BRANT-HALDIMAND-NORFOLK LOCAL TRAINING BOARD STEERING COMMITTEE
BOARD OF TRADE OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO
SCARBOROUGH BOARD OF EDUCATION
ONTARIO WOMEN'S ACTION ON TRAINING COALITION
ONTARIO SOCIETY FOR TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF YOUTH EMPLOYMENT CENTRES
ONTARIO FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE
ONTARIO AGRICULTURAL TRAINING INSTITUTE
ONTARIO HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION
ONTARIO FEDERATION OF INDIAN FRIENDSHIP CENTRES
CONTENTS
Tuesday 16 February 1993
Ontario Training and Adjustment Board Act, 1993, Bill 96
Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk Local Training Board Steering Committee
John Douglas, representative
Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto
Bruce McKelvey, member, OTAB business steering committee and chair, education committee
Scarborough Board of Education
Ross Henderson, head, program development, Scarborough Centre for Alternative Studies
Roger O'Dell, head, program learning resources, Scarborough Centre for Alternative Studies
Penny Mustin, vice-principal, Maplewood High School
Ontario Women's Action on Training Coalition
Karen Charnow Lior, government liaison
Annamaria Menozzi, women's nominee to OTAB
Ontario Society for Training and Development
Roger Davies, president
Jan Nabert
Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres
Tina Gibbs, youth member
Sherri Jackson, president
Ontario Federation of Agriculture; Ontario Agricultural Training Institute
Carl Sulliman, chief executive officer, OFA and OATI
Bill Weaver, second vice-president, OFA
Tony Morris, director, OATI
Cathie Lowry, executive director, OATI
Nishnawbe-Aski Nation
Ruth Corbett, education policy analyst
Norm Wesley, representative, Mushkegowuk council
Ontario Home Builders' Association
David Wassmansdorf, chair, training and education committee
Andy Manahan, director, industry relations
Joe Perna
Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres
Sylvia Maracle, executive director
Tim Thompson, education policy analyst
Nena LaCaille, trainer, native community development
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
*Chair / Président: Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold ND)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Huget, Bob (Sarnia ND)
Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North/-Nord L)
Dadamo, George (Windsor-Sandwich ND)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Klopp, Paul (Huron ND)
*McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South/-Sud L)
Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury ND)
*Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L)
*Turnbull, David (York Mills PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay ND)
*Wood, Len (Cochrane North/-Nord ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Farnan, Mike (Cambridge ND) for Ms Murdock
Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud PC) for Mr Jordan
Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie ND) for Mr Waters
Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L) for Mr Conway
Sutherland, Kimble (Oxford ND) for Mr Dadamo
Villeneuve, Noble (S-D-G & East Grenville/S-D-G & Grenville-Est PC) for Mr Jordan
Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Les Îles ND) for Mr Klopp
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Hansen, Ron (Lincoln ND)
Clerk / Greffière: Manikel, Tannis
Staff / Personnel: Anderson, Anne, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1006 in room 151.
ONTARIO TRAINING AND ADJUSTMENT BOARD ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR LE CONSEIL ONTARIEN DE FORMATION ET D'ADAPTATION DE LA MAIN-D'OEUVRE
Consideration of Bill 96, An Act to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board / Loi créant le Conseil ontarien de formation et d'adaptation de la main-d'oeuvre.
The Chair (Mr Peter Kormos): It's 10:06. The bad weather has obviously delayed participants wanting to be here this morning. We will recess until 10:15.
The committee recessed at 1006 and resumed at 1017.
BRANT-HALDIMAND-NORFOLK LOCAL TRAINING BOARD STEERING COMMITTEE
The Chair: Good morning. Our first participant this morning is the Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk local training board process. If the people speaking on its behalf would please seat themselves, tell us who you are and what your title or position is with that committee or process, we've got 30 minutes. Please try to save the last 15 minutes for questions and dialogue. Go ahead, sir.
Mr John Douglas: I apologize for being late.
The Chair: No need for apologies.
Mr Douglas: Thank you very much. My name is John Douglas. I'm a local businessperson representing the Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk local training board steering committee. Our objective today is to make your committee aware of the facts relating to our community that will lead to your recommendation that Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk would benefit greatly from its own local training board, separate from Hamilton; right now it's put in with Hamilton.
The local training board process, in our view, must be community-driven. The community needs to make this thing happen over a number of years. It's a partnership, and partnerships or relationships take time to develop. The opening statement of the Skills to Meet the Challenge paper, which was released a number of years ago, states, "This new board will be an autonomous organization, bringing together those who can best identify and respond to training needs: business, labour, training providers and community/social action groups." Based on this statement, we believe that within our community are the people who can best and are most able to respond to the training needs.
I'd like to explain a few facts about our community. For three years now we've been working together on a partnership that would include all the people in our community who receive any kind of funding for any kind of training and those who would be in touch with the clients in terms of their needs. We meet together three times a year and very openly discuss the needs in our community from a client base. We've also, in the last 18, 24 months, brought together business and labour to that table, where we discuss everything that needs to go on.
It has been my experience sitting on that board that it's a very open process in our community. We've been working together now with the Haldimand-Norfolk community, bringing the results of those two negotiations together. Every need in the community is discussed in a 20- to 30-page document we put together and circulated beforehand. Everybody gets a copy of that, and we come away, if not with some way in which someone can meet those needs, at least in most situations with a plan down the road that we can address: either some more government funding or in some way in the community, stir up a way to meet that need.
We're already three years down the road towards developing this partnership. The two committees we have are called the employment coordinating committees. The labour market needs of our two surveys are discussed, we gather all the training partners, we're bringing business on board as a vital partner to the people who can supply the jobs, and together we're identifying and meeting the training needs.
Traditionally, we have not done that on a Hamilton basis. We're separated in a number of ways from Hamilton geographically. We are different communities from Hamilton. We've gone through some restructuring in Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk where, over the last 10 years, from the early 1980s, we've seen our major employers walk away from us and leave us with a totally different industrial base. We've gone through that transition successfully. Everything's not smooth, with our latest recession, but we've already transformed our industrial framework from huge employers to small, diverse businesspeople. If you look in our chamber of commerce handbook, you'll see very few employers with 200 or 300 or 400 people, maybe six or seven, and you'll see hundreds numbering in the range from 30 to 150 or 200 employees.
Hamilton has yet to go through some major changes, and we're aware of that. We've seen in the last couple of weeks that the large steelmakers are going to have some massive needs, and part of that transition, we believe, is going to overwhelm the needs of smaller communities like Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk. We respect each other's communities, but we are totally different. On various levels, the government has already recognized the closeness of these two areas, Brant-Haldimand and Norfolk. We share certain health councils and different things like that, and geographically we're very close, and also we're very much the same in our base. Some of the factors that came into deciding where the local training boards would go--the working age population, travelling to work, the general conditions that were looked at--are very similar in Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk.
We also have one unique component that is very different from Hamilton: The agricultural component represents 46% of our total workforce. That's not something we have to just put aside. The agricultural part--the farmers, the small business people--represent a significant amount of training dollars that come on board, and they're sitting on all our committees, and we're working together. They're vital to our local economy. With Hamilton, that is almost non-existent, apart from a few areas around the Hamilton area. So that's an area where they feel they'll be very easily disfranchised if we don't have some kind of partnership that keeps us together.
The fourth thing is that we have been recognized by various levels of government, as I said before. We've been recognized by the federal government for a Futures program. Hamilton doesn't have a Futures program. The Futures program was set up historically for communities that have unique needs. Both Brant-Haldimand and Norfolk have community Futures committees. So there has been a need there over the last eight to nine years, and that is continuing.
The other point I'll raise here is that during the local training board consultations last May in Hamilton, there was absolutely unanimous agreement--from Hamilton, from all our partners, the various agents we represent--for a separate training board for Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk. There was not one voice that was dissenting among all the people, and actually it was quite a rousing support. In both communities, we really believe it would be best for both communities.
We're not asking for something that's unreasonable. If Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk were to separate, we'd still be 14th out of 24 boards in terms of size. We're representing about 180,000 employed people, and for a lot of the outlying areas of Ontario, that's still a very large board.
We already do our labour market surveys together. We're already participating in terms of determining those needs and analysing them together because the similarities that come up in them are almost incredible. We already do our training fairs together, where all the labour organizations, the business organizations, the private trainers and social action groups are together at that training fair, both clients and those who can supply the needs of clients.
We have a natural community college catchment area. We're already designated by the people who make those boundaries; Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk is already in that catchment area.
One of the things that probably would be the deciding factor for your decision is that Environment Canada has already naturally grouped us together. If you listened to the weather report this morning, it's already Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk. So we have a geographic link there; we have the exact same weather. So if we're going to meet there on certain days, we'll all be travelling in the same weather. We won't have to travel in weather like this.
Finally, we ask you to weigh our proposal for a truly local board. One of the things that has really come to the point is that this process has been carried on for the last 18 months. I was reading my document in our proposal, and it was dated February 14, 1992. This is really dragging on. We need some movement on this thing. We've been desperately trying to get some hope for our volunteers that we're going to decide this boundary issue and get on with it. We don't care what we do; let's get on with it and do what we're going to do.
In order to get volunteers involved, it has to be local. The thought of having to travel 40 or 50 miles to another community to share its expertise--and we really believe that this process is going to be run on the backs of the volunteers. This government and the federal government cannot afford the expertise that's in our communities in terms of training; you couldn't buy it unless you won the Wintario. We really can't afford to disfranchise all those volunteers, so we have to make it as truly practical as possible. Even coming in here this morning is an incredible difficulty, getting into a place like this in Toronto, away from our community. It's a day's work to come for a half-hour meeting. It takes a whole day, and that can't happen at the local level. It will not be a local board.
Again, to use the words of our minister, Richard Allen, we are looking forward, with the rest of the province, to this government sharing its leadership in rebuilding the economy of the province, starting with a truly community-based solution. It has to be community-driven and it has to be local.
We'd appreciate your support in supporting us and giving us a local training board in the Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk area.
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): Welcome, John. I'm very much aware of your situation in Brantford. It was one of the first areas I travelled into to get myself up to speed in regard to all the skills training. Brantford really stood out, because it was a very good example of how the community had come together and worked together.
The first message I received on my trip down there was that in order for a group to be effective, there had to be a community of interest within the group, that you couldn't impose this from the outside. That's really the main point you're making. What concerns me very much about this legislation, as a legislator, is that I don't have much control over this, because basically what we have here is a bare-bones document in Bill 96. In fact, it just gives discretionary power to OTAB to establish these local boards. It's not even mandated now. The reason for that is that there are other partners involved, as you know.
It really much concerns me that this will be done without acknowledging that community of interest and the groundwork that people such as you have already done, because that's important. You have something there that's alive and vital and is effective; it's working very well. We've got to find a way.
I'm a bit frustrated, because it's not in the legislation--I'm going to try to get it in the legislation--to give the importance to the local boards. I'm not sure the top organization is all that important, quite frankly. We seem to be working with this top-down structure. I think where the work's going to be happening is in what people like you do.
You've already done that, because you hit a crisis in Brantford quite a few years ago. You've had an incredible transition that the rest of the province now is catching up on, from the manufacturing of agricultural goods to moving now into higher-value, high-tech types of goods. You've been there already. We could learn from your experience, because you've done it. I'm glad you're here to reinforce that point, because it's people like you in the field who are going to do it.
Mr Douglas: I think the point that was mentioned in there is that it has been strong, but there's a fragile nature to it because the cynicism is building. This is 18 months, 24 months of promises, promises. Our biggest problem is getting businesspeople. The businesspeople and the labour people--it's not an easy relationship. We're sitting down together and we're talking, but we're not going to stay there for ever waiting for leadership. We need some clear leadership.
I'm not so concerned at this point that it really matters how definite that document is. I know there are some real arguments we could get into about that, but we need some leadership in terms of training. We've got to be globally competitive. Apart from that, it's all a waste of time. It's not going to do labour any good; it's not going to do business any good.
We're sensing some cynicism from our people. It's our volunteers, and we can't value them enough, because it's not going to be driven by bureaucrats and it's not going to be driven by staff people, as the document shows; there's going to be very little money for that. So we have to ride on this one very quickly, get moving on it and show some clear leadership in terms of the direction we want to take for Ontario.
Mr Ramsay: Your LTAB is the quintessential example, I believe, of the problems that could develop. If we now amalgamate your group with Hamilton, on both the labour side and the management side, their big problem of course is the steel industry. We all know in this room what's happening with the steel industry. That's going to be their big concern, and naturally so.
Mr Douglas: It should be.
Mr Ramsay: Their first priority is going to be how to stop the haemorrhaging of jobs in the steel industry. That's going to be their big concern. They have more population than you do and they're going to outweigh your say on that thing. All that work you've been doing and your concerns for your area are going to be put aside, because if you amalgamate the two groups in that particular area, the big crisis now will be what's happening in Hamilton. You've started to work on your crisis. You're now starting to manage it and starting to build. So I think you need to be left alone to do your work.
Mr Douglas: That's what we're here for.
Mr Ramsay: We've been saying this consistently. Again, I just thank you for bringing that, because we're really here to listen. I just hope the government members hear that. Here's a genuine example of a group of people who would like to continue what they're doing and, quite frankly, be left alone by Queen's Park and let them continue their work.
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Mr Douglas: Because the government members are here, I'll make just one more point. I think one of the saddest things that happened was that we had a group of people in this province who were sitting down ready to move into local training boards. We told all our people, businesspeople, labour people, that this is where the power was going to happen, that this is where change was going to take place. We had these people all sitting down talking about structure, and in the middle of that, we dropped Jobs Ontario on social service agencies. They got the message loud and clear: "To hell with you."
We know where the power really is going to lie; that is, where the money goes. I think the best thing that could have happened in this province is if we'd taken Jobs Ontario, changed it a little bit and put it into the hands of the local training board and used it as a transition body for three years. It would have worked beautifully, because we would have been forced to work on an upfront critical issue, learned to work together and then come into some kind of structure. Now we're bringing a structure--the Jobs Ontario message is coming out loud and clear, that they're positioning themselves to be the local training board. You go anywhere in this province and it's the biggest problem that's coming down here.
So be very careful on that one. Make sure the government's very clear on where Jobs Ontario is going. It was a three-year program. We had the CITCs, community industrial training committees, in this province told they could not have Jobs Ontario brokers because they weren't going to exist. You were telling businesspeople that they were going to be out of this province in three years. That's a terrible statement to make.
We've tried in our own community. Why don't the Jobs Ontario people sit down with our local training board? We'll transition before the government shows us leadership and we'll already be up and running. We have a 400-page document already together from all the groups with all their strategy plans for the next three years. We're doing it already. We have to be very careful that we show leadership and don't take everybody down one path and then put all the money down another path, because the message was loud and clear and we got it real clear. I think we've dropped off a lot of support as a result of that.
It may sound good for jobs. The reality of the situation is that you need business on board in order to give jobs, and right now it's only social service agencies. There already are existing networks in place to get those things. Let's use them: Let's not throw them aside, because they have a lot of expertise.
Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): Let's assume that the government is listening and recognizes and understands that Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk constitutes a distinct centre for training purposes.
Mr Douglas: I thought you were going to say "distinct society."
Mr McGuinty: I want to broach a different topic, another problem which is going to arise. Almost half of the workforce works in the agricultural sector. How are those people going to have representation, given the directors and the representative groups that are going to be on the LTAB?
Mr Douglas: There are about three organizations already in the province--I don't know all the names; the Ontario Federation of Agriculture--and they are represented. That is not all people working in the farm fields. There are the fruit growers, huge in Haldimand-Norfolk. They have an association, they bring in a lot of migrant workers for that, but they also have a large base. There's also a huge canning area and processing. They're represented by their unions in a large degree, but there are also associations.
Unfortunately, I wish I could answer that question in real clear terms. It's going to take a partnership and it's going to work together. We've already had negotiations with them. They already have some of their own stuff running, but they're sitting on every one of our boards and they're showing excellent participation.
That's just some of the partnership and the relationship we're going to have to work with. That's a figure that popped out in the middle of this process. Everybody gasps when they hear it, but that's the reality of the situation. A lot of those people supplement their income. They would be listed as agricultural employees, but they probably work in some kind of industry in the off-season and also a lot are self-employed in small businesses.
Just to give you an idea, there are 11 boards of trade in the Haldimand-Norfolk area and one chamber of commerce in Brantford. We're represented by six school boards--an incredible number of people. It's not going to be easy. I didn't say it was going to be easy, but it's going to be even more difficult if we have to get lumped in with Hamilton. They're just going to throw up their hands and walk away and say, "Look, I'm never going to be heard."
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. One is related to the issue of your very strong position of having a local training board for Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk. We've certainly heard that before. We've had a number of groups come before us who have expressed just as strongly and as passionately as you have that position.
You also mentioned, though, in your presentation or in the response to a question, that we all need to be getting our act together so that we can get into this global economy and compete in a way that's going to provide some opportunity for success. Underlying this piece of legislation is the principle that we need to drop the old barriers, that they get in the way of us working together and doing things. It seems to me that in this instance perhaps an old barrier may in fact get in the way of that whole area getting its act together in a way that perhaps might be more competitive.
I just look at my own area. I'm from Sault Ste Marie. We're steel industry-based and we're beginning to realize now that if we're going to be successful into the future, we're going to have to work with our neighbours, north and east. Is there no sense of perhaps what you're proposing here, continuing to promote the small group as opposed to the larger entity?
Mr Douglas: If I can restate your question, are you saying there's no benefit from being with Hamilton?
Mr Martin: Yes.
Mr Douglas: I think there is some benefit being with Hamilton. We recognize that. We already work very closely. I'm involved with the community industrial training committee movement and there's a couple of other people and they're working very closely with Hamilton. But in the sense of the imminent problems that we see them having right now and the struggles they're going to have to go through, we wonder whether we're just going to be dwarfed by that. I'm not saying that down the road we're not going to learn an incredible lot from their process, and we probably have a lot to show them in terms of the small business base we've developed, but just in terms of the way the local training board and the structures are going to go up, to add that many more relationships to something we believe is really critical right now just may not be productive. It may be great, but it may not work.
Mr Martin: It seems to me that if you're not part of the process of Hamilton's restructuring, which will affect you in significant ways whether you are or not, it will be a loss for you.
The other thing I wanted to comment on--I just can't let it go by--is the Jobs Ontario experience. In our community it has been a very positive, excellent one where the broker has been able to go out and work with the business community and with those who are in need of jobs and put them together. The key there was flexibility. The key was dropping the old barriers that often got in the way of that kind of thing happening. Is there no way in your instance here again, I guess, that you might see a need, as we look into the future and the global economy that's coming at us, to drop those barriers and begin to make some of these things work that obviously have tremendous potential?
Mr Douglas: I think the answer to that question is that yes, we'd be prepared to do that. We are working on that. The bottom line is that we're not sitting on the management board and we've been denied that seat. Without sitting on some kind of management board where you make policy, that's pretty difficult to do. The message we're getting loud and clear in the business and the labour community is that it's a social action group, it's client-based and, "Yes, we want you involved at a certain level." But we've always been involved together working at the decision-making level, and to be relegated to the other level is very difficult to work. We're doing everything we can. We believe we can help them be very successful and we've presented a number of documents to them that bring together proposals. Yes, we're working together; it just could be so much better.
Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): Thank you, Mr Douglas, for your presentation. You argued very strongly for the community boards, which we think are going to have a very important part to play in the overall program that OTAB represents.
Before I ask you for just a few comments about OTAB, how you think the provincial structure will work, I want to say we recognize the need for the community involvement. You argue it so strongly that I got a bit concerned it would become too insular almost. The other thing is to wonder why it's not working now. In other words, if the local communities know their interests so well, then why haven't we got better training programs in place now?
I heard Mr Ramsay saying so easily what the interests of Hamilton are that you'd think he was a representative for Hamilton, but in fact he's from northern Ontario. If he knows Hamilton's interests so well, then why can't these decisions all be made at a provincial body and never mind the local thing?
What we're trying to do is set up so you get the best of both; that is, the deeply rooted community participation and the overall provincial role as well, because we are, as everyone is admitting, in a global economy. How do you know what the circumstances in a global economy are except from a larger or greater perspective that the province, and ultimately the country, represents? Again, how you combine these interests is what we're after, and what we're trying to do is be as representative as possible, which brings me back to OTAB. I'd like some comments from you on what you think about the representation we've gotten.
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Mr Douglas: I think for the OTAB governing body that's essential, or the Canadian--I don't remember all the names. The national body is very important because it can look at things from a national and international perspective. Ontario, being the engine of Canada, it's very important that we protect that interest.
Coming down to the local level, if I can just give you a real quick rundown, just an example, we sit around a training board and somebody will say--and this is what's happened in the past and we really appreciate some of the changes that have happened. The open tendering process has been fantastic because basically we can sit down now and have competition. The community colleges have to pull up their socks because they have to now compete.
Just to give you an example, somebody will say, "Oh, we need to train." The CEC will sit down: "We've got a quarter of a million dollars, and we want to train 20 machinists." Well, that may be fine in certain other communities. In Brantford a year ago, we said, "The first thing we do is go out to the business community, stir them up and ask if we have any people who will hire 20 apprentices or 20 trainees. If we don't get that, we don't train," because the reality is, that's actual competition. That's a real job that's going to pay real taxes that's going to benefit Ontario.
The suggestion was that we needed not machinists but millwrights. So we went out and surveyed the business community, and this is where it really happens in terms of the community. There was a need. There were all kinds of people on UI, and the government had just kicked down their UI chargeback dollars, so it had to be UI recipients, which was a change for us in the community. Usually the CEC handled that. We went out to the businesses and said, "Now, what kind of people do you need to employ?" It was really interesting. Very few of them were hard skills; 85% of them were soft skills: "I need people who know how to make a presentation. I need people who know how to talk on their feet. I need people who know some computer skills, not computer-literate but some computer skills."
We designed a program and put 17 of 19 people in actual apprenticeship programs after 36 weeks. So that's where it really happens. You can't dictate that from a province, because in three years--
Mr Gary Wilson: I guess I just want to say that that's part of the reason you have the two working together: that kind of experience can then be shared with other boards around the province.
Mr Douglas: Sure. What's interesting, we're already doing that now. We may have a need for four or five people but we can't run the program. Well, we'll immediately call Hamilton. We'll immediately call Toronto or Waterloo, because we're in a very good geographic area, and we'll buy four seats on a program that Hamilton's running, we'll buy four seats on a Cambridge program; we're not going to duplicate the process. So there is that going on in the various communities, there is that kind of partnership going on, and it can be more, I think, just with better communication. But the true spirit of the local board is to find out what that community needs.
It may be really important in the other 40 communities across the province that they need tool and die makers. Well, we may not have any jobs for them. It would be very foolish for us to hire people and send them to other communities. We have done a lot of that, but we should really be looking after our own local needs, but in the context of the bigger picture.
Mr Gary Wilson: Again, I want to remind you that how "local" is defined is changing.
The Chair: Thank you. We've got to move on to Mr Farnan, and we're going to.
Mr Mike Farnan (Cambridge): Thank you, Mr Chair. I simply want to commend you for your presentation and the enthusiasm with which you made the presentation. I've worked very closely with the CITC in Cambridge, and I'm familiar with some of the work you do as a neighbouring organization.
One of the problems, and I put it to you, is that this legislation is a compromise. When I hear the opposition members--and I've only sat here for a day now--every delegation that comes in is going to have an amendment to have another member placed on the board. Now, there isn't going to be a room big enough for the board that will be constructed by the opposition members. That's one of the problems.
But I think what is critical is that we tap into the energies, the expertise and resources, and I have absolutely no doubt that people like yourself and people like my friends in Cambridge who have been involved with the CITCs are going to be an integral part of this process, because once you're interested, once you're committed, you're going to find ways to make this work. This is a partnership. We've got to work together to make this fly. The future of our province, our industrial future, is at stake. We need you and we need your colleagues to support this legislation constructively.
The last point I would make is that within the legislation there is the reality that the local boards will reflect their local communities. When I hear Mr Ramsay say, "Well, the Steelworkers will make decisions for an agricultural sector," this is crass politics being played out at a committee table. We should be working constructively, and obviously if there is an agricultural base, that must be reflected in the board. If there's an industrial base, that must be reflected in the board. I would just simply appeal to members on all sides to be constructive. I really appreciate the presentation you made today.
Mr Douglas: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Farnan. Mr Turnbull, please.
Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): First of all, I'd like to say, Mr Douglas, I regret that my colleague and I arrived late. We missed your presentation. It wasn't because of lack of interest. The things you've said since we've arrived make good sense, and indeed we know of the excellent work that your organization has done.
Just to ride briefly on Mr Farnan's comment, most groups that have come here have been talking about the need for a different composition of the board. Mr Farnan would suggest that we want to see an enormous board. I don't think that would be very productive because I think we all know that there's less achieved the larger the meeting, whatever it happens to be.
But my question to you briefly is, is the current composition of the board--I'm not talking about the size of the board, but the composition of the board--appropriate, or would a tripartite approach with equal representation from labour, business and educators be appropriate?
Mr Douglas: I personally don't think there's a real lot of problem in terms of composition of the board. That sounds great till you sit down and try to put people in place.
We have tried to work through this thing. We've heard very few details, you must understand, but we've tried to figure out--the best people that you need to have on this board are already busy. To ask them to be available one day out of five--we've heard some other numbers, but whatever the numbers are--we have difficulty getting them out for a couple of hours' meeting in terms of community planning right now. So I think there's going to have to be a recognition there that this is really valuable. It's never going to please anybody.
I think the composition is there. I think the major players in terms of business and labour--I think the social action groups are very quick to be there, and in our community they've got their work done. They're well informed of their community and they are there waiting to go. Nobody is ever always going to be happy. We also have a large aboriginal component in our community and they have their own board and we're working together with that. But the business and labour are going to be the toughest ones to sit down at the table. The numbers that are represented there--yes, it's going to be a fight, there's no doubt about it, getting that down, but we have to get past that and get some leadership. I think probably the biggest difficulty is that we're living in the lack of a decision, and it's a good decision late or a bad decision early. Which is better, I don't know. I think we need some decision on this board and get on with it and let's find out how much of a mess it is and sort it out. We will. We always do. We're Canadians.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Douglas. The committee thanks you and your colleagues from the local training board process in Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk. We're grateful to you for your interest and your work on this matter. Please express that gratitude to those people when you get back home. We trust that you'll keep in touch if you have any more views or insights that you want to share with us. Have a safe trip back.
Mr Douglas: Thank you very much. We'll be submitting a paper. Thank you very much for your time.
BOARD OF TRADE OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO
The Chair: The next participant is the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto. Would those people please come forward, have a seat, and tell us their names and titles or positions if they wish. We've got their written submission, which is becoming an exhibit by virtue of being filed and will form part of the record. Go ahead, sir.
Mr Bruce McKelvey: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. My name is Bruce McKelvey. I'm a member of council for the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto. I also chair the education committee that we have. We have about 25 individuals, volunteers, who sit on an education committee and have been doing so for some 20 years, I might add. It's our responsibility within the board to respond on matters relating to education and training.
I'm also a member of what they call the business steering committee, which has been active in the formulation of the OTAB governing body. We act there, the board, as probably the only community-based organization that is participating in that. We have a membership of 12,000 members here in the greater Metropolitan area and are of course an independent, non-profit organization. matters relating to education and training.
I'm also a member of what they call the business steering committee, which has been active in the formulation of the OTAB governing body. We act there, the board, as probably the only community-based organization that is participating in that. We have a membership of 12,000 members here in the greater Metropolitan area and are of course an independent, non-profit organization.
Over the past 12 to 18 months we've certainly been very active in terms of consultation with many constituencies, meeting with the minister, the staff of Skills Development or the OTAB project team, as they're called, and we also have had representation on the local board consultation. I'd like to say just at the outset that I certainly support many of the themes relative to local boards that the speaker previous to me made so well.
I think in our comments this morning we'd like to go back to the genesis of the OTAB discussion, and we recall and we support very clearly the first document that came out. In the executive summary, it talked about how the fundamental principle on which OTAB is founded was going to be to improve Ontario's ability to compete successfully in the global arena by improving the skills of Ontario's workforce. We commend the government and we support that position.
However, I think it's fair to say that as we've been involved in the process which has led up to the drafting of the legislation, we have seen a compromise or an evolution of that fundamental principle, and it's an evolution that we are concerned about. We'd like to argue strongly that we get back on track and start to refocus around the prime economic objectives that the original principle spelled out in the green paper. We're going to propose some specific amendments to the legislation, which we think would help in that process.
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The themes of market-driven and client- and learner-centred have been used, and I don't think they're overused; I think they're very appropriate here. I think it reflects the fact that the strength of the training process is going to come from the community and from the individual. We need to have an equitable partnership led by business and labour, and it needs to be affirmed in structure and process, and we need to have a system which encourages, measures and rewards innovation, efficiency and effectiveness. But if these are the things that we want, there are a number of amendments which must be made to support these primary objectives.
The first one I'd like to draw your attention to--and sometimes if you take these things one at a time, you say, "Well, you're arguing against motherhood." At the very end of the negotiation, and it really was a negotiation between some of the parties relative to the legislative document that came out--on the one hand, I think the government's to be commended for creating the environment which allowed the consultation between the different groups and put us in touch, one with the other, around the table. That was a very positive experience, but the legislation should reflect the true purpose and shouldn't waver from the fundamental objectives of what we want to see training doing here in Ontario.
I will tell you very clearly that the last-minute add-ons of phrases such as "improve the lives of all workers and potential workers" are additions which in our view don't necessarily stay on track with creating a more competitive economy through advanced training and adjustment processes in the province. We did notice that throughout the legislation we started to compromise the wording and the themes, and it became much more a piece of social legislation than economic and training-oriented legislation. We caution people, because with a vague and unfocused section such as this, we think that the purpose will be lost altogether.
If we increase the focus on the economy, this will not in any way be detrimental to the government's aims and indeed business's support of certain very desirable aspects of social policy. They will come about. These policies won't be diluted, and I think in fact they will easily be enhanced, because if there's first and foremost a recognition that through economic success--and part of that economic success involves, and as business people we know this, bringing marginalized groups into the labour force--social policy can be put forward, this will be a very good thing for Ontario. But if we start to lose track of the main theme for training in this province, we will be doing ourselves and the people we serve a disservice.
With regard to that in terms of a specific recommendation, we argue strongly that the phrase "improvement of the lives of workers and potential workers" should be removed from clause 1(b) and paragraph 4(1)5, so we make that specific recommendation.
Somewhat along the same lines, we believe there needs to be continuing attention that the private sector is going to be the engine of renewal in Ontario's economy and, although there may be a restructuring of the public sector going on within this province, this restructuring effort, and indeed the resources to support any restructuring of government for the public sector, should not in any way interfere with the availability of training and adjustments to those in need in the private sector.
The focus in the act of the private sector is not clear, and in fact the inclusion of the public sector in paragraph 4(1)1 is misleading and I think sets an unrealistic level of expectation. We would like to make the second recommendation that the reference to public sector training should be excluded. Instead the act should offer a stronger mandate to training towards the private sector.
In terms of local boards--and I'll preface this by saying we've had consultations already with some of the staff who would try and appease us and say, "This is just a piece of legislation, we can't deal with the local boards now because that's a joint process, the Canadian Labour Force Development Board, the federal government, blah, blah, blah." We don't buy that for a second.
You absolutely can strengthen the legislation in regard to enshrining the empowerment of the local board, and you should do that. It is the involvement of local people and decision-making at the local level, combined with accessibility and responsiveness that the training service provided, which stimulates a personal and collective belief, commitment and action towards workplace training. The whole concept of OTAB and its eventual success will be dependent on how local programs are delivered, and there's a number of things that can go and support this.
First of all, we need to ensure that the resources supporting these training initiatives in Ontario are oriented towards the local boards, not to a centralized bureaucratic structure called OTAB. More specifically, I'm talking about the 700 civil servants who have been given, basically, what amount to job guarantees through this process coming in from different ministries.
To the extent that they have been given these job guarantees, we would argue very, very strongly that these individuals be placed as resources to the local boards, not to a centralized OTAB organization which will then, just by dint of the numbers of people, create a structure which is not at all conducive to some of the very fundamental things that my colleague spoke to me about previously.
I'd also like to speak to Mr Farnan's point. We have not been told that the local board constitution will reflect the community. In fact when we have spoken to government officials and sought assurances that the local board composition will truly reflect the community; when we've asked whether or not the eight, eight, four and two is really going to be what's happening there; when we've asked whether or not groups from the outside, whether they be in agriculture or represent non-unionized labour, were going to be able to participate, we've been told no by the previous minister. If the current minister wants to make a clarification on that, we would certainly welcome it, but that's certainly not where he's on record.
The relationship between OTAB and the local boards is one of reciprocal obligations and I think that's something, from the Board of Trade's perspective, we feel strongly about. OTAB should provide a policy environment and communications framework within which the local boards work. These local boards are going to be taking on a different life and I think--I haven't heard it today--but I'm sure you've heard some of the discussions relative to whether the local boards represent geographical orientation or what I would call a sectoral orientation.
These are going to be difficult problems to solve but, once again, like my colleague before us said, if we work within the right framework of empowered local boards without a strong bureaucratic OTAB, we'll get to the right solutions and we'll get to them much more quickly.
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They're complementary structures, the local boards, and they are going to be responsive to local conditions. It does get right down to whether or not you need 20 millwrights, 20 office technicians or 20 steelworkers. I can tell you, gentlemen and ladies, that determination is not going to be made sitting here in Queen's Park or in Toronto; that is going to be made with not only the input but the commitment of the people in that local community who want to create jobs and create wealth in their economy which will allow them all to have better lives. That will happen if we let them. We recommend that legislation be amended to enshrine local boards and the empowerment of them and to give direction in terms of staff resources going towards the local board effort.
The third area I'd like to comment on is that we believe all training providers must be treated equally by the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. The current legislation does not reflect this. In essence it creates a two-tier training delivery system which is not consumer-driven. It is important to make use of existing education facilities to reduce unnecessary overlap and inefficiency in services provided by the public system but, as the act reads now in paragraphs 4(1)15 and 4(1)16, there is an imbalance between the weight given to the private and publicly funded systems. It is important that the freedom to select the training provider which best meets the needs of the client, be it a public, private or community-based provider, be enshrined in the legislation. This freedom to choose is essential and is a positive factor in improving the quality and efficiency of Ontario's training system.
In our view, private trainers will continue to provide a much-needed stimulus to bring about innovation and efficiency which will benefit all training providers in the system in general. Competition among training providers must be retained as a hallmark of Ontario's restructured, market-driven, labour force development system. Therefore, we specifically recommend that the act should include, as one of its objectives under section 4, the client's right to choose training based on his or her determination of quality of service and that we do not create a two-tier system.
A most noticeable oversight in the act still is the lack of representation of non-unionized and self-employed workers and the overrepresentation of the OFL on the OTAB advisory council. I say this notwithstanding the fact that we're having very good dialogue between business and labour at one level, probably better dialogue than we've had in many other situations, but it is not inclusive dialogue, it is not full dialogue.
Less than 20% of the business and industry workforce in Ontario is unionized. What about the other 80% of workers who are either represented by associations or organizations or are not part of a union? I think I would have argued more strongly, had I been sitting in my colleague's seat, about the agricultural workers. I think they're underrepresented. I would certainly argue very strongly on behalf of people like professional engineers and data processing professionals. These are the professions and the people and the companies that are going to provide the engine for Ontario's economic renewal. How can we not have them included at the main table within the OTAB structure?
It's critical that a mechanism be enshrined to include members of the worker, employer and self-employed constituencies that are not identified or affiliated with identifiable groups. We would ask that consideration be given to change in this area.
The fifth point I'm making is a somewhat more minor one, I suppose, but we'd like to put it forward. In section 21 there's a reference to fees fixed by regulations. We believe that in terms of setting fees in regulations this is not really the appropriate place to do it. Our contention is that the training and adjustment system will benefit those in need best if the process is market-driven. By definition, there has to be the ability to make changes in the short term. We don't see any particular reason or rationale in having fees fixed in regulations.
In summary, the board of trade has some serious concerns about the long-term effectiveness of this act. We don't want it to be a mile wide and an inch deep. We need more focus under the purpose clause to prevent any future confusion and indeed lack of movement within the council. If the partners have a clear and agreed-upon vision of why they're making certain decisions, their energy will be well employed. So with a clear and economic market focus, both economic and social objectives will be achieved.
Local boards must be given the autonomy and authority to work locally and independently, and they must be given the resources. Here I'm talking about those 700 civil servants. There should be a one-tier training system which is consumer-driven, representation within the structure must include non-unionized and self-employed workers, and the section on fees being fixed by regulations should be eliminated. I thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mr Turnbull, three minutes, please.
Mr Turnbull: Thank you very much. I'll try to be brief so I can get a few questions in.
On this question of representation on the board, we had a presentation yesterday from somebody in the construction industry and he suggested that from the business side of the equation, he would suggest that the board be expanded, that business have nine seats and that manufacturing, construction and service industries share an equal number of seats.
Based upon what you have said, perhaps a further classification--let us call it data and technology--might be introduced as a fourth. Could you comment on that and just expand on your comments about representation of those people who are not covered by the OFL; in other words, the one seat that they've got at the moment.
Mr McKelvey: I think the most important aspect at the primary level is those people who are not--right now, if you don't belong to an identifiable group you are not in the game, and there are certainly some people being excluded. I'm not sure the answer is to expand the number of seats. I think the view the board has is that from an employee perspective, there is far too much weight being given specifically to the OFL. The OFL is not the only representative of employees in Ontario. So we would argue strongly that an adjustment be made, not necessarily to increase the number of seats but at the employee level make it more inclusive.
Mr Turnbull: From the point of view that it is easy to identify representatives from OFL as representatives, whereas from the rest of non-unionized labour it is probably somewhat more difficult to identify those people who should sit on it, how would you approach that?
