without these data, it may be rather difficult to effectively address issues surrounding the matching of job seekers with available jobs in some regions, industries and occupations.”

LMI users are demanding more granular information. They want data at the local level and with fine details on occupations and skills. Committee witnesses, as well as the 2014 Drummond report, recommended that Statistics Canada needs to improve its Job Vacancy Survey to provide current labour supply and demand data. On the demand side, witnesses recommended the Job Vacancy Survey should be enhanced to provide local information with greater granularity on occupations, and questions should be added to improve the survey’s usefulness as a policy tool.[2] The Liberal Party believes this is a recommendation that would have strengthened the study and led to better LMI.

It is essential that Canada`s LMI system effectively matches skills and labour market needs. It is impossible for labour market partners to be successful if there is not good LMI on what skills are needed or available. As Drummond stated in his June 2014 report, “Better LMI will not solve all the problems in the labour market. But it would provide a critical platform from which all agents [individuals, businesses, educational institutions and governments] could make better decisions.”

The Liberal Party agrees with Mr. Drummond, and believes the renewal of the LMDAs will be poorly served if proper emphasis is not placed on redesigning and retooling our LMI systems to ensure better information for those who need it to make informed decisions.

Governance - collaboration and coordination between labour market partners

The Committee heard that more can and must be done to increase consultation, collaboration and coordination between and among federal and provincial/territorial partners and other stakeholders (i.e. employers, workers, education/training institutions and communities). This is not only for the benefit of the individual stakeholders at the provincial/territorial level but for the benefit of achieving pan-Canadian goals. Key to achieving this is a good governance structure that includes a pan-Canadian dimension for the partners to collaborate and cooperate through.

There is no worse example of federal leadership in consulting and collaborating with the provinces/territories than in the introduction of the Canada Job Grant. First, unilaterally declaring it was taking back $300 million in skills training funding (Labour Market Agreement funding) the provinces/territories used to train the most vulnerable people in our society (i.e. persons with disabilities, older workers, and uneducated youth). Then telling them that they had to ante up $300 million of their own money for the government’s new program that they had never been consulted on or heard about until it was announced.

Instead of working with the provinces/territories and other stakeholders to create a much needed skills training plan, the government wasted a year fighting and threatening them. The Liberal Party has a fundamentally different view of the provinces/territories – we see them as partners not adversaries.

Existing LMDAs are bi-lateral silos with little pan-Canadian perspective built in to their design. The renewed LMDAs need to ensure that national priorities are reflected in their design and implementation in addition to meeting provincial/territorial goals. The Liberal Party believes this is necessary to ensure there are programs in place to effectively react to issues affecting the national labour market, as well as ensuring there is pan-Canadian cohesiveness and coordination across the country in the employment and skills training services provided through the LMDAs.

A number of witnesses supported labour market partners’ forums or similar entities to promote coordination and collaboration. As well, there was support for a pan-Canadian forum. Mr. Meredith spoke to this point, “It is vital that the LMDA process provide a renewed governance mechanism that goes beyond bilateral policy-making, and enables an active pan-Canadian forum for planning, priority setting, and intergovernmental collaboration and experimentation.”

The Liberal Party agrees with the belief that good governance is key to ensuring effective and successful LMDAs. This includes ensuring there are active dialogues occurring at the provincial/territorial level and national level among labour market partners. These forums can play an important role in building linkages between labour market partners to promote consultation and collaboration, and help coordinate information sharing. The Liberal Party believes the study should have recommended the government work with provinces/territories to develop these types of forums.

Ensuring more unemployed Canadians get access to training

Too many Canadians do not qualify for the income and training supports they need to transition back into the labour market. The percentage of unemployed workers eligible for Employment Insurance is at a 70 year low. The result is that training programs funded through the LMDAs only serve about 37% of unemployed Canadians. As a consequence, the increasing number of people stuck in precarious work or in long term unemployment are unable to access the training support that would help them find a job or acquire a better one.

The Liberal Party believes it would be naïve to think our labour markets would be best served through renewed LMDAs that exclude over 60% of unemployed Canadians. We support the study`s recommendation to review the eligibility criteria for employment benefits provided under the renewed LMDAs and hope that it leads to increased access to training opportunities that will lead to re-employment.

Importance of Literacy and Essential Skills Training

The Committee heard from a number of witnesses that literacy and essential skills are increasingly an impediment to individuals’ performance in the labour market. Moreover, because formal training requires a basic level of literacy, poor literacy skills make it more difficult and costly to improve other advanced skills. Many witnesses who expressed these concerns were business representatives, including:

Sean Reid, Progressive Contractors Association of Canada: ``The essential skills around literacy and numeracy is still a core issue, especially when we're talking about completion rates. There are basic literacy barriers that are preventing people from completing and challenging their exam effectively. We can't lose sight of those.``

J. Craig Martin, Canadian Welding Bureau: ``In the welding industry that one of the largest barriers we have to people completing the training is the inability to read the documentation, to apply basic math skills. In some cases, we see training organizations putting people through those courses first and assessing that ability to actually be successful on the technical side. I can't speak to what's happening at the secondary level in terms of improvements needed there, but certainly as people move into a trades training program, literacy and numeracy skills are critical.``

Catherine Pennington, Enbridge:``But I go back to a message that I want to bring to this committee, which is that essential skills are critical before training for technical skills.``

Barbara Byers, Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress, also spoke about the desire of workers to have more broad based skills - “workers want more than just firm specific skills. They want broadly based training that provides a wide range of skills, including better literacy and essential skills upgrading.”

The Liberal Party believes literacy and essential skills are crucial for an individual’s social well-being and our country’s economic development. Literacy and essential skills provide the foundation from which other more complex skills are based. Without getting the basics right, Canadians cannot build the more advanced skills the labour force requires and the economy needs to be competitive.

Studies show that almost fifty percent of adults lack the literacy skills they need to succeed in the modern economy. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce sees this as a major issue for employers as much as it is for workers. It said in a recent report[3], “A lack of essential skills is also holding back many existing employees who could become more productive through training.”

The government has shown through their actions and words that they simply do not believe in the importance of literacy and essential skills and the role of the federal government in ensuring Canadians have these necessary skills to be productive workers and members of society. The government has continually allowed millions to go unspent (over $70 million since 2006) for literacy and essential skills programs; cutting funding to national and provincial literacy agencies; and eliminating $300 million from Labour Market Agreements that provinces/territories used, in part, to pay for literacy programs to help the most vulnerable Canadians re-enter the workforce.

The Liberal Party believes if Canada is going to have a strong Middle Class it must be a place where upward mobility and equality of opportunity is there for everyone. There is no single more important factor to equality of opportunity than education, including strong literacy and essential skills. The Liberal Party believes there should have been a recommendation urging the government to recognize the importance of literacy and essential skills training to raise the skills level of Canadians so there will be a larger pool of talent ready to take advanced training.