Mr McKelvey: The consultation processes that we have all been involved in have been very fruitful within the education and training community. Although they felt at the outset that they could not accommodate themselves within two seats, they were able to do that based on that consultation process. It brought the universities, colleges, private trainers, community trainers and school boards together and they were able to sort some of these out. We would argue, I think, for a forum whereby representatives of the OFL, other representatives of unions and other employees' representatives have a similar forum, and in among them we believe that they would be successful in getting a broader representation.
Mr Farnan: I want to thank you for a very thoughtful presentation. I believe your presentation reflects very clearly the thinking of our Premier and the government that the best social legislation is the creation of jobs, and critical to that is having a highly skilled workforce. Secondly, I think the thinking would incorporate the idea of partnerships between the private and public sectors.
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My sense, Bruce, when I read the legislation, is that overall the emphasis is on training, skills, economics. I would agree with you that there is the phrase there which you have defined as "improvement of the lives of workers and potential workers." It doesn't upset me. I think if you give workers skills, if you give them the opportunity for training, you give them a greater sense of security and no doubt the lives of workers will improve as a result of this kind of approach.
What really disturbed me, though, were your comments vis-à-vis the minister, where you suggested that the minister was on record as indicating that local boards would not reflect local communities. Nowhere have I found on record the minister ever making such a statement. If you have evidence of that, certainly I'd like to hear it.
On the contrary, the minister and the deputy minister have on numerous occasions--and I will use the words they themselves used--have said that we're not using the cookie cutter approach. Different boards in different areas will reflect different realities. It stands to reason, and I think a very reasonable approach would be that obviously, in agricultural communities, one wouldn't expect an industrial bias in terms of a board. If you have some information that I don't have, I'd appreciate your sharing it with the committee.
Mr McKelvey: I have two comments. First of all, at your top line you talked about jobs, and jobs indeed are a good thing. There's a line above that you didn't mention, and that's the creation of wealth and competitiveness within the world economy. If you don't have the ability to compete and create wealth, you won't get the jobs. I would argue that we would include a line above the one you spoke to.
Mr Farnan: And the Premier would agree with you.
Mr McKelvey: Good. With regard to your second comment, in terms of local boards, rather than get into the specifics of the meeting at this point in time, this process would benefit greatly from some specific clarity around the freedom within the local board structure, as the government sees it, as it would enter into it as one of three parties in terms of talking about the empowerment of local boards, the resources that would be there and the fact that their composition would not necessarily reflect the 8, 8, 4 and 2 model, and that from an employee perspective, where there were not employees in a unionized environment, there would not be a requirement for there to be a dominant union participation. The problem will be solved, perhaps more positively, with that clarification, which the board of trade would embrace.
Mr Ramsay: Mr McKelvey, thank you very much for your very thoughtful presentation. I think it really highlighted many of the points that need to be brought out.
I think you're being too kind when you talk about the purpose clauses. It's a collection of mealy-mouthed weasel words that's trying to appease everybody. You're right. It's not firm enough, it's not tough enough, it's not--
The Chair: I don't think the Alberta Speaker would allow that, but this is Ontario.
Mr Ramsay: --specific enough. It's really got to be, I think, very explicit that the purpose of this legislation is to create the most highly skilled workers in the world, who can compete with workers in the rest of the world so that we get Ontario back to redesigning and reinventing, if you will, our economy, because we have to build it up from scratch.
I think you're right. Consultation's great, and now what we've started to do is to compromise the basic, I think, drive and focus--the word you used--to try to appease everybody, all those partners out there, and because of that I'm not sure it's going to be successful.
Mr McKelvey: My experience is that you have to make the main thing the main thing and everybody has to understand what the main thing is.
Mr Ramsay: Yes, that's a very good point. I think maybe the answer might be here, and my colleague Steven Offer actually had suggested it: Maybe what we need to do is get some of those words, because some of them are important, and maybe have a preamble to this. As my colleague says, get the flowery language up in the preamble that doesn't have any basis in law, but then get the purposes very highly focused, because what'll happen here is that these purposes are so loose you'll be able to justify doing just about anything. That's going to be the problem. We should have, as you say, the sharp focus to make sure we produce highly skilled people so that, yes, their lives will be better, because that's the ultimate goal of this. Let's start getting the goal focused.
Mr McKelvey: I certainly believe the board of trade and the business steering committee would embrace any opportunity to work with government on the legislation to achieve that, and in doing so, we would not in any way harm some of the social objectives that ultimately the government has.
Mr Ramsay: I agree with you also that we've got to make sure we include all trainers. It's got to be all-inclusive, and we shouldn't be putting our biases in for some trainers against others. I think we should encourage OTAB and the LTABs to get the best trainers out there for the job.
Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Thank you for your presentation. I want to focus in on the fixed-fees aspect, and I'd like to get your comment on this. You clearly indicated that fees can be charged. You're quite concerned about that.
Mr McKelvey: Our concern on the fees is more at a technical level. Technically, we think that--
Mr Offer: Okay. I'd just like to bring forward a few points. This is what's going to be called a schedule 4 agency, which is a new creation. The ability of the schedule 4 agency will be to be completely funded out of revenue generated by its own programs. Ontario Hydro is one such example.
You know, as you've brought forward, that the OFL is going to be a fairly large driving force on this board, and it has spoken in favour of training levies. When one takes a look at the legislation, that fees can be charged, the second point is that it is this new schedule 4 agency, which will generate its own revenues.
The third aspect is that the OFL is a driving force on the board that has already spoken in favour of training levies. I would like your comment as to what you believe the impact would be if this was the forerunner to an employer's levy on training in this province.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Offer. Go ahead, sir.
Mr McKelvey: Perhaps naïvely so, we weren't really looking at the clause as being threatening in any specific way. We are certainly on record as not supporting any training tax or training levy. We think we need to evaluate the quality and the results of training in a more appropriate way, and that business is going to do the right thing. But with regard to that specific clause, we did not look at it as being any particular threat. We just thought it was ridiculous to have this enshrined in the regulations.
One final comment in terms of the schedule 4 is that this unique designation seems to be able to take on the characteristics it chooses to or chooses not to. So it has, by definition, a considerable amount of flexibility.
The Chair: The committee thanks you, Mr McKelvey, and the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto for your interest in this matter and for your participation in this process. It's an important contribution to the work that the committee and the Legislature do. We trust you'll keep in touch. Should you want to make more views or more insights known, we invite you to do so. We're grateful to you.
Mr McKelvey: Thank you very much.
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SCARBOROUGH BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Chair: The next participant is the Scarborough Board of Education, if those people would please come forward, have a seat, and tell us their names and positions, if any. We've already received your written submissions, which form part of the record by virtue of being filed as an exhibit. Please go ahead. Try to save the last 15 minutes of your half-hour for dialogue and exchanges.
There's coffee and beverages at the side. That's for members of the public so that they can feel at home and comfortable, and of course these are public hearings. It's a cold, slushy day out there. This is one of the finest locations of the best free coffee in Toronto. It's not particularly well known, but we're doing our best. Go ahead.
Mr Ross Henderson: Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, we are here this morning as educators who work in adult programs in Scarborough. I am Ross Henderson. I hold a position as head of program development at Scarborough Centre for Alternative Studies, which is Scarborough's all-adult day school. With me is Roger O'Dell, head of program learning resources at that same school, and Penny Mustin, vice-principal of Maplewood High School, a school in which half the student population is made up of adults.
We have prepared a brief, which we would like to present to you in approximately the first 15 minutes of our allotted time, after which we would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.
We are here representing the Scarborough Board of Education. We are pleased to have this opportunity to be involved in the consultation process for Bill 96. As adult educators we are gratified that this provincial government is taking a leadership role in the provision of education and retraining in Ontario.
Bill 96 addresses many of the concerns that adult trainers and educators have experienced as economic and social change has increased client demand for relevant, flexible programming. OTAB reflects our philosophy that retraining should exist within a comprehensive framework that incorporates accessibility, accountability and equity of opportunity in a coherent model.
While we support the philosophy of the legislation, the impact of certain provisions cause us concern. We have two specific areas of concern. First, the legislation seems to create an additional level of education and training bureaucracy that will make adult education more expensive and less accessible. Secondly, our reading of the legislation suggests to us that there may be a lack of familiarity with the nature, extent and value of adult programs currently provided in publicly funded school boards.
It is our intention to provide you with an overview of the Scarborough Board of Education's involvement in adult education and training. We believe Scarborough is an ideal community to examine, because it is a microcosm of the new social and economic realities of the changing Canadian society.
As a large urban community, Scarborough has undergone changes in demographics that have put new and different demands on education systems, particularly in terms of adult education. For example, the 1992 yearly average of active welfare assistance cases rose from 14,962 to 22,212 in 1992. From 1986 to 1991 the demands on English-as-a-second-language programs grew as first-language speakers of Chinese, Filipino, Polish, Spanish, Arabic, Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi and Tamil more than doubled. The percentage of single-parent families in Scarborough has increased 21.3% in the same five-year period. Clearly, one can see that these social and economic changes have impacted Scarborough in a way that creates more demand for adult upgrading and retraining opportunities.
Mr Roger O'Dell: The profile of adult learners in Scarborough schools has changed significantly between the mid-1980s and the present. In 1980 adults in Ontario's schools represented 6.6% of the student population. That number has grown in Ontario to the point where adult clients now make up over 20% of students in the education system. The adult education population has grown tremendously in Scarborough. This tremendous growth has been addressed by our board in a pragmatic and realistic manner.
In the mid-1980s the profile of the adult learner in Scarborough was as follows: 75% of the adult students were women; average age was in the mid-20s. Within this 75% were three distinct groups: young women who left school prematurely for personal reasons and were now ready to return and had good skills and the motivation to complete diploma requirements; young people who had low success in the school system, had left disappointed and were returning still with low skills, often low self-esteem and needing much, both in terms of skills and support; older women who wanted to renew or polish skills before returning to the workforce after a significant absence. The other 25% of the client group was made up of men who were early school leavers and a small contingent of students new to Canada requiring English-as-a-second-language classes. Essentially, the client base was made up of low-skilled, English-as-a-first-language Canadian citizens who were seeking to improve their circumstances.
Today the adult student profile is quite different. While 75% are still women, the average age has increased to over 30. The population of young women is still evident but in smaller numbers. The third group, older women returning to the workforce, has all but disappeared. However, we are now seeing people, the majority of whom are displaced workers and new Canadians who are struggling to gain skills which will allow them to enter the Canadian workforce. Indeed, well over 50% of all adult students have a language other than English as their first language. Our new wave of adult clients require English assessment and evaluation, counselling, educational planning and skill training appropriate to Canadian business and industry. Limitations for most adult students are, as always, time, money and opportunity.
Our client group of displaced workers is facing additional challenges not just of unemployment, but the recognition that the jobs they have held have disappeared for ever from the workplace and they need to upgrade to have any hope of returning to self-sufficiency.
The Scarborough Board of Education has responded to the challenge of serving adults within the school system in a variety of ways, each designed to meet the needs of the specific community. In some schools adults are integrated into classes with adolescents. In other schools adult and adolescent populations share a building and an administration but operate separately. We also have a fully adult high school with a population of 1,100 students. The Scarborough board has also addressed the demand through continuing education by providing courses to meet adult needs.
This has created a new dimension between the public and private sectors in education in Scarborough. Support services have increased. Support networking has grown tremendously. Staffs have retrained to meet demands. Teachers have had to increase their familiarity with educational opportunities for adults as school boards become educational brokers. Often when adult clients arrive they are unaware of the choices available to them.
The perception of adult education has changed. Lifelong learning is an accepted norm. The challenges for educational systems are great. Scarborough has shown commitment to serving all students in its care. Looking to the future and continuing to be responsive to changing needs is part of that commitment.
Part of the perceived need for the Ontario training and adjustment board has been the demand for a rationalized continuum of adult education and labour adjustment. It cites the need for changes in retraining that keep pace with industrial and social change. The desire for new programming and reduced spending has long been a concern of the school board sector.
The growth of adult education in Scarborough has resulted in creative responses and adjustments to program. Some of these responses are represented in the growth of partners in education. The Scarborough board has developed many community partners in its attempt to meet the demands of a changing client. Let us describe a few of these relationships.
First we must look at labour adjustment. As early as 1987, the Scarborough board, through its adult school, the Scarborough Centre for Alternative Studies, in conjunction with General Motors of Canada, provided innovative programs for shift workers which would allow employees to complete diplomas and require courses to meet the company's own standards for apprenticeship training. In a period of two years, many students successfully completed this program. A similar partnership between the Scarborough Board of Education and the city of Scarborough prepared city employees for access to promotion by providing them education in the workplace which resulted in Ontario secondary school diplomas. Laura Secord of Canada has upgraded employees in computer skills through innovative programming at SCAS.
One of our significant community partners is the Metropolitan social services department. Through them, many adults who require additional skills and training are identified and referred to the Scarborough school system. One particular program, employment assessment and support through education, EASE, provides for clients to participate in a short-term educational focusing program. This program is partnered in that clients can only gain access by direct referral from Metro social services. To date, over 300 students have benefited from the EASE experience. Other links with Metro social services are with programs such as focus on change groups, opportunity for advancement groups and students from Rosalie Hall, all of which are support agencies for the socially disadvantaged.
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Ms Penny Mustin: All of these partnerships serve to underscore a pattern. When anyone from big business, government agencies, community groups through to the individual looks for access to education and training, they look to the publicly funded school board for help, direction and leadership.
School boards recognize they are not the only deliverers of adult programming, and the Scarborough Board of Education has a history of reaching out to other agencies to enhance programs to meet the needs of its clients. We have successfully partnered with the federal government to provide through LINC, language instruction for newcomers to Canada, language training for 1,000 new Canadians this year alone. We have been a long-time partner with Canadian Jobs Strategy in the operation of federally funded training programs. Successful projects have to date trained adults for employment in jobs related to accounting, office procedures, microcomputers, building construction, child care, working with the elderly, cosmetology and hospitality.
By partnering with public boards of education, these programs are enhanced by not just training but by tying training to granting high school credits. Graduates get the added benefit of an employer-valued secondary school diploma. This also attests to the professionalism and experience of the public education system in skills delivery.
Many adults who return to school need a range of educational services beyond the mandate of one deliverer. We have in the Scarborough public education system been able to make links to other levels of education which better serve adult clients. One such link is through articulation programs. At present, we have in place six formally articulated programs with community colleges: four programs with Centennial College and two with George Brown. Such programs provide for concurrent training in both the public school system and the college system and smooth the client's transition to further education and skills training.
Skills training programs often have, as part of the course, a significant period of time where the student is placed in business or industry in a cooperative work placement. At present, we are actively engaged with over 200 employers, each of whom contributes and benefits significantly through partnership with public education. Often, this experience results in employment for adults who would find the job search process overwhelming.
We, like the initiators of OTAB, see a need for interministerial cooperation. Our most recent partnership project is with the Ministry of Skills Development. We're planning jointly, through assessment and training, to prepare motor vehicle mechanics whose training has been in other countries for entry into the trade in Ontario with an Ontario licence. We see that these kinds of cooperation will be more easily facilitated by the new superministry of Education and Training.
These are but some of the client-driven education and training activities that the public education sector, and in particular the Scarborough Board of Education, has developed.
It has been our intent here today to highlight the important role that has been played by publicly funded boards of education. Our reading of the document Skills to Meet the Challenge has compelled us to reiterate this major role in that it seems to have been so greatly underemphasized. We hope we've been able to articulate for you the nature and extent of our involvement in adult training and upgrading.
School boards have in place not only programming but also accessibility in every community in Ontario, creating an unparalleled equity of access. We have in place democratically elected care takers of our institutions who are directly responsible to the voting public. We have in place a fiscally responsible infrastructure in every community in Ontario. We have in place partnerships with the provincial government, not just in our own ministry but with Skills Development, Citizenship, Community and Social Services and with the federal government through federally funded programs. We have in place a well-trained and committed community of educators and we have a hard-fought history of client-driven, grass-roots-generated, flexible programming changing almost daily to meet the social and economic structure of our society.
We hope that with the introduction of OTAB into the educational training sector we will see accompanying it a lifelong learning policy that will provide the direction for adult education in Ontario. We further hope that the mechanisms established within OTAB will be implemented in such a way that publicly funded school boards will not only be permitted but encouraged to continue to pursue their active and client-valued role in education.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Farnan, please.
Mr Farnan: Very briefly, I appreciate your presentation. I note that it is generally supportive of the thrust of the legislation. Of course, any group that designed the legislation itself might make it somewhat differently. Indeed, we shouldn't be surprised that there are nuances as different groups come in and suggest maybe a little more here or a little less there.
We have had groups appear before us and question the publicly funded education system role within this specific paragraph, 4(1)16, which says, "To seek to ensure, within the scope of OTAB's operation, the strength of Ontario's publicly funded education system."
Paragraph 15 also adds, "To make effective use of Ontario's diverse educational and training resources," so it's not exclusive. But nevertheless, this legislation does recognize the historic role and the significant role of publicly funded education.
How do you feel about groups that come here and say, "This should not be included in the legislation"? My own view, of course, is that basically the legislation is a compromise, making the best use of all the skills and talents we have. I'd like to hear your remarks.
Ms Mustin: I think we're here for two reasons. We haven't directly addressed OTAB in great detail, but we've talked about what you're talking about: publicly funded education and the access adults have to it. I think our responses, first and foremost, right from the beginning of OTAB--we have a feeling that nobody knows what it is we do. I think that the presence of adults in high schools in these numbers is very new and I think there are groups out there that have no recognition, through no fault of their own, that adults are present there. We feel the need to articulate these kinds of things and maybe in some cases we would challenge some of those groups in terms of their knowledge of what we're doing.
I think secondly that we are concerned a precedent could be set that these kinds of programs could be capped and some programs moved across to OTAB. That concerns us not so much on behalf of other groups that object, but because as school boards in Ontario, we are often the only game in town, and if there is some kind of precedent set to move any programs to OTAB, they might become less accessible. That's more on behalf of the client than it is on behalf of boards of education.
Mr Farnan: You have articulated very well what you do and the good work of your organization is reflected right across the province in other publicly funded educational systems. Let me give you the assurance that the minister knows and the government knows, and because we know, it is incorporated very solidly into the legislation, despite the fact that some people out there will say it shouldn't be there. We recognize your contribution and we want to avail ourselves of the expertise and commitment that you have and will provide to this legislation.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much for your presentation. It was very well thought out and I enjoyed listening to it. I want to go back to the very first point you made, because it's a concern I share. You say, "First, the legislation seems to create an additional level of education and training bureaucracy that will make adult education more expensive and less accessible." I certainly hope not, but you might be right.
Really, what we're designing here is sort of the school boards in perpetuity for training beyond the jurisdiction that you look after: elementary and secondary schools. This is like a new set of school boards that will be more broadly based--only 22 of them in the province--but yes, it's another bureaucracy. I'm quite concerned about that. We will be taking 700 civil servants from various ministries and putting them together in this new entity called OTAB. That will be the support for the new board, and basically that's all the legislation talks about. Then hopefully the board will be forming these local boards right around the province.
But you're right: It's another bureaucracy to go through. Right now, as you've mentioned with your great examples of General Motors, Laura Secord and other companies, business has come to you to ask you to provide programs. Right now the system is very client-driven. The customer comes to you and if you don't have it, you won't get it, but if you can put on the program, you're going to get it and be able to sell the service. I'm just wondering how the filtration of a local board is going to affect that connection, that linkage you have today. Do you fear that linkage will be broken by this, or at least interrupted?
Ms Mustin: I think what we have now is that everybody knows that when they're looking for education, they go to the school. I'm not as convinced that people will know that when they're looking for education, they go to OTAB.
To go back earlier to your question about elementary and secondary, I'm also looking at a huge displaced worker population, the majority of whom do not have secondary school diplomas. What we have done is educate all employers everywhere to say, "Where's your high school diploma?" but we're dealing with a displaced worker population that doesn't necessarily have one, and the advantage of some of our partnerships is being able to tie credit granting to retraining. Many of our graduates--training program graduates, not just high school graduates--can go out with their diplomas and now have something that will document their training. I worry sometimes that some of this random training might dilute that ability to produce that documentation.
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Mr McGuinty: Thank you for your presentation. I have to agree with you in your expression of concern that the legislation, the bill, fails to recognize the role that our public school system has played and can continue to play in the future with respect to offering training.
We heard from the public school board sector, I think it was, the working group. They told us something which I found incredible in terms of the numbers: There were some 977,000 adults enrolled in high school programs in 1991 in Ontario. One of the points they put forward--and I want to ask if you agree with this; I assume you do; maybe you can elaborate on it a little bit--was that with that many people out there involved in the education-training programs offered by our high schools, why do school boards not have a seat on OTAB? Why are you not represented there as one of the key partners?
Mr Farnan: Mr Chair, on a point of clarification, please.
The Chair: Go ahead. Do these people want to respond first or do you want to use up their time?
Mr Farnan: No, I'll have the clarification afterwards.
The Chair: Go ahead.
Ms Mustin: I think we all recognize that given our choice, we would have a seat on OTAB. There's no question. Certainly, we have the numbers that, as you say, would generate support for a seat on OTAB, but we don't have a seat on OTAB. That working group has worked very hard in collaboration with some of the other deliverers to see if we can come up with something that will best serve the client, because when we look at this adult client, it is not a particularly advantaged group, and gaining access for them is difficult.
I don't think anyone in the public boards would ever say anything other than, "We want a seat, we want a seat, we want a seat," but given that we're not going to have a seat, I think we have to work in some kind of cooperative model with the people who have been appointed to that board.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Farnan, a brief point.
Mr Farnan: Very briefly, Mr McGuinty obviously has not read the legislation. He simply said the bill does not recognize--
The Chair: Fair enough. Go ahead, Mr Villeneuve.
Mr Farnan: Mr Chair, article 16 clearly states--
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mr Villeneuve, go ahead, please.
Mr Noble Villeneuve (S-D-G & East Grenville): Thank you to the Scarborough board--
Mr Farnan: Article 16 clearly states--
The Chair: Don't let yourself be sidetracked. Go ahead, Mr Villeneuve.
Mr Villeneuve: --for making an interesting presentation. You're on the leading edge of adult retraining; no doubt about it. It's rather sad, as my colleague just mentioned, that the school boards are not represented. Can you explain to the committee the demographic changes of your clients back in the 1980s as compared to the 1990s. I found that very intriguing, and you have these statistics right there. Certainly, the people who will be attempting to foresee the needs and the requirements of the public should take a very close look at this, because what the requirements were in 1980 have very drastically changed in your situation.
I come from the far southeastern portion of Ontario, where the economic situation is not good, and we have many adults attending schools, not necessarily at the secondary level, just attempting to be able to function better. Could I have your comments on what you foresee, based on the experience you've had over the last 12 years?
Mr O'Dell: I guess the primary change for us has resulted from immigration; that is, the number of people sweeping into Scarborough from other countries, who need language, who need orientation to Canadian society and need some way to translate their previous skills and education into the Ontario experience. That's certainly one change.
I suppose the other change has been the whole question of the economic downturn, such things, for instance, as the General Motors van plant in Scarborough closing, and as Penny has mentioned the number of workers there who do not have transferable skills, do not have a high school diploma, and in terms of retraining perhaps lack the language skills, the learning skills, the mathematical skills to retrain, where we would have to provide some of those basic learning skills before they could move on to retrain in other situations.
Mr Villeneuve: I think people such as yourselves across the province of Ontario, who are right up on the day-to-day needs of people who want to be retrained, should definitely have some direct input to the directors of OTAB. I hope there is a mechanism there for that to occur on an ongoing basis.
The Chair: Mr Hansen is visiting this committee, this being a democratic committee which encourages participation by all members of the provincial Legislature, as compared to some others. Mr Hansen, please be seated. Would you care to participate in any of the dialogue with the representatives from the Scarborough Board of Education?
Mr Ron Hansen (Lincoln): Not at this time.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. I want to express sincere thanks to the Scarborough Board of Education for its participation in this process. You've obviously piqued some interest in the members of the committee. That's clear from the types of exchanges you had with them. We trust you will be tracking this legislation as it goes through committee and then into the Legislature. We welcome you to convey any further comments, either individually or collectively, to the committee. Thank you kindly for coming downtown this morning.
ONTARIO WOMEN'S ACTION ON TRAINING COALITION
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Women's Action on Training Coalition. These people will please come forward.
Mr Villeneuve: Mr Chair, while the ladies are taking their place, may I ask through you, sir, for unanimous consent for my colleague the member for Mississauga South to replace me after lunch? I'm simply asking for unanimous consent, which I gather is a requirement.
The Chair: Mr Villeneuve, I'm not sure that's necessary, but I'm sure there's unanimous consent, isn't there?
Interjections.
The Chair: Thank you. You have unanimous consent.
Mr Villeneuve: Thank you.
The Chair: Please sit down so that the mikes can pick you up, but do it as you wish.
Ms Karen Charnow Lior: Good morning. My name is Karen Charnow Lior. I'm here to represent the Ontario Women's Action on Training Coalition. We're going to start with a short theatre piece.
The Chair: Let me extend my very best wishes to the people in the broadcast booth. Don't make real fast moves, because the camera's got to follow you, okay? People are watching at home and they're interested. Try to keep the volume up so the mikes can pick you up, please.
[Dramatic presentation]
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Ms Annamaria Menozzi: Hello, everyone. My name is Annamaria Menozzi. I'm an immigrant Canadian and the women's nominee to OTAB. I'm here to support Karen today.
Ms Charnow Lior: And as I said earlier, my name is Karen Charnow Lior. I am the government liaison from the Ontario Women's Action on Training Coalition and I'm the coordinator of Advocates for Community Based Training and Education for Women.
Mr Chairman and members of the committee, the Ontario Women's Action on Training Coalition/Coalition formation des femmes d'action de l'Ontario represents a broad spectrum of women from across the province, over 800 groups and individuals. The coalition brings together a diversity of Ontario women activists, including advocates, learners, teachers, union members, women in non-traditional occupations, women in technology and community-based trainers. We are visible minority women, white women, women of ability and disability, women of various creeds, francophones, aboriginal women, rural and urban, immigrant and Canadian-born, farm workers and industrial workers, young and old, gay and straight.
We are pleased that the process of the OTAB consultations provided an opportunity for women to be directly involved in policy development on issues related to skills training, as stated in section 1 under the purposes of this act, to play a role "in the design and delivery of labour force development programs and services."
This has been a difficult process. While women's coalition-building has been a positive side-effect of the OTAB consultations, the numbers on the governing body reflect the marginalization that we have often experienced during these consultations, a marginalization that mirrors women's experience in the labour force. While we welcome the integration of social and economic policy in the OTAB legislation, our previous experience warns us to be cynical.
Women's experience of skills training has not been happy. Our primary responsibility for young children, elders and persons with disabilities, compounded by our high concentration in sectors of the labour force where the routine provision of skills training is rare, makes it difficult to access high-quality training. In addition, systemic discrimination means we can expect lower compensation for the jobs we do and greater vulnerability in the workplace with every economic downturn.
We see the proposed democratization of the training system as successful only if it includes a commitment to social equity in Ontario. The Ontario Training and Adjustment Board is a beginning, a component of a process to eliminate discrimination against equity-seeking groups. The board will need to be established consistent with the reforms introducing employment equity, extending pay equity and providing real enforcement to the Ontario Human Rights Code.
We hope that our participation in these consultations and our recommendations, if accepted, will move us substantially towards a training system which facilitates rather than compromises equity, access and quality. Let me elaborate on these basic principles.
Equity: Training must become a vehicle for increasing equity in Ontario. Training must enhance and support mandatory employment equity and pay equity policies with clear goals and timetables. Employment equity must be linked to the entire labour adjustment and training system.
Access: We believe in an integrated, accessible training system as a right for all residents of Ontario. The system must be learner-centred with adequate collateral supports. Freedom from a poisoned environment created by sexual and racial harassment must be guaranteed, as specified by the Ontario Human Rights Commission in its anti-harassment policies.
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Quality: Training must be generic and developmental, with mechanisms for portability and transferability of skills. The new training boards must establish one integrated system that meets the needs of all individuals at all points in their lives. People don't only need skills for working; they need skills for living in healthy, economically vibrant communities. We want to ensure that social equity objectives are first established, then achieved and maintained within a training system that promotes social justice as well as economic objectives.
I would like to describe women's experience in the labour force. In 1970 a family could meet its basic needs with an average 45 hours of paid employment a week. In 1990 that figure increased to 65 to 80 hours of paid employment a week. Women's earnings are as essential to the standard of living of the family as those of men, yet women's earnings are still only between 65 and 70 cents on the dollar compared to what men earn. In 1990 women working full-time and full-year earned an average of $25,000 compared to men working full-time full-year, who earned $37,000.
According to the March 1992 Labour Force Survey, women now account for at least 45% of the paid labour force across Canada, and participation rates for women with children aged 3 to 16 are around 70%. Women now spend between 34 and 37 years in the paid labour force; 70% of all part-time workers are women and 25% of all employed women work part-time.
In eight years, by 2001, almost 66% of new entrants into the job market will be women. Part of the difference in the earnings of men and women is accounted for by the relative concentration of women in low-wage sectors of the labour market. Women are found for the most part in the clerical and services sectors or in the informal or voluntary sector. Women are often engaged at a highly responsible level with work requiring expert skills. This work in care giving or personal services is largely unpaid and invisible. Little job-related or in-service training is done in any of these areas.
Where workplace-related training does occur, it is rarely accessible to women who have fragile attachments to the workplace and non-workplace responsibilities for children, elders or persons with disabilities. This also has impacts on the kinds of upgrading opportunities available both to women who are employed and those who want to be employed. Traditional women's occupations involve the management of knowledge or information rather than relying on physical strength. Therefore, access to training which enhances those skills is particularly important for women entering or re-entering the labour force.
Women whose jobs are vulnerable because of new-skill technology should and must be reskilled and retrained. Present employers must bear the responsibility for their employees.
In order for Bill 96 to address the inequities of women's participation in the labour force by recognizing "the principles of access and equity in labour force development," as stated in "Purposes," clause 1(c), we recommend the following:
(1) That it is the role of the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board to set the standards of excellence and to link employment equity policy to funding.
(2) That effective labour force development and labour adjustment strategies must include ways of overcoming the systemic barriers faced by many women in trying to access the workforce, to stay employed and advance in employment.
Those barriers include the lack of equity and discrimination relating to class, race and gender, lack of income support while training, difficulty in finding and maintaining quality affordable child care, lack of support services such as counselling, referral and resources information on sexual harassment, lack of employment and lack of recognition of offshore accreditation and experience.
(3) That an accountable and equitable process for women's participation in OTAB and the local boards be developed.
With specific reference to the enabling legislation we recommend:
(1) Under "Criteria," clause 4(2)(b), that there be the specific mention of public accountability, and in (c), ensure that appropriations address geographical and regional disparities.
You will hear tomorrow, and you have heard previously from the Fort Frances-Kenora women's coalition, of the barrier that distance creates, of the enormous difficulty in getting to a training program that's 100 kilometres away and the road is closed at least once a week. Eligibility requirements for participation must also be adjusted for the various regions.
In 2(d) the legislation needs to clarify what is to be done, not leaving everything to the regulations.
(2) In section 9, "Directors," paragraph 4, we are not interested in the recognition of gender balance, nor in seeking to ensure it. We want gender balance ensured.
(3) In section 12, "Meetings," we recommend that all meetings be public.
Our primary concerns are with section 4, "Objects":
(1) In paragraph 5, we want to eliminate the words "to seek to ensure" and replace them with "to ensure."
(2) We agree with the intent in paragraph 6 of the importance of making skills more portable, but would add that these models must also provide for the recognition and accreditation of offshore training and experience. The recommendations of the report on access to trades and professions must be incorporated into the OTAB training programs as well as a mechanism for prior learning assessment.
(3) In paragraph 9 we want the phrase "to seek to ensure access and equity in labour force development programs and services" replaced with "to ensure."
(4) Again in paragraph 10, "seeking to eliminate barriers" is not good enough. Barriers have been identified again and again; legislations and mechanisms to eliminate them have been developed. The OTAB legislation must set as a major objective the elimination of systemic and other discriminatory barriers.
I would like to reiterate something mentioned yesterday by the racial minorities' presentation, and that is paragraph 15, to recognize the importance of publicly funded, not-for-profit, community-based training through the allocation of stable, multi-year funding.
Only when there is the full participation of workers and potential workers in a fair and just society will the role of equity-seeking groups as labour market partners move from one of tokenism to one of playing a significant role.
The women of Ontario are tired of partisan policies and behaviour. We urge every member of this committee to put aside entrenched positions and finalize the OTAB legislation as concrete equity legislation for all Ontarians.
The Chair: Mr Offer, please.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I think that the information you brought forward in your brief is very specific as to what must be addressed and how it should be addressed. I thank you for that. Certainly it goes without saying that the dramatization was one which I think many people will remember for a great deal of time, and I thank you for that.
I know we have a short period of time. I'd like to ask a question on something that might not be necessarily in the brief, and that deals with the establishment of local boards. I appreciate that a great deal of your presentation was directed to the agency itself, and there was just some mention about the local board situation. What I would like to get from you before you leave today is your thoughts as to how you see the establishment of local boards and whether their creation should be mandatory in the legislation where it isn't now.
Ms Menozzi: You're asking a very difficult question since the local boards, the way they're going to be structured, will have responsibility for federal funding as well which OTAB may or may not be able to have jurisdiction over. Those are the kinds of questions we have in our mind to which we don't have the answers ourselves.
We certainly are looking, though, at the local boards as new structures that are eliminating the previous structures of the committees. They're still training committees, where we finally as women have some participation even if we feel that one seat in this local board or a minority of seats in this local board for women is certainly tokenism.
We are certainly organizing in the local areas in the 22 or 25 maybe--who knows how many there are going to be--to make sure that the women's issues are brought forward and that the other labour partners who will select representatives on the local board are not looking at establishing and maintaining and not seeking to ensure gender parity.
We're looking at the local board as a prospect for us to organize and a prospect for women to enter the game and to be able to finally voice what our needs are, which has not been happening with the previous system. Does that answer your question? This is how we perceive the local boards.
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Mr Offer: Yes, it is helpful. Dealing again with the local board situation, from your perspective, is the strength of the OTAB, is the strength of meeting the needs that you've brought forward, the access, the equity, the lifelong learning, going to be primarily met through a strong local board or, by another word, community involvement, or will it take its strength from the agency down?
Ms Menozzi: It's got to be both ways.
Ms Charnow Lior: Across.
Ms Menozzi: Legislation is important because it may give people the ability to bring forward the issues and the strength of saying, "This is the policy of this government, the policy of this province." It gives us strength to be able to advocate for more participation if we have strong legislation. That's why we're here.
Mr Offer: I guess it just goes without saying that you are saying that on both the local board and the agency, you must have a strong voice to chart the direction of the province in terms of training, retraining and adjustment.
Ms Menozzi: Right.
Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much, ladies, for your skit and your presentation. In your opinion, is this more economic legislation or more equity or social-oriented legislation? Which, in your opinion, is it?
Ms Menozzi: I think the question in itself is making us look at this as a different situation. It's not. The two must go hand in hand. You cannot train people for jobs that don't exist. We must have an economic plan. We must have a vibrant economy for us to be able to train in jobs that give us a quality life. The two must go hand in hand.
Mr Villeneuve: So you're putting as much emphasis on the social aspect as you do on the economic aspect.
Ms Menozzi: In order to work, yes, at the end. But right now the social aspect has not been, for a number of years, part of any legislation around these kinds of issues, and therefore we need to reach that balance first. It's not there.
Mr Villeneuve: One of your predecessors in the chair this morning wanted to remove some of the social connotations and bring it strictly to economic objectives. Quite obviously, you would have some disagreement there.
Ms Menozzi: Very many disagreements.
Ms Charnow Lior: Lots of it.
Mr Villeneuve: I assumed that. You make a statement here on page 3 that "Freedom from a poisoned environment created by sexual and racial harassment must be guaranteed, as specified by the Ontario Human Rights Commission in its anti-harassment policies." You assume that this exists everywhere? Do you have substantiation to that? Second, how do you correct it if indeed it's that rampant?
Ms Menozzi: Number one, we do have a policy under the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which is exactly called freedom from harassment, whether sexual or racial harassment. We do have a piece of legislation and we're coming in front of you to say: "This piece of legislation exists. Please take a look at it and make sure that your legislation, that which you will finalize, includes consideration for that legislation and for those policies." That policy came up a year and a half ago and it does exist.
Mr Villeneuve: Final question: You do have that protection under the human rights commission. You quite obviously feel that this is rampant throughout areas where women work. Could you elaborate on that a little bit? Just how rampant is it?
Ms Menozzi: The statistics are talking for themselves in terms of the vulnerability of women here. You can spend some time and re-read that. The kind of situation that we are seeing, like what has happened recently in terms of statements from a federal politician, the kind of statements we heard yesterday in relation to harassment, is telling us that it's not taken seriously. It's there, believe me. We all suffer it. To major or lesser degrees, we are all at risk of it as women, and please believe us that this is what we feel every day. Karen may want to add something to that.
Ms Charnow Lior: There was a study that was just publicized last week about date rape on campus. It's like 6 out of 10, 8 out of 10. It's out there; 6,000 women are raped a minute.
Mr Villeneuve: Date rape and OTAB is a little different, though, isn't it?
Ms Charnow Lior: The permissiveness around the atmosphere of sexual harassment is a problem in the workplace and out of the workplace.
Ms Menozzi: And in the training programs.
Mr Villeneuve: Thank you.
Mr Farnan: First of all, like my colleagues in opposition, I want to congratulate you on the quality of the presentation. I think you do stand in a great tradition of advocacy in terms of equity. I do believe that you have stated very clearly the exclusion of women in the past and the frustration that brings with it. I also have a sense that you see this legislation as somewhat of an opportunity and that you want to ensure that the opportunity is maximized to its fullest.
As with every other group, business will come here and say, "Well, it's not exactly the way we want it," and labour will say, "It's not exactly the way we want it," and trainers will say, "It's not exactly the way we want it." But there is a compromise at work, and I believe this government has a solid record of commitment to equity issues and is moving the marker forward.
Now whether it moves forward to the degree that will satisfy is something that you will make judgements of, and I have no doubt that if it doesn't go sufficiently far, you will be there to tell us. But I think we're moving in the right direction. Thank you.
The Chair: Feel free to respond.
Ms Menozzi: Was that a question?
Ms Charnow Lior: It was a comment.
Mr Farnan: I think I am trying to summarize where we're at.
Ms Menozzi: I'd like to respond to your last comment, where you are stating that you believe we will be around to tell you if we think you're not doing a good job. Unfortunately, we don't have that certainty either. The kind of support for our organizing, the kind of resources for our organizing that have been provided to us is really very minimal. So we feel that our ability to bring our voice to you, to the community is really not stable. It's a very fragile position. That's the funding issue, and we are obviously working through, again, the OTAB project, but we need stable funding for our organizing, and then we can say, yes we'll be there to bring the issues to the forefront.
The Chair: Mr Wilson, and please be brief unless you want to use up all of Mr Huget's time.
Mr Gary Wilson: I just want to congratulate you on bringing the issues to us so vividly both in your skit and in your presentation.
I too want to pick up on what Mike was saying about the possibility and the hopefulness of OTAB. I'm sure you recognize that it can't do everything. As you point out in your presentation, barriers have been identified again and again. These aren't things that are new; it's just getting the political will to overcome them.
We've been hearing from presentations that not everyone who will be participating in OTAB sees it exactly as you do, but I'm hoping that through your participation, you can work with them and pick up on their issues as well so that, through the discussion, we can move to eliminating those barriers.
Ms Menozzi: I'd like just then to mention again, you know, make a further comment: We are not an interest group. We are 51% of the population.
Ms Charnow Lior: It's 52%.
Ms Menozzi: It's 52%, I'll just get this correction. So we are not an interest group and when people are saying, "We are seeing business saying such-and-such, labour saying such-and-such," I'd like to remind you that we are business, that we are labour, that women are in those positions and are marginalized in each and every one of those positions.
It's not that we should be looked at as an interest group--we are there in business and labour and all of these structures--but we need to have the recognition that there is discrimination in all of these structures for us to be able to go to the top. If that is not recognized, then the OTAB legislation as well, with this kind of weak wording, seeks to ensure--which is what has been repeated through the skit as well--you know, this kind of wording is continuing to maintain that particular kind of status, for us to be marginalized in all of those areas.
Mr Bob Huget (Sarnia): Thank you very much for your presentation. I want to refer to some of the numbers that you have in your presentation around the numbers in the workforce, particularly around the numbers of women in the workforce. I want to refer back again to Mr Villeneuve's question about whether this legislation is economic in nature or social in nature.
When I look at the numbers that you refer to of women, for example, in the workforce and the projections of women in the workforce, I have to ask myself whether any thinking person would disconnect those two issues. In order for us to have economic renewal in the province, we must have an element of social justice, and that must be based on inclusion, not exclusion. I think there are still people in society who think we are doing quite an admirable job and are quite quick to pat themselves on the back about how much we are doing to indeed create equity.
I think some people would be surprised about the systemic barriers in many, many workplaces, particularly around women in the workforce, and also around disabled and people who are challenged in some way, shape or form. So while we may think we've gone light years, I think we ignore the issue of social justice and economic renewal being combined at our peril. My question to you is, what point would there be in indeed creating economic renewal without social justice? Why would a thinking society do that?
Ms Charnow Lior: I think that's a very good question, and it seems to me what Annamaria was saying earlier was that we are not seen as an either/or kind of legislation. We cannot have economic renewal without social policies imbedded and integrated throughout the legislation, because then there isn't economic renewal. All those pieces have to go hand in hand: local economic development, local boards, community development and bringing people together so that we have have economic renewal in this province and people working and participating fully in economic and social life. So yes, we agree with you. It doesn't make any sense to us to do one without the other.
The Chair: The committee thanks you, Ms Lior, Mr Menozzi, for speaking on behalf of the Ontario Women's Action on Training Coalition. You've made a very effective, dramatic--but far be it from me to criticize drama--presentation, and the committee is grateful to you. We also do want to express thanks to Sharon Lewis, Sarilyn Zimmerman, Morgan Jones Phillips and Julie Salverson for joining you in your presentation this morning.
I should note, and people watching can note that there is a videotape, a copy of the taping, which was done in an exemplary manner by the legislative broadcast people. It's not easy to pick up performers, as the group Flying Blind was when they prefaced your comments, with the type of facilities, but the legislative broadcast people, Joe Lemieux, Simon Dalrymple, Tony Givren and Trish Gibney, did an excellent job. The tape will be an impressive one.
People can call their MPPs and obtain a free videotape of your presentation, or as far as that goes, any other presentation that was made here in the Amethyst Room, and I invite people to do that. It's interesting, valuable commentary and warrants perhaps listening to and watching more than once. Thank you kindly. Take care, people.
The committee recessed at 1224
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1335.
The Chair: It's 1:35 pm. We were scheduled to resume at 1:30. We waited five minutes for committee members to arrive, other than Mr Huget, who's been here since 1:30. We'll not wait any longer because people are scheduled to make their presentations at specific times and it's unfair to those people to delay these things unless it's absolutely necessary.
ONTARIO SOCIETY FOR TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
The Chair: Sir, you're here on behalf of the Ontario Society for Training and Development. Please tell us your name and your status. We've got your written submission. That's been made an exhibit and will form part of the record as a result of being made an exhibit. Go ahead.
Mr Roger Davies: My name is Roger Davies. I'm the president of OSTD, the Ontario Society for Training and Development. Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to the group. I think it's appropriate that I start off by giving you a bit of background.
OSTD is a not-for-profit association that represents over 1,200 professionals in the field of training and human resource development. Established in 1946, OSTD serves its members by providing a vehicle for establishing contacts, exchanging ideas and sharing experiences and knowledge. Members have the opportunity to enhance their professional abilities, contribute to their profession, present and test their ideas and find new approaches to human resource development.
Our members include a wide range of people. They include HRD apprentices and practitioners, suppliers of products and services, and organizations both in government and in the private sector that are served by these practitioners, products and services. In fact, members include presidents, vice-presidents, directors, managers, instructors, people who design training courses, consultants and suppliers who come from such very different sectors as manufacturing, education, government, health care, high technology, service, finance and small business, as well as not-for-profit.
Our role in OSTD really involves, if you like, promoting the training culture, looking at the big picture, trying to take into account the interests of a very diverse membership. While we're certainly broadly in favour of OTAB--I think we have to make that very clear; we are broadly in favour of it--we do see three main concerns over the establishment of the process, the board:
(1) We would like to ensure that government-sponsored training funds be made clearly accessible to all, and not only through the community college system as has been, dare I say, rumoured, suggested, implied, ie, let the marketplace decide what to buy and who to buy from.
The introductory letter to the OTAB discussion paper--I use it as a focus so that you understand where we're coming from--states: "Ontario's economy is facing immense challenges and change in an increasingly competitive and global economy. We are acting today to make sure our province prospers in the new economic environment."
OSTD strongly believes this can best be achieved with a focus on both quality and cost-effectiveness of training product. Those service providers who offer a good-quality product at a competitive price have already prospered, the recession notwithstanding, and they will continue to do so in a fair, competitive market.
However, the discussion paper and the bill itself rarely mention these factors, suggesting or implying, whatever word you'd like to use, that the Ontario government does not recognize their significance. Indeed, the discussion paper states, "Stability of service providers, particularly colleges, is important to the government of Ontario." We believe this focus is misplaced and possibly dangerous. If our goal is a skilled, competitive workforce, OTAB should be driven by a desire for quality, not just stability. If we're serious about competing in a global economy, we believe we must embrace the principles of competitiveness in our own province as well.
It's a fact that the private sector training industry competes with the publicly funded college system. It's caused concern and friction in the past. Looking at the current status quo, we're happy to accept this competition and allow the marketplace to make purchasing decisions without government subsidies favouring one sector over another. We estimate, although there are no accurate figures, that the private sector probably provides some 50% of higher education and training. We're happy about competition and we think it's healthy, but only when labour market partners are given an equal opportunity to compete.
We feel it is incumbent upon the regulating body, ie, OTAB, to ensure that no sector involved in training delivery is given preferential treatment.
Purchasers in our membership simply want freedom of choice to buy the best-quality training from whomever they choose. Indeed, in our earlier meetings with Naomi Alboim, we were given repeated assurances that, "The employer will have the final say," yet this does not appear anywhere in Bill 96 or any of the attached documents.
(2) Our second concern: We would like to ensure that training funds will be made available for management training as well as skills development.
According to the Questions and Answers document released along with Bill 96, OTAB will be responsible for provincially funded programs in the four important areas--and you know them well--workplace and sectoral training, apprenticeship, labour force adjustment and labour force entry or re-entry. It is implied in Bill 96 that OTAB will be funnelling significant funds into these four sectors.
However, nowhere in these documents is management and leadership training mentioned. For orientation, what we mean by management training is the training that would be delivered to middle and senior management. In other words, it would cover such things as general executive development, communications skills--we're talking about writing, speaking, listening--thinking skills--the ability to be creative--computer skills--technology-based training, in other words--total quality management, team building, customer relations, sales and marketing.
I quote from the Questions and Answers document, which states that OTAB is needed because:
"Ontario's economy...is facing tremendous challenges from changes in technology, global trade relationships and competition. More than ever before, we must make sure our workforce has the necessary skills to help drive economic renewal today, and to fill the jobs of tomorrow. We need a coordinated partnership to create a more effective and efficient system of training people and helping them adjust to change that will be able to meet the needs of employers, workers and potential workers."
We wonder, how can OTAB fulfil this mandate when the entire segment of management development is apparently being overlooked? We therefore recommend that the four sectors now listed be broadened specifically to include management and leadership skills training. Simply, we believe, "out of sight, out of mind."
(3) Our third concern: We would like to see more incentives, and not a tax--the key word is "incentives"--for business to commit to training. We believe that not enough senior management understand the relationship between training and success. Financial incentives may be the only way to promote training within organizations.
Talking of financial incentives, the private sector training companies and OSTD are also concerned that under OTAB no mention is made of the financing service for new training product development which is available through the Ontario Training Corp. We would like this retained and indeed expanded to help both new and established training companies. Currently the OTC investment program is, or was, best suited for startup operations, and we would prefer it to be adjusted so that any existing companies would have some opportunities for raising capital.
In summary, as a voice for HRD professionals, one of our roles involves promoting the training culture. Today, too many companies don't spend enough money, if any, on training and it appears that the establishment of OTAB will do nothing to change this. With your leadership and funds, it will be possible to advocate the benefits of training for all business. All sectors from business--small business, medium business--must realize that we have to be deadly earnest about training, not just talking about it but actually doing it.
With great respect, we believe that diverting megadollars to help the unemployed and disadvantaged alone will do little to help Ontario's ability to compete. We all know that Canada and Ontario must create jobs and create exports, and this will be done largely by small and medium businesses. Many of these companies are not now committed to training.
If you wish to establish what we would call a true monument to change, please establish something that takes into account the wishes of all parties, ie, include all the players, provide some incentives, give equal opportunity to community colleges and the private sector training industry, and also acknowledge that management training, along with labour force development, all must play a vital role in helping Ontario and Canada compete.
In closing, we would like you to be aware that OSTD is committed to advancing the professionalization of the training industry in Ontario. Our members presently have access to the most advanced accreditation process in North America, which we developed. OSTD is now involved in developing a state-of-the-art certification program for the training professional. We will shortly seek provincial legislation to become the agency that establishes and maintains standards of professional competence in the field of training and development.
It is our belief that we must do more than make training available. It is in fact critical that the training be timely, cost-effective, easily accessible to all and valuable. With your help we can promote a training culture to everyone, for everyone. Thanks very much.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mr Huget, please.
Mr Huget: Thank you very much for your presentation. You have raised some interesting points. In terms of which sector should provide the training, I think we have to back up a little bit and take a look at the needs of the workforce in Ontario. I believe that to be something that will be very much a driver of the process, and not necessarily which supplier can fill the need in the onset. It's determining what those needs are very much from the client base, if you will. I see a role for both institutions, public and private. In fact, a lot of the private sector business training that goes on now is privately funded and I don't think OTAB has any role to play in that in terms of some of that training.
You raised some issues around the competitiveness issue. I think about halfway through your brief you look at management and leadership skills training and you go on to identify a number of areas: executive development, communication skills, computer skills, quality management etc. I think those are all very important issues.
I think businesses that are surviving and prospering today recognized that those were important issues many years ago and have placed some emphasis on that. I think you'll find those are the successful businesses of today and quite likely will be the ones of the future as well. I think OTAB has a role to play in terms of putting a greater sort of awareness on training right through the sector, whether that's at the business management level or at the workforce level.
I guess I'm curious as to what role you would see OTAB playing, for example, in initiating those kinds of what are to me competitive strategic management training issues. The incentive, in my view, is the survival of the corporation. I think the CEOs in the business community should be paying a heck of a lot of attention to that.
I just wonder where you would see OTAB fitting into that, because the casualties the provinces are faced with in a lot of cases are those at a much lower level, the ones that do not have the adaptability or the access to any of these types of management training systems that would make a manager perhaps interchangeable from location A over to location B. I think our problems are a little bit different than that in terms of the workforce, who are the most vulnerable and seeing the most effect, who don't have access to any of those skills at all and in fact aren't managers; they're front-line workers who have been displaced.
Mr Davies: You've given me a complex question. It's obviously a complex issue, but maybe I could respond as follows: One of the challenges the training industry faces is spreading the word. We can do part of it, there's no question, and there's no question there are people out there who are tuned into training, but the organizations that will be creating the jobs, that are now creating jobs, that will hire the people you will be focusing on specifically through the OTAB process, ie, let's say the unemployed and the disadvantaged--clearly, it's an issue. We need to give them skills, but unless someone creates some jobs, they're going to have the skills and no jobs.
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We know that today it's small business and medium-sized business that are creating the jobs. By and large, small business in particular--you know there are thousands of them--is not tuned into training. The reason they're not tuned in, in part, is because if you are a supplier to this industry, you inevitably go after the bigger targets, the Northern Telecoms and the Bell Canadas. They go after them because it is repeat business. In other words, the high cost of marketing in this country is such that it is the same to get the first customer from Bell or from a small business, so inevitably you go after the Bells because you know that if you hook one Bell human resource person there will be a continual word of mouth which will make the training company's investment worthwhile.
If you hook small business, maybe you get one person from one company and that's the end of it. You get no word of mouth, and this profession is very much a word-of-mouth profession. If you were to get training done in your organization, the first question you would be asking of a potential supplier is, "Who have you done it with before, or who would recommend you?" So we can't underestimate the word of mouth.
All I'm saying, really, in summary is that if you can find a way to spread the word to small business and give them some incentives--
Interjection.
Mr Davies: Yes, you're quite right. Some have survived. Many have survived. These are obviously success stories because they have survived, but they need a bit of a nudge just to encourage them to be really committed to training.
Mr Huget: Could you see a role for OTAB? I'd just like your views in terms of what that role would be and how it would work out. In improving the quality of training, no matter where it takes place across the province, whether that's in the private sector or the public sector--company, internal training or whatever--is there a role for OTAB to do something about improving the quality and quantity of training, and how could we do that?
Mr Davies: If you can put together a balanced program that includes everyone, and if you set mechanisms in place to get all the players together, as you are doing, I think that will be one step. I hate to come back to what I've already mentioned, but I think incentives are one of the key areas of doing it. To date, some of the training already takes place because of incentives that the Ontario Skills Development office process provides; maybe a little more money but not necessarily--yes, great, expand that process, but maybe promote it more, because there are many companies out there that don't know there is funding already available. The message has just not gotten through. As an association, we can promote that too, but many of our members don't know where to go. They just don't know where to go.
Mr Gary Wilson: Don't you think that this would be one of the advantages of OTAB and the structure that it's setting up, that there will be readier access to finding out where to go and what is available?
Mr Davies: Yes, as long as we include the three points that we've raised, because broadly we are in favour of the process. It's just that we have some concerns, that's all.
Mr Gary Wilson: I apologize for missing the first part of your presentation. I've looked over your brief and I'm concerned to make sure you know that, as is mentioned in the legislation at a couple of points, both the private and public sector will be involved in training, and certainly the employers are going to have the final say about where they want to go for training. In fact, a lot of it will still be generated by the private sector and will not involve OTAB. OTAB involves only government-funded programs and not ones that are carried out in the private sector, other than, we would hope, some influence as far as the methods that are used, and working both ways, that OTAB would be aware of these programs so that it could learn from it what's effective and how to meet the needs. But certainly there is that occurring now, as you know.
I'm pleased to see--actually, I shouldn't say "pleased" to see--that you do raise the question of management and executive level of training. That seems to be the main focus of private sector training at the moment, according to Allan Taylor in a report that appeared recently, saying that only 30% of private companies train now, and among those programs most of them are directed at the executive level. So it is a question of getting it below to the front-line workers.
Mr Davies: There's no question there's a need for balance, and that's what we're after, just the balance. I'm encouraged to hear you say that, but this question of equal opportunity, the employer will have the final say; it doesn't actually say that in any of the documentation. Even reading between the lines, it doesn't even imply that, the way it's now structured.
Mr Gary Wilson: But OTAB is set up to coordinate the training that exists now, that the government sponsors and funds, so the fact is, there's still a lot of training going on in the private sector. Even among those programs the employer will be the one who is looking for the training and this is where it's seen, by including all the partners involved, that the employer will have access to the best variety of the best programs involving workers and social equity groups. Then we see the best balance will be achieved.
Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): Mr Davies, you made an interesting comment when you said that small business is not tuned in to training. I wondered if you could elaborate on that statement because, recognizing that small business is the largest employer not only in our province but in Canada, it concerns me because from your background you must have a reason for saying that. Obviously, small business must have been doing a good job at training its employees because small business has been the most successful business we have.
Mr Davies: I think the hands of small business have been pretty full the last few years, just surviving and doing what it has to do to survive. But if they wish to broaden that perspective, ie, get into things like exporting, they need to get out into the world to find out what's going on. You could almost say that community colleges--in fact, all the suppliers--the private sector almost ignores small business in its marketing efforts because it's just not worth its while to go after it.
For example--and you probably know this--direct mail is one of the ways you reach targets. As you know, it's not cheap to mail in this country. Consequently, you tend to rent lists or develop your own lists of targets where you have the best chance of success. If you examine any of the large lists, probably 95% of them would be aimed at larger businesses, and so the small business would just be ignored. In that one area they're just not getting the exposure to training that the larger corporations are.
Also, let's not forget that if you're a medium or a large organization, you've got the resources to have a full-time human resource department. Small business doesn't have that. Inevitably, human resource development would come under the responsibility of, I suppose, one of the senior members of the company and they wear many hats--training is but one--whereas in a large corporation it's very easy to establish a department and really focus on human resource development. In small business it's just not going to happen. So those are a couple of the reasons why they get left out.
Mrs Marland: Okay. The other question I have is that you say in your brief you're speaking for the Ontario Society for Training and Development, which represents over 1,200 professionals. Can you tell me how your membership of over 1,200 professionals reviewed Bill 96?
Mr Davies: We have a newsletter which goes out to the full membership and we have been continually feeding them information about it. We've also had specific sessions set aside where we have briefed them on what is happening. In fact, we've had members of the Ontario government deliver presentations to give them a sense of what was coming to them.
Mrs Marland: What do you do? Do you have meetings in Toronto of your membership?
Mr Davies: Yes.
Mrs Marland: How many people would come to those meetings?
Mr Davies: The last meeting we had, I think 100 people turned out.
Mrs Marland: About 10%, then, of your membership.
Mr Davies: About 10%, yes.
Mrs Marland: Thank you.
Mr Davies: One of the factors, though, is that we've made every effort, of course, and we're satisfied by polling people in key segments of our membership, that they are in tune with what's happening, so we're happy that we reflect their viewpoint. But it's certainly true that, again in small business, they aren't aware of the impact OTAB will have on their operation.
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The Chair: Mr Davies, I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for your presence and participation here this afternoon. You have provided yet another unique insight on the part of one of the obviously affected bodies and we are grateful to you and to the Ontario Society for Training and Development. Not only have the committee members paid close attention to what you've had to say, but senior staff from the minister's office who are here with us and who listen carefully to presentations have noted your comments carefully. So we're grateful to you. You're welcome to stay or leave, as you wish. We're appreciative and we trust you'll advise your society accordingly.
Mr Davies: Okay. Thank you very much.
Mrs Marland: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: I enjoyed for a number of years being a member of a standing committee of this Legislature that was chaired by the then member for Nickel Belt, now the Treasurer of this province. In fact, I think at some time it was this same committee. We had a lot of experience travelling the province as a committee where the rules of the Legislature were enforced by Mr Laughren in the committee hearings.
Apparently, the rules of the Legislature do not permit any kinds of signs or demonstrations. So I'm asking you, as the Chairman, to ask that these balloons be removed from the committee. I'm not judging the content of what it is that they're saying. I wasn't here when they were presented. But I think it's totally inappropriate to have a bunch of balloons attached to one of our government members' chairs during a committee hearing.
The Chair: The clerk will please take those balloons and file them as an exhibit. They are part of the presentation from 11:30, the Ontario Women's Action on Training Coalition. Please try not to deflate them.
Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): We are challenging the staff today to really respond, aren't we?
The Chair: Ms Marland, you make an interesting point. You've put the clerk into one of the dilemmas that she's had to face this week. We'll see how well she copes with that. Her affection for you may be somewhat diminished as a result of it.
Oh no, please don't remove them. Place them with the rest of today's exhibits. Thank you. Here at the table. I suspect they, like most of us, will rise to the appropriate level. Some might call that the Peter principle.
JAN NABERT
The Chair: The next participant this afternoon is Custom Touch. Please come forward. Please tell us your name, your position, your organization. Tell us what you will. Please try to save the second 15 minutes for exchanges and dialogue.
Ms Jan Nabert: My name is Jan Nabert. I was asked to identify myself and the organization I represent. Therein lies my problem. I currently sit on 14 community organizations that are involved with training in one aspect or another. Add to this the factors that affect my personal makeup, and you have a very large melting pot.
I realize that you require some form of references. However, before I list them, I would like to state quite clearly that I am not speaking for any one viewpoint or for any one organization.
I am the owner of Custom Touch, which deals with construction and small manufacturing. I am the chairman of the Northumberland Information and Training Advisory Committee, which is one of the 57 CITCs in the province of Ontario. I am the interim representative for local board area 5 for the disabled. I sit on the interim steering committee for the Northumberland local board for the CITC. I sit on the interim steering committee for the Haliburton, Northumberland, Victoria and Peterborough local board in the capacity of business. I am a member of the Belleville-Hastings local board.
I am a member of the Equity Coalition for Peterborough and the Surrounding Area. I am a member of the Northumberland Industry Education Council. I am a member of the Lakeshore campus advisory council for Sir Sandford Fleming College; also a member of the Lakeshore continuous learning advisory committee for Durham College; also a member of Hamilton Township and Cobourg Citizens Coalition for Economic Action; also a member of Persons United for Self Help, PUSH, central Peterborough; also a member of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business; the Cobourg District Council, Scouts Canada; and I have a strong association with Northumberland Injured Workers.
The other factors affecting my personal makeup are as follows: I am a woman and a mother of four. I am disabled. I have gone through rehabilitation and training not once, but twice. I am a former farmer. I am a former member of a union and a former trainer for an employer. I am not a francophone, I am not an aboriginal and I am not a racial minority.
As you can plainly see, many of the hats I wear are not in agreement on the issues contained in Bill 96. At this point in time, I would imagine you have repeatedly heard the organizational viewpoints. You probably even know them off by heart. Hopefully, I will be able to show a more non-partisan view of some of the same concerns.
My initial intent was to identify myself as a community volunteer. However, volunteers will have a new definition under Bill 96. Currently, volunteers are not consistent. Some donate their own time with no monetary gain or loss, some actually suffer a monetary loss, while others have their time paid by their company or association. This in itself is viewed as a form of discrimination. Only those individuals in the financial position to be a volunteer tend to be involved, not necessarily those best suited for the job. Equity does not only deal with gender, race, religion or disability.
The bottom line, however, is that a tremendous amount of training goes on in Ontario at little or no cost to the taxpayer. The proposal to give remuneration to members of the boards etc, while equitable, will add to the administration costs. Increased administration costs were a concern expressed time and time again at the local board consultations. All accepted the concept of restructuring to eliminate waste or duplication. Presumably, these cost savings will allow for expenditures in other areas. To the best of my knowledge, no figures have been made available to support the claims of no additional overall costs.
Another concern strongly expressed at both levels of consultation was the top-down control of policy, funding and appointments. The economy will recover from the bottom up, at different speeds with different requirements in each area. The need to respond quickly, under one year, will be severely hampered by a top-down approach. The closest comparison I can give is the principle of total quality management, getting away from the cumbersome bureaucracy of high-level management who possess little or no experience in the field.
This is not to say that there should not be a strong guiding hand at both levels. Minister Allen is fond of saying that the process is going to be labour-market-partner driven. That is all fine and good if they all have a licence. To carry the analogy further, some of the partners have Grand Prix expertise while others have not even registered for driver's education. This does not change the fact that everyone is out on the track at the same time. Can you honestly say there will be no accidents?
This may sound as if I am contradicting myself. However, I believe that there is a very real need for an arbitrator at both levels. Many of the partners are new to the program. There are still a great many more out in the communities that are uninformed but are expected to participate. Arbitrators would ensure that the local level is truly representative of that community and that the provincial level is representative of their councils and reference groups.
Local boards are supposed to be representative of their own community composition. This will be accomplished by joint designation with the Canadian Labour Force Development Board, Employment and Immigration Canada and the Ontario government. Nowhere does the act specify this joint designation, nor is there any guarantee that OTAB will be representative of the provincial composition. Rather, we have references being made to the regulations on several occasions with no firm direction being given, only rumours and existing examples. This only serves to promote the historic confrontational roles of the partners.
I found it rather noticeable that a great deal of this bill dealt with the principles that should have been contained in equity legislation. This particular bill should have only given reference to that legislation. However, since that particular legislation now sits on the back burner, it had to be dealt with in Bill 96. Many people found this ironic and are concerned that this back-door approach will be exhibited in other OTAB initiatives.
Many of the concerns will be dealt with when the regulations are released. However, a great many of us feel like Don Quixote tilting at the windmill. However, I am a firm believer in participation to effect change, and if people are not willing to participate, they have no right to complain about the outcome.
Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to participate.
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Mrs Marland: Are we going in rotation in terms of who has the first question, Mr Chair?
The Chair: Ms Marland, I didn't want to embarrass anybody. We will do it as we usually do it once there are enough people here to participate.
Mr Sutherland: Thank you for your presentation. Obviously, by your background and involvement in many different groups, you certainly would make a very qualified person to participate in the training process--local board process--and certainly bring a lot of diverse experience and that's great to see.
I should say that as to your paragraph about this being the equity bill, or putting this in through a back door, I want to disagree with that assessment. I want to disagree in that the government is still committed to bringing forward employment equity legislation, but equity principles are certainly incorporated into this legislation and the reasons are many. I think one of the presenters earlier today said it best: You can't have economic renewal without social justice, but you can't have social justice without economic renewal, and both principles need to be intertwined. The bill has tried to do that in a fashion with consensus and compromise.
That doesn't satisfy all groups, but that's really where it is trying to reflect the direction in dealing with both economic and equity issues at the same time, in the long run hoping that everyone will benefit from that.
My question to you then is: You've had a chance to look at the bill and participate in different ways. Do you think the bill is going to achieve some of the objects set out in it in the way it's designed, or do you have specific other suggestions as to maybe how you think the legislation could be improved?
Ms Nabert: No, I agree that you are going to accomplish something. The point is that a lot of time and effort and expense, shall we say, was put into the principles being incorporated in this bill, when really they should have been dealt with in another piece of legislation and then just referenced, the same way you do a crown corporation etc. These principles are what this government stands behind and they will apply to all legislation passed by the government. I think there was a lot of time and effort expended that really didn't need to be.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks very much for your presentation. Looking over the groups you're affiliated with, I don't know how you had time even to write this, but of course it reflects your experience, which shows you cover a lot of areas and are the very type of person we'd like to be involved in this process because it does draw on the experience of people in all aspects of the training process.
However, I want to mention a couple of things. You imply that there will be remuneration, that people on local boards will be paid, but at this point there's no suggestion of that at all.
Ms Nabert: I suppose I should clarify that. I believe it's at the OTAB level that there will be remuneration for board members and council members--
Mr Gary Wilson: That's right.
Ms Nabert: --on these committees and that sort of thing. At the present time, most of the functions are being accomplished by volunteers at no cost.
Mr Gary Wilson: That's one of the major issues, of course. You say at that the present time these things are being accomplished, but the problem is how they're being accomplished and that there are concerns at all levels and in all areas about the kind of training being done in the province. That's what we're trying to do by bringing the major partners around one table so we can exchange information and reach, we think, better decisions based on that sharing of information.
Ms Nabert: I think, to be equitable, you have to. My concern is that there have been no figures to prove the funds will become available by saving someplace else. That's the real issue. You are going to be adding a phenomenal amount of administration costs in order to pay these people. Where is it going to come from? Have we proven there will be savings? We haven't seen those figures. That's my main point.
Mr Gary Wilson: Right. The figures: When we talk about the funding of OTAB, for instance, that's not going to require any new money because this money's already being spent on government training programs, but now is spread over a number of ministries in various programs. We think that will represent at least a more effective use of the money by coordinating it.
Ms Nabert: You just said it yourself: "We think."
Mr Gary Wilson: But we do know now that the training isn't working. We have everyone's admission of that. One of the major motivations for people coming around the table is that they recognize things have to change, especially in today's economic environment. So there is that willingness to try something that's different. Of course, we don't know whether it's going to work, but it does require goodwill and the strongest legislation possible to establish that.
Another thing then comes down to the directors who will be on the governing board. I think you have a concern that they won't be representative of Ontario's makeup. Are you aware that this is specifically referred to in the legislation in section 9? It talks about the directors and how they will be appointed with regard to the groups they're going to represent.
There will be consultation, and the appointment will come from the nominations, at least taking into account who the various participating groups nominate. Second, they will represent the nature of Ontario's society, its diverse nature, the dual language feature and looking for a gender balance. So with those three features in mind and the consultation with the reference groups, it seems to me there's a lot of representation there, at least a strong attempt made to make sure the directors will be as representative of Ontario's population as possible.
Ms Nabert: Yes, I recognize that. However, social action was the initial word. I understand it's expanded to about 12 words now. Why should they not be the same number as business and labour? These are questions that are repeatedly asked of those of us involved in committees. Why are we not the same number as business and labour? If you look at the composition of Ontario by numbers alone, they should have equal representation to business and labour.
Mrs Marland: I really want to congratulate Ms Nabert. I think this is an impressive brief and I have to say I'm really impressed with your own background. I don't know very many people who are as involved as you are. You've got 14 or 15 organizations here that you're personally involved with, plus you run your own business in construction and small manufacturing. I can't help but think that your business, Custom Touch, must be very successful having your kind of leadership at the head of it.
I find that I agree with a lot of the comments you've brought forth, and I just had two questions. One was that you said at the very beginning, Jan, that you were asked to identify yourself and the organization you represented. Who asked you that when you asked to appear before the committee?
Ms Nabert: Initially, when I asked to appear, it was what category, what was I representing, what was my organization. The facts that I had sent requesting an opportunity to speak, I had actually run out of room on the paper, so I think it only had 10 listed on it. I think the major concern was that I became a very diverse person and there was a lot of concern about who I was going to speak for.
As I say, just looking at the list, you can tell. Certain aspects of the bill, if it's Monday, I agree with this one, and if it's Wednesday, I have to take a middle of the road approach. That's why I chose to try to speak more as an individual, why I was registered under my company name, so that (1) I wouldn't step on toes, and (2) if I say anything that offends anybody, it's me, it's not the organization that gets blamed.
Mrs Marland: But the background is why I'm impressed with what it is you're saying here, because a lot of the organizations you are involved with I recognize very well. I certainly know a lot about the work of PUSH. I notice that you're involved with injured workers. You're also involved with the CFIB, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. I can't imagine anybody who would have a broader base from which to look at Bill 96 and that's why I'm glad you're here.
You made quite an interesting statement about the equity aspect being slipped in here. I think your words are, "Maybe it's been slipped in here because that particular legislation is now on the back burner." But then you go on to say, "Many people found this ironic and are concerned that this back-door approach will be exhibited in other OTAB initiatives." That, I think, is a very important statement that you're making, and I wonder if you could tell us what other back-door initiatives you're concerned might result.
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Ms Nabert: There's been a lot from organizational viewpoints about the political agenda. There's a lot of reference that's made to that; too much, I believe, in some cases. That's the back door they're afraid of, that some political things--I think the common terms most people use are payoffs, buyoffs, whatever you want, that they're appeasing the populace and so on. The concern has been expressed that this back-door approach might be used to slip through some additional payoffs, I guess, would be the simplest colloquialism that's used for it.
Equity legislation is a very important piece of legislation. I don't think it was given its just treatment by incorporating it this way. I think it needs to be dealt with in the focus of a full piece of legislation. I don't know if that answers your question or not.
Mrs Marland: Well, it does, but you already had mentioned equity legislation. I just wonder what else you had in mind, because you said there may be other things, other initiatives.
Ms Nabert: There have been a lot of rumours about the composition of, say, the labour representatives and where that's going to come from, although I have to be very honest: In Bill 96 it just states quite clearly that it will be eight members of labour. So going on that, I believe there will be eight members of labour. The rumours abound, of course, and they're stating that it will be heavier to one specific union.
Mrs Marland: Which one?
Ms Nabert: OFL.
Mrs Marland: Thank you very much.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you, Ms Nabert, for your presentation. You touched on something here that I find interesting. You make a recommendation that you express as, I guess, a certain attraction to having an arbitrator.
Ms Nabert: Yes.
Mr McGuinty: How would that person work?
Ms Nabert: I think the arbitrator would have to be responsible directly to the minister, or at least to the minister and the governing body. It has to be a voice that people feel they can go to when their representative is not representing them, or have the perception that the representative is not representing them. They have to feel that there is another avenue open to them.
You have a tremendous can of worms opening up with local boards and, "What is the composition of my community?" You are going to have a lot of people standing there saying: "Me too. I should have a seat and I want representation." They have to feel there is someone there who will say, "Yes or no, this community does have X percentage of racial minorities and therefore X percentage should be represented at the local level." But they would have a separate function at the OTAB level, and that would be to see that the elected or appointed representatives are actually fulfilling the mandate of the organizations as well as the province.
Mr McGuinty: Right. So you're anticipating that there will be problems.
Ms Nabert: Yes.
Mr McGuinty: Particularly at the local level.
Ms Nabert: Yes.
Mr McGuinty: We're told that the local board makeup will mirror the central board in terms of numbers and groups it represents. I guess one of the concerns we have is that to impose this from on high will not do justice to the various characteristics associated with the particular community.
Ms Nabert: I think at the local level the arbitrator will have to work very closely with the nominees as well as report to the minister and to the governing body as a whole. There just has to be that feeling that somehow there is going to be the little voice heard. That's probably more so an issue in the outside communities, not so much in the metropolitan areas.
The Chair: Ms Nabert, the committee tells you it's grateful to you for coming forward and sharing your views with us. You have a diverse background and bring to this committee a wide range of experience and skills. We're appreciative of your willingness to share that, and we thank you.
Ms Nabert: Thank you.
The Chair: We trust that you will continue to keep in touch if you have new or other things to tell us. Thank you kindly.
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF YOUTH EMPLOYMENT CENTRES
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres. If those people are here, they can please come forward. Have a seat in front of a microphone. Tell us your names, your positions or titles, if any.
Ms Tina Gibbs: I'm Tina Gibbs.
The Chair: Welcome. And your colleague with you?
Ms Sherri Jackson: Sherri Jackson.
The Chair: There is coffee and other beverages for people here who are members of the public participating. It also happens to be one of the best-kept secrets in terms of free, good coffee here in the city of Toronto. I'm surprised that more people don't wander in on their way through Queen's Park or on their way about the building, because it's good and it's free; or not free, because it's obviously been paid for by the taxpayers of the province and they're welcome to it. Go ahead, people.
Ms Gibbs: Good afternoon. My name is Tina Gibbs. I am from the Georgian Bay area. I am the sole supporter of my family of five. I'm a youth member of the Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres and actively involved in a number of provincial projects, including the youth policy directions project of the association.
I am joining Sherri Jackson, the president of the Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres, this afternoon to provide committee members with comments on Bill 96 from the perspective of young workers in this province. I appreciate and thank the committee for this opportunity.
This is an important opportunity for me. OTAB will fundamentally change the way training is designed and delivered in this province. It is very likely that I am the youngest person to address the committee on Bill 96. If this is true, I also have the distinction of being the presenter on whom OTAB will have the longest-term impact. I am just starting what could be over 40 years in the workforce. My entry, my critical initial experiences, my ongoing training and perhaps that of my three children are dependent upon what is contained in the 30 sections of Bill 96.
The problem: When I read the document, I don't see myself included. OTAB's purpose is to enable business and labour, together with educators, trainers and representatives of underrepresented or disadvantaged groups, to play a significant role in the design and delivery of labour force development programs and services. The legislation says that it's going to enable me to be there and then fails to include me in section 9, where those who will participate in shaping the future training culture are named.
Ontarians like me, young Ontarians who form the basis of tomorrow's labour force, are presently underrepresented. Since 1989 youth participation in the labour force has decreased 9.2 percentage points to 50%. This is approximately three times the drop in participation rates for other workers. Youth are the last to be offered employment and the first to go. Young Ontarians lose their jobs three times more frequently than other workers. We are, as young Ontarians, experiencing an increasing pattern of short-term and part-time employment.
This dramatically low participation rate does not mean we are busy travelling to add to our life's experiences or engaged in other creative pursuits. We are leading an increasingly disadvantaged lifestyle. In the last 15 years there has been almost doubling of the incidence of poverty among families with children where the head of the household is 15 to 24 years of age, families like mine.
Section 9 should include youth representation. It doesn't. Not only is it exclusive to me today, but that exclusion is legislated into the future by the failure to permit flexibility. There is no mechanism to add additional directors representing underrepresented or disadvantaged groups in the future. In a piece of legislation that seeks to identify and eliminate systemic and other discriminating barriers, is this not creating systemic discrimination?
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I understand that in over 80% of the community consultations this exclusion was identified. This exclusion was the major focus point in all the decisions I participated in with other young Ontarians and youth advocates. The legislation must be amended to ensure that this exclusion is addressed.
Exclusion can be addressed within the proposed legislation without jeopardizing the implementation of OTAB. It can be done without impeding implementation or infringing on the strength of OTAB leadership. It can be done while maintaining a meaningful role for all OTAB members. A line-by-line analysis will demonstrate this as well as address a number of the identified concerns, including accountability, funding, evaluation and the role of OTAB participants.
Ms Sherri Jackson: Good afternoon. I'm Sherri Jackson, president of the Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres, a member-based organization comprised of the network of 70 youth employment centres, plus youth servicing organizations, youth advocates, youth and a provincial advisory committee representing over 800 community volunteers.
The association has been actively involved in discussions concerning the development of OTAB through its participation in the Ontario Training Education Action Coalition and membership on the OTAB education and training steering committee. These discussions, combined with our own internal consultation with members, have assisted in the development of our comments today.
OAYEC supports efforts to improve the way we train and retrain Ontario's workforce. We do have some concerns. These concerns focus on ensuring that the fundamental principles reflected in clause 1(a) are more consistently reflected throughout the legislation, specifically sections 4 and 9.
A more complete analysis of the sections and clauses I will refer to is contained in the report provided committee members. For this presentation, I am focusing on those which are imperative from the perspective of ensuring the effective delivery of training services to the youth of Ontario.
Paragraph 4(1)15: While this clause refers to the effective use of educational and training resources, we believe this could be strengthened by recognizing all the education training delivery networks represented within the OTAB project: community-based trainers, private trainers, school boards, colleges and universities.
Paragraph 4(1)16: This clause does not have a reference point in the purpose of Bill 96. We believe this clause contravenes the spirit of OTAB in two ways: first, by contravening the spirit of partnership by singling out public institutions from among all training delivery systems; second, by ensuring the strength of public institutions, OTAB's spirit of access and equity may be contravened.
In excess of one million Ontarians annually enrol and participate in training and education which is the most appropriate and accessible to them. It is not provided by the public education system. Paragraph 16 should be deleted or amended to include all educational institutions, with an additional amendment to section 1 to reflect this as a purpose of OTAB.
Paragraph 4(1)18: This paragraph should be amended as follows, "To recognize the diversity and pluralism of Ontario's population and seek to promote training appropriate to the needs of this population."
Subsection 9(2): This subsection creates an inflexible structure. The purpose of the act is to involve representatives of underrepresented or disadvantaged groups in the design and delivery of labour force development programs and services. Given that demographic and economic shifts do occur, these groups may vary from time to time. We believe the present definition of such groups is already exclusive with respect to youth. As Tina has highlighted, this must not be legislated.
OTAB objects include "to seek to ensure access and equity," and "to identify and seek to eliminate systemic" and other discrimination. This subsection contravenes the spirit of these objects by creating a closed system that cannot accommodate a group for which OTAB has a purpose.
We recommend adding the word "minimum" to the statement. Any resulting concerns about the strength of OTAB's leadership can be addressed by the decision-making processes.
Subsection 12(2): The issue of accountability must be addressed before provincial councils or local boards are established. Objects of OTAB include words such as "promote," "support" and "link" with respect to access, equity and program design. It is necessary for accountability and the successful execution of such objects that guarantees be put into place to ensure public access to all meetings, reports and decision-making processes at both the provincial and local levels.
Subsection 15(2): Directors will be advising the government of Ontario on all aspects of labour force development, including its funding. Given that these directors are nominated by and in some cases directly employed by or in advisory relationships with training and education organizations utilizing allocated dollars, any conflict-of-interest guidelines must be developed to address organizational conflict of interest in addition to individual conflict-of-interest situations.
Subsection 20(1): The words "may be established" should be amended to "shall be established." Reference groups are integral components of proposed accountability processes. To make this subsection consistent with amended subsection 9(2) concerning "minimum" directors, the words "and others as appointed" should be added.
Subsection 20(2): A legislated commitment to fund the structural components responsible for assisting and ensuring OTAB carries out its objects is mandatory. Amend it to "OTAB shall fund" reference groups.
Clause 30(1)(b): The decision-making procedure used by the governing body must maintain a meaningful role for all labour market partners while demonstrating the leadership role of business and labour. We recommend that on any issue the board first endeavour to reach a consensus. Failing this, a triple-majority vote would confirm any motion. This would require a majority of business reps, five of eight; a majority of labour representatives, five of eight; plus at least 50% of the remaining labour market partners, three of five at this time.
This model would ensure that for all motions to be confirmed, the majority of business and labour representatives would have to support the motion, and the voting role of all partners would remain meaningful.
In addition, the leadership role of business and labour cannot be jeopardized or infringed regardless of the number of labour market partners involved. It accommodates future inclusiveness and acknowledges the respective role of all partners.
Clause 30(1)(i): To remain consistent with the purpose of OTAB and its spirit of access and equity, we recommend that "and others as identified or appointed" be added to the end of the clause.
Subsection 30(2): The development of regulations must be made in consultation with OTAB directors and reference groups. We recommend amending subsection (2) accordingly.
I'd like to thank you for the opportunity of meeting with you today. Both Tina and myself hope our voices have been clear and have spoken well on behalf of the over 80 member centres and service deliverers, the over 32,000 young Ontarians who access training services through these centres and the tens of thousands of young Ontarians using other employment support services. Tina, myself and Jean Foulds, our executive director of OAYEC, would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
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Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much for your presentation. Yours is a voice that maybe isn't heard enough, and I'm pleased to have your presentation here today. We've concentrated in the last few years on women's issues. We're really starting to look at employment equity issues, but we have not really looked at, I think, the growing crisis in youth employment.
In fact my leader has really started to get interested in that and has struck a working group within our caucus to start looking at this problem, because even for the young people who have received training and have university degrees, there seems to be no place to go. If you start to look at the youth unemployment figures, it is absolutely shocking, and we really have to start to address them.
I think you've been overlooked as a group in a way, maybe because you are us and we were you. But I think it's time that we recognized youth as a group and made sure that youth had a say in many of these organizations, especially something as vital as education and, in this case, training.
I thought your clause-by-clause analysis was very helpful. I would say that I will be incorporating most of your suggestions in amendments. I think you're right on. Others that I hadn't thought of, I will take a look at for sure. They've brought to my attention areas that I hadn't paid as much attention to as I maybe should have. But on your major ones I'm prepared to move amendments and have been working on them. I think they're very good ideas.
I'm very concerned, for instance, about the establishment of the local boards. For sure, it should not be just "may"; it shall be "shall." Regarding the funding of reference groups, I think you're right. For sure we have to be looking at the decision-making procedures. You don't set up an organization and then sort of let it fight it out as to how it's going to make decisions. We've seen some failures in the past with that and we need to set this out as clearly as we can.
I really appreciate your presentation today, and I'm finding it very helpful. I'd like to defer to my colleague. Does Mr McGuinty have any questions?
Mr McGuinty: I'm not sure if I had a question as much as a positive comment. I was particularly appreciative of your emphasis on the fact that we should be taking advantage of the opportunities that are available in both the private and public sectors in terms of education.
We've heard arguments made by representatives of each group. You could always criticize those groups for having vested interests; sometimes that criticism would stick and others it might not. It's good to have a perspective from somebody who is relatively impartial in this matter. Again, I think it's a responsible and mature approach which recognizes that each group has something to offer, and it would be foolhardy not to recognize that. Thank you.
Ms Sherri Jackson: Thank you.
Mrs Marland: I'm familiar with some of the youth employment services, because we have some in Peel obviously, and particularly in Mississauga. But I'm never sure when someone speaks on behalf of, as you are, the Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres, if people ask you the age of youth what your answer is.
Ms Sherri Jackson: My answer would be ages 16 to 24. We look at youth as being up to age 29 if they have any sort of disability or handicap.
Mrs Marland: Good. When you're outlining your concerns on page 1 of your brief, you make a number of very important statements. In my opinion, they're very important. Particularly, you say, "The legislation does not adequately deal with the issue of accountability." That's a major statement.
The one that follows it is even more major, because on that point the whole purpose either stands or falls. You talk about the fact that "Funding for the proposed OTAB structure has not been addressed."
Ms Sherri Jackson: We believe youth have really been missed through the whole process. Many of our centres did participate when the travelling team was going around, and we made our concerns known there as well. We didn't see anything come back that represented what we as a group have been saying through the whole process.
Youth will be our future, and if we don't take care of it now, we're going to pay for it later, whether it be through the welfare system, through mother's allowance or whatever. We feel it's a major oversight on behalf of OTAB.
Mrs Marland: Or paying for it now. When you mention the road show, did you have a number of meetings with--who were the people you met with? Were they ministry officials, or do you remember?
Ms Sherri Jackson: The team that did the consultation, that travelled around the province?
Mrs Marland: Yes.
Ms Sherri Jackson: I would say that probably three quarters of our directors met and did presentations on behalf of youth to that team.
Mrs Marland: Do you recall if the team were people from the ministry, or were they consultants?
Ms Sherri Jackson: Actually, they were appointed members on that team.
Mrs Marland: So they were probably consultants the ministry had hired.
Ms Sherri Jackson: No. We did have an education rep on that committee who travelled around and it came through us. As community-based trainers, we had a vote on who would represent us there.
Mrs Marland: Oh, I see.
Ms Sherri Jackson: Theresa Gonzales represented the education stream, so we did have some input as to who would be there, for sure. But it appears that once the final documents came out around the consultation process a lot of our concerns were not there. A lot of the things we had said were not in the consultation paper.
Mrs Marland: So you feel quite a level of frustration, having invested that time and effort and then to see it totally ignored.
Ms Sherri Jackson: Very, yes.
Mr Sutherland: I want to just get clear in terms of how the youth employment centres operate funding etc. You've referred to yourself as a community-based organization and I just want to try to--because we've had several groups come in and try and define the difference between the public institutions versus community-based. Do all the youth centres operate basically the same way, funded the same way?
Ms Sherri Jackson: No, we're not all the same. Some of us are operated by a volunteer board of directors. Some are sponsored by other agencies: the John Howard Society, for example, the YMCA, mental health agencies. A lot of our funding is provincial funding. As well, we take in federal funding. Youth employment counselling centres offer a wide variety of services. A lot of us are not just employment. We look at housing; we look at drug and alcohol abuse; we look at the global picture of the young person who comes through the door.
Mr Sutherland: So you're pretty broad-based organizations in general.
Ms Sherri Jackson: Yes.
Mr Sutherland: You mentioned that you didn't feel the input you'd given was incorporated in there. Other than the input I assume you gave in terms of ensuring youth had a seat on the board, what other types of things was the organization presenting that maybe you feel have not been reflected so far in the development of OTAB?
Ms Sherri Jackson: The same things, really, that we have run through here today.
Mr Gary Wilson: Can I ask a question?
The Chair: Mr Wilson, please.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks very much for your presentation. You've certainly given us a lot of concrete material to consider. I am concerned, though. Under your executive summary, I'm not sure you supported within the rest of the document some of the contentions here.
For instance, "The legislation has been drafted in isolation from a comprehensive provincial policy on labour force development." I'm not quite sure how you would produce that or who you'd expect to produce it, given that part of the process involved in OTAB is actually to bring the people together who are involved in training, who need training and, I would think, to develop this very comprehensive policy you're talking about.
To try to do it otherwise would risk leaving out a group, one of the labour-market partners, in effect, and then risk the success of any kind of training program in the future, or training process.
Ms Sherri Jackson: I'm sorry, Mr Wilson. I'm not really clear on what you're asking me.
Mr Gary Wilson: Who do you expect this comprehensive provincial policy on labour force development to come from? Whom do you expect to develop it?
Ms Sherri Jackson: Actually, we're not here to talk about the development. We're very supportive of OTAB and what it is you're trying to do totally, so I wouldn't want to leave you with the feeling that we're not. Our concern is that youth are not represented in the OTAB structure and we feel there needs to be a place there for our young people.
Mr Gary Wilson: All right then--
Ms Sherri Jackson: We'd like to see them actually be named one of the disadvantaged groups.
Mr Gary Wilson: Okay. Again, how would you then select the member for youth, who would be the representative in effect? Of course, there are young people who are working. In fact, we already have heard from other young people in different categories, say, and this is one of the difficulties: How do you separate youth from the various activities they're involved in, student and employed, unemployed and other factors? Have you thought about that, how you would actually arrive at a representative of youth? You actually raised the question of accountability, so I guess you have thought about it.
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Ms Sherri Jackson: Would you like to try that one, Tina?
Ms Gibbs: There is a project, as I stated at the start of what I said, the youth policy directions project, which we intend to act as the liaison between the youth themselves, the population that is seeking the training, and our government or OTAB to help in the policy changes that would suit the needs of the youth. Exactly how we would go about designating the youth member to be on the director's board hasn't been discussed up to this point in time.
Mr Gary Wilson: You know too that each of the representatives on the governing body will have a reference group to advise them about training issues and that there is a place there for young people on the range of reference groups. Do you see that as one way young people can be involved in the deliberation on training?
Ms Sherri Jackson: We see that as a positive step, but advisory is very different than a director; an advisory role is a very different role than a director's role.
Mr Gary Wilson: You see that also working at the community level so that there is the opportunity to be involved at both levels, both provincial and community?
Ms Sherri Jackson: We believe there should be youth representatives at both levels, in the community as well as here at the OTAB.
Mr Gary Wilson: You mentioned accountability again in the executive summary. Is that the kind of accountability you meant? I just want to be clear about that, because the legislation lists the accountability that OTAB has to operate under in several different places; that is, accountable to the minister, accountable to the reference groups in effect, or the labour market partners, but very definitely accountable to government through having to come up with multi-year plans as well as annual reports, audited reports, and then the minister's directives that they are subject to. Is that the kind of accountability you had in mind or was there something else?
Ms Sherri Jackson: No, we're quite comfortable with that.
Mr Gary Wilson: Do you find, then, that that's still not adequate, though, that you'd like to see some other kind of accountability built in there?
Ms Sherri Jackson: We would like to see some measures, as we've highlighted here, put in to ensure that there is accountability to the OTAB team.
Mr Gary Wilson: To the OTAB team?
Ms Sherri Jackson: To the government body.
Mr Gary Wilson: Okay. On the funding that you mentioned here as well, saying that has not been addressed, in fact, the funding OTAB will operate under is going to be the money that is now being used to fund some 40 programs spread throughout 10 ministries. By pulling that together, that money will be available for the operation of OTAB. That's where the money will come from. What point were you addressing there?
Ms Sherri Jackson: Where are you speaking from?
Mr Gary Wilson: From your executive summary. You just say "funding for the proposed OTAB structure."
Ms Sherri Jackson: You're in a different place than I am.
Ms Gibbs: I believe that is at the end of mine, where I have spoken of including accountability, funding evaluation and the role of OTAB participants. There needs to be funding for the middle step, between the grass roots and the OTAB, in order to get the needs of the youth for their education, their training and anything that helps them get that training to be productive in our society. They start as youth, but we all grow into adults, and to be productive adults, we must have a good, educated work experience, which many don't have the opportunity to get.
Mr Gary Wilson: Okay, I understand, yes. So actually the range of institutions we have to meet the training needs of youth will be used, and where it's not working, there will be that, I guess, interplay between the people who need it and the providers. This is what both OTAB and the local boards provide, as far as a clearinghouse for information is concerned, to make sure that these programs are being provided and that they are serving the purpose. The money that will be needed will then be found to make sure the programs are provided.
Ms Sherri Jackson: Yes. Under the present model, community-based trainers are not sitting at the table now. We're part of the education stream.
Mr Gary Wilson: No, they are. Community-based trainers are part of the--
Ms Sherri Jackson: Part of the education stream.
Mr Gary Wilson: Yes, that's right. They do have access, being one of the labour market partners with access to one of the two directors.
Ms Sherri Jackson: Right, but we would like to see that all five of the training partners be represented at that table.
Mr Gary Wilson: This is what you meant by the minimum of 22.
Ms Sherri Jackson: Right.
Mr Gary Wilson: Again, we've heard from a number of groups that would like to see that raised.
Ms Sherri Jackson: I'm sure.
Mr Gary Wilson: This has been a very collaborative, cooperative approach, and the 22 has been arrived at after long discussion, but that's not to say these things are carved in stone. It's meant to be a very sensitive and responsive kind of operation that will listen to the needs of the community and then adjust accordingly.
But we think that, based on the kinds of nominees by the labour market partners, that could include youth--they are being asked to remember the makeup of Ontario's society--as well as the reference groups that will then have access to the directors and the community groups themselves that will be reflective of the makeup of the community. We think we have in place here a very sensitive and responsive system that by meeting the needs of the people who need the training and provide it, will serve the purpose.
Finally, it's a political system too. You have access to your political representatives to make sure that the system is accountable in the way you mean, that it is serving the needs of all our community members. You look convinced.
Mrs Marland: I am confused.
Mr Gary Wilson: Maybe if you'd come here more often, Margaret, you'd be able to follow these things.
Mrs Marland: I'm trying to understand and I'm trying to follow you. I think the deputation's trying to follow you too.
The Chair: Did you want to respond to the suggestion that you look convinced?
Mr Gary Wilson: She's taking their time, Mr Chairman.
Ms Gibbs: Might I ask, in what you have said about the 22 directors that have been designated, as outlined in Bill 96, are we assuming that youth are already accounted for? Is this what you've been saying, that they're automatically already accounted for?
Mr Gary Wilson: The fact is that the directors are going to represent the groups, the labour market partners. They'll be nominated by them and then the government makes the final appointment. But the nominators have been asked to remember that they are nominating people to represent not only their groups but the wider public interest; in other words, the diversity of all of Ontario.
The Chair: You can ask that question again if you want.
Mrs Marland: Yes, why don't you ask that question again, because he might get it?
Ms Gibbs: Am I to understand that with the outline of 22 directors in OTAB, we are assuming that the youth are already accounted for by not having a seat as a youth director on your OTAB?
Mr Gary Wilson: As I said at the beginning, youth are represented among all the labour market partners; that is, there are young business people, young workers, young women, young people with disabilities. In that sense they are certainly going to be represented. We have had trouble identifying youth as a category without the other attributes.
To that extent young people are going to be represented, but the other point is that as far as the directors go, there is the obligation to act in the public interest. Certainly, the needs of young people are very much part of the public interest and will be addressed that way. There's a combination and we expect that there is the possibility, because young people are represented in all these groups, that they will be among the nominees.
But certainly there are the reference groups too. I think you've agreed too that there has to be a limit on the number of people who are around the table for it to be workable. These people are going to be advised by reference groups. That spreads out the influence and the participation. Then there are the community groups as well.
The Chair: I don't know whether Mr Sutherland's going to constitute the cavalry, but before he speaks, you can respond to Mr Wilson.
Ms Sherri Jackson: We would like to see it legislated that there has to be a youth representative sitting at the OTAB.
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Mr Sutherland: I'm going to pick up on Mr Wilson's point that not everyone will be at the table, but of course there's more than one mechanism of actually being on the actual board for having input in terms of the reference councils, the entry and re-entry councils and many opportunities for many groups, a much broader base of groups to participate at that level as well.
The Chair: All of that having been said, do you want to finish off?
Ms Sherri Jackson: Thank you very much.
The Chair: You have provided an interesting perspective to this whole discussion and debate. You have made a most valuable contribution and both of you, Ms Gibbs and Ms Jackson, on behalf of the Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres, have played an important role in this committee's work. We trust that when you return to your association, you will express our gratitude to it for sending you here today. We hope you'll keep in touch either individually or collectively with the committee. Thank you, people, and take care.
ONTARIO FEDERATION OF
AGRICULTURE
ONTARIO AGRICULTURAL TRAINING INSTITUTE
The Chair: The next participant this afternoon is the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, if their spokespeople will please come up, have a seat and tell us their names, titles and positions, if any. How are you, sir?
Mr Carl Sulliman: Happy Valentine's Day.
The Chair: Well, bless you. Believe it or not, I didn't get a whole lot of valentines around here this year.
Mr Carl Sulliman: I wouldn't bring chocolates because they're not good for you. The Heart and Stroke Foundation wouldn't let us bring chocolates.
The Chair: Please tell us your names, your positions and proceed with your comments. We've got your written material, which will form part of the record by virtue of being filed as an exhibit.
Mr Bill Weaver: Mr Chairman, my name is Bill Weaver. I'm second vice-president of OFA. I'm a farmer from Kent county. With me are Tony Morris, executive member from OFA, also on the board of directors of the Ontario Agricultural Training Institute, and Carl Sulliman. Carl decides which hat to wear at which appropriate time. He's here as chief executive officer of OFA and of OATI, and Carl also served on the minister's advisory committee on the OTAB project under Dr Allen. With me also is Cathie Lowry, executive director of the Ontario Agricultural Training Institute.
Mrs Marland: But you meant to introduce her first, right?
Mr Weaver: Well, there's protocol.
The Chair: Go ahead, sir. Don't let these people sidetrack you.
Mr Weaver: We intend to use the half-hour, Mr Chairman and members of the committee. The OFA and OATI briefs are separate. We intend to put forth our OFA brief for the first 15 minutes and any questions answered in that period of time, and then turn it over and Tony will be presenting the OATI brief at 15 minutes after the hour, approximately.
If we could start on page 1 of the OFA brief, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture welcomes the opportunity to present its views to the standing committee on resources development on Bill 96, An act to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board.
OFA is the voice of Ontario farmers. Supported by 20,000 individual members and 26 affiliated organizations, the OFA represents farm family concerns to government and the general public. Constituted in its present form since 1970, the organization has a long history of advocating in the interests of Ontario's farm community and traces its roots to the Ontario Chamber of Agriculture, established in the 1930s. Active at the local level through 47 county and regional federations, the OFA is a member of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the farmer's voice on national affairs.
The farmers of Ontario have many concerns regarding the establishment of OTAB. One source of concern stems from the apparent confusion regarding the training role of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food in the agricultural workplace. Other concerns relate to the content of the legislation and to the regulations and procedures of operation which will be established after the bill achieves royal assent. Our presentation will comment on these concerns and provide recommendations.
The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food funds agricultural education initiatives, provides funding for research and performs extension services to disseminate new information on production and management techniques. Recently, OMAF has become involved in agricultural apprenticeship ventures.
Past discussion with the Ministry of Skills Development indicated its belief that OMAF looked after the skill training needs of agriculture. OMAF has indicated to us that it does not have the mandate to provide skill training. OMAF's education and extension role does not equate to skill training in the workplace. The mandate of OTAB therefore should, or rather must, not exclude the skill training needs of the agrifood industry's 629,000 workers and worker-owners.
The purpose clause of the act leads to some confusion with respect to the overall jurisdiction that OTAB will have. Clause 1(b) and paragraph 4(1)5 suggest that the purpose and objective of the act is to "lead to the enhancement of skill levels, productivity, quality, innovation and the timeliness and the improvement of the lives of workers and potential workers." "Workers and potential workers" tends to suggest all residents of the province of Ontario. Are these clauses meant to imply that OTAB will provide funding to promote equity adjustment? This will further exacerbate the current tension that exists between the retooling of Ontario's economy and providing social survival skills to all of Ontario's residents.
A further problem with the phrasing "workers and potential workers" is that agricultural business still does not have a clear signal as to where we fit. Most farmers or agriculture business employees are self-employed or worker-owners. How and where do worker-owners fit into OTAB's mandate for workers and potential workers?
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture recommends that part of clause 1(b) and paragraph 4(1)5, "improvement of the lives of workers and potential workers," be deleted or changed to more clearly define the purpose of OTAB, to promote wealth creation for the citizens of Ontario.
To the end that OTAB is to provide the best skill training in the workplace, OFA is concerned with paragraph 4(1)16, whereby OTAB is "to ensure...the strength of Ontario's publicly funded education systems." Various provincial ministries provide funding to educational institutions. Is it the intention that OTAB become another source of funding for education, or is OTAB to provide skill training in the workplace?
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture recommends that reference to providing funding to publicly funded educational institutions be deleted.
Just in the best use of time, Mr Chair, I'll finish up our presentation by going through the headings, our recommendations and then dealing with any questions.
The next section is our concern regarding representation on the governing body. Why not have an eighth minority group representative to ensure that agriculture has at least one seat on the board to represent the province's second-largest employer? For that reason, the OFA recommends that OTAB's governing board of directors be expanded to include one agricultural appointment.
Regarding local training and adjustment boards, councils and reference committees, the OFA recommends that the local training boards, councils and reference committees have sufficient powers defined in the act, enabling them to provide local skill training needs.
On regulations, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture recommends that the decision-making authority for OTAB's governing board of directors be prescribed in the act.
On the sectoral training council, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture recommends that the act recognize sectoral groups to address the issues of particular training needs to specific industries within the province.
In closing, the OFA is pleased that the Ontario government is addressing the training and adjustment needs of the workers of this province. OFA can't stress enough, however, that OTAB's definition of workers must include agriculture's worker-owners and that this must be reflected in the legislation, governing body and the regulations of the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. Thank you.
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The Vice-Chair (Mr Bob Huget): Thank you very much. If there's agreement with the committee, we'll move to the next presentation and then go back to questions for both.
Mr Tony Morris: That would be fine, Mr Chairman. My name is Tony Morris. I'm a director with the Ontario Agricultural Training Institute, usually referred to as OATI. You've already met the rest of the people who are on the delegation today.
OATI is a not-for-profit corporation and was formed in 1989 by the farmers of Ontario, agribusiness, the public sector and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture to address the distinct needs of agriculture and training. We are grass-roots-driven and we provide small-group, hands-on, interactive training opportunities to our clients, the farmers of this province. Our programs are driven by the agricultural community, reflect the needs of a distinct circumstance and are tailored specifically to our industry.
The mission statement of OATI is to enable Ontario farmers to enhance their skills to manage a changing agricultural workplace through self-determined programs. Therefore, we have a strong interest in the development of OTAB and its work to develop the skills of all Ontario residents so they can contribute to a competitive economy.
OATI has several concerns regarding OTAB, some of which relate to the contents of Bill 96 itself, while others relate to the regulations and operating procedures which will be developed after Bill 96 passes third reading.
First, if I may, I will focus on Bill 96 itself and then will speak about additional matters of importance to OATI.
Purpose clause of Bill 96: The Premier's Council paper entitled People and Skills in the New Global Economy and the consultation paper issued by the government of the day entitled Skills to Meet the Challenge: A Training Partnership for Ontario both indicate the importance of job creation and training for a competitive economy and the desire for OTAB to be a less complicated mechanism for delivery of such training. However, the breadth of the purpose clause gives OTAB an unfocused mandate. OTAB should be focused on training for workplace skills and economic development rather than on all aspects of individuals' life.
OATI recommends that clause 1(b) and paragraph 4(1)5 be modified by either deleting the phrase "improvement of the lives of workers and potential workers" or adding the phrase "by helping them identify and pursue realistic personal development and economic goals." As well, we would recommend a new initial component of the purpose clause should state that the purpose of OTAB is "to recognize the need for a competitive Ontario workforce that would form the basis for both wealth and job creation."
Under section 4 of Bill 96, we see Bill 96 as a bill to develop the skills of Ontario residents, to enable them to participate in the workplace and contribute to the province's economic health. Various ministries within the government of Ontario have other responsibilities to the people of the province. Of them, the Ministry of Community and Social Services offers programs to ensure access to the basic necessities of life, and the Ministry of Education and Training provides public educational institutions.
OTAB should be focusing on the provision of the best skills training to assist full participation in the workplace. To that end, OTAB must access whatever training will achieve the objectives most effectively and efficiently. It may consider workplace training programs offered by public institutions but should not have any responsibility to maintain the province's publicly funded education system. Therefore, OATI recommend the deletion of paragraph 4(1)16 from Bill 96.
It is difficult for any individual who will be appointed to a new organization such as OTAB to accurately gauge the demands of being co-chair of such a group. The directors may find that the originally suggested co-chair is just not the best director for the job. Therefore, OATI recommends that paragraphs 9(2)1, 9(2)2 and 9(2)3 be combined to read: "Eight directors representing business, one of whom shall be co-chair. Eight directors representing labour, one of whom shall be co-chair."
The majority of workers in Ontario are not unionized, and OATI is very concerned that the current intent is for all labour representatives to be nominated by organized unions. This is very worrisome to us, considering the agrifood industry is the second-largest employer in Ontario and that many of the businesses are owner-operated. It is unlikely that there would be satisfactory representation for our industry in any of the currently proposed director categories. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food provides many excellent services to the agricultural industry, but its mandate does not include skills training and upgrading. Therefore, OTAB is an integral initiative for Ontario's agricultural workplace. Therefore, OATI recommends that paragraph 9(2)9 be added as "One director representing agriculture."
The importance of local people having significant and sufficient input into the training and adjustment process cannot be emphasized enough. This has to happen in their communities. Bill 96 indicates that local boards will exist, but it does not guarantee that these local boards will have any power. At the minimum, the local communities should be able to determine who will sit on the local board within the guidelines provided by the bill or the regulations. Again, considering the majority of Ontario workers are non-unionized, local boards must include non-union worker representatives. OATI recommends that subsection 18(2) be expanded to include: "It is the intent that local boards be empowered to make decisions that are best determined at the local level."
In the document Skills to Meet the Challenge: A Training Partnership for Ontario it is explained that within the Workplace and Sectoral Training Council there will be sectoral groups. However, in Bill 96 there is not one reference to this. OATI cannot stress strongly enough how critical it is to the entire agricultural industry--I would remind you again, the second-largest industry in Ontario--that there be an agricultural sectoral representation, a very strong sectoral group. Yes, in certain areas we are a comparatively small player within some of the proposed local boards, but in certain proposed local board areas we are by far the majority. This group would address the numerous issues which are far more similar among the farmers across the entire province than between businesses within the local community.
A case in point is the fact that OATI was conceived and created to address the management and skills training needs of all Ontario farmers. We appreciate that agricultural knowledge among people involved in other businesses of the province is much less the norm than a few decades ago. Since the Second World War there has been an ever-widening gap between rural people and the people involved in manufacturing and other prime industries. The agricultural voice had become lost and the uniqueness of agricultural training needs was lost with it. Agriculture knows what it needs, just as other industries do. It was somewhat akin to fitting the proverbial round peg into a square hole to expect generic training programs to adequately meet the training of agricultural workers.
OATI recommends that between subsection 19(5) and subsection 20(1) the following be inserted: "There will be sectoral groups reporting to the councils to address issues of particular interest to specific industries within the province."
In summary, the Ontario Agricultural Training Institute is pleased to see the government of Ontario address the need for training and adjustment for workers in the province. However, we wish to ensure that OTAB's focus is on training for a competitive workplace, that the directors fairly represent the full Ontario workforce and that local boards have appropriate powers. Most important, especially in the agricultural sector, is that sectoral interests of integral industries, such as agriculture, be specifically addressed within the system.
If I may, Mr Chairman, I would refer you to page 7, which is an outline summary of recommendations by OATI.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. Questions? Ms Marland.
Mrs Marland: In looking at the third recommendation of the OFA, where you are saying OTAB's governing board of directors be expanded to include one agricultural appointment, speaking as someone who did grow up on a farm, I can understand the special needs of addressing the work of people who work in farming. I have difficulty with OTAB to start with, so of course that's no surprise to you. But I think some of your recommendations point out that OTAB isn't the answer, isn't the solution.
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I want to play the devil's advocate with you here a little bit, not that I'm questioning the necessity for an agricultural appointment, because I agree with it. As I said, I understand what's different about that form of employment compared to a whole lot of other forms of employment. But I'm wondering where we stop--not we, because we wouldn't be part of it in the first place--but where the government would stop with including special representatives.
The group before you this afternoon--I don't know if you heard it--wanted youth to be directly represented on the board. I'm wondering, having spent a year travelling this province with a legislative committee and going into 17 mines, why it wouldn't be necessary to have a special appointment of a representative from that industry alone, people who mine and work underground.
There are so many areas that are so totally different from anybody else's job and work environment that it may be necessary, instead of having this present structure of labour and management, to indeed go into special appointments. I'm just wondering, in supporting your suggestion, which I support, how you would answer the question, "Where do we stop?" If the government says no to you, and I guess, Mr Sulliman, you've been pretty close to the government--
Mr Sulliman: That's a scary thought. You obviously don't know my background, Margaret. You tell Bob that, all right?
Mrs Marland: I didn't finish my sentence.
Mr Sulliman: Somebody lift David off the floor.
Mrs Marland: You said that you had been involved in the meetings--what did you say?--as a representative.
Mr Sulliman: Apparently, yes.
Mrs Marland: So I'm only taking what you said, and I'm thinking, if you couldn't convince them on behalf of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, who could?
What would you say to our delightful socialist government when it says, "But we can't have a representative of youth and we can't have a particular representative of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture because of those eight representatives of unions"--of labour, pardon me; a Freudian slip. "There's going to be input from all of these other employee groups."
That was the answer we got a few minutes ago from our government members, trying to explain it to the people who wanted a youth representative. I'd like to know how you would manage that.
Mr Sulliman: With great respect, the member asks, "Where does it end?" I guess the question that we ask on behalf of the second-largest sector of the Ontario economy today is, "Where does it begin?" The OTAB project has been on the books for some time. Its precursor was Premier Peterson's round table on the economy and people in the workplace, and now it follows through.
The issue for us is that it's time to get on with it. The main message for us today is that the government, in its zeal to correct certain issues and address certain difficulties that confront the Ontario economy and Ontario society, may be slightly overambitious in its vision of OTAB, and it ought to confine its purpose to the workplace and the competitiveness of our economy in the global trading environment.
To that end, I think it would be remiss of the government and of all members of the House and particularly of this committee if you didn't pay serious heed to how integral the second most important segment of this economy is. What are you going to do with the people in agriculture, agribusiness and the small municipalities of this province if this sector of the economy fails because OTAB does not address its needs and it's not seen as a serious partner around the table?
It's critical. You have no other safety nets for them. There is no other place. This is what these people do. It is both livelihood and lifestyle for many people and it is a workplace. The romantic, stereotypical images of farming have got to be put behind you once and for all. That's the main message. It's a business.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Sutherland.
Mrs Marland: Excuse me, Mr Chairman.
The Vice-Chair: Your time has expired. I'm sorry. Mr Sutherland, go ahead.
Mr Sutherland: Thanks for coming in today and making a presentation from both organizations. Both of you talked about sectoral training councils, and the legislation does allow for the establishment of them in terms of section 19 of the legislation. You also talked about--particularly I'm referring to the OFA one, but I believe it was in both of them--under paragraph 4(1)16, the support for publicly funded institutions and the strength of them.
I find it hard to believe that the good farmers in Dover township and Hay township and Zorra township do not support the idea that government institutions help maintain those other government or public institutions--school boards are a sector--given the amount of money and investment the agricultural sector, through the taxes that have been paid, has put into those areas.
I just want to know where the basis for the deletion of that paragraph comes in, given the fact that it is a complementary one to the paragraph before, paragraph 4(1)15, which says to use the diverse training resources of the province. I'm just wondering where the basis of that was coming from.
Mr Sulliman: Do you have an answer?
Mr Weaver: Yes. I think there are two concerns, and then we'll let Carl and/or Cathie expand on them.
The first concern is the purposes of OTAB. Should the primary purpose of OTAB be, as stated, to essentially support publicly funded educational institutions or should that be deleted and left open for what are publicly funded, private organizations that may be out there delivering training needs to agriculture or any other sector of the economy? By having that paragraph in there, then you have the concern that if that's a primary direction within OTAB, it may act as an exclusion against other modes of change. I think that would be particularly important within the agricultural sector.
Mr Sulliman: I think we should be straight about that. If the issue is that one of the ministries of the government and one of the enterprises of the government is underfunded, then it's the responsibility of the government to fund that agency accordingly and not use OTAB to top up something that's being underfunded and under a desk somewhere else, Mr Sutherland. I think that's the issue we have to be very concerned about here.
Mr Sutherland: But that's not the intent.
Mr Sulliman: There's also a perception problem around.
Mr Sutherland: As I say, paragraphs 15 and 16 are meant to be complementary, not in isolation.
Mr Sulliman: Catherine, do you want to add something to this, please?
Ms Cathie Lowry: Paragraph 15 covers the fact that both public and private should be considered by OTAB. Paragraph 16 can be read to say that public should have preference, and if the public organizations are providing better training, OTAB will give them funding. If they are not providing better training, they should not get the work.
Mr Ramsay: I think it's interesting that delegation after delegation--this is one example--have been fairly consistent with some of the points they've brought forward. It's not like this is the first group that's perceived this from this legislation. Many groups with various backgrounds have come up with this, but of course the government doesn't want to argue with everybody. We're here to listen to you. I agree and I'm prepared to take it out.
If you think you fall through the cracks between the ministries of Agriculture and Food and Skills Development when it comes to training, don't hold your breath for OTAB, because you're not at the party at all here at OTAB. The answer to Margaret's question of why every group--I almost feel like I want to move an amendment that every sector, every type of worker gets to be represented on this because people are angry because you've excluded so many people.
If you had left it as a general representation of workers in Ontario, you wouldn't have every group pounding at the door saying, "I want to be in." You've minimized it to such a small group of people, because basically farmers don't count; they're not important because of course they're not unionized. That's why you don't count here. You don't have a seat.
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Now here's an organization--because you always make the argument--a democratic organization that represents at least 20,000 farmers, voluntarily, by the way. They've paid their $150. These people could nominate somebody and that person would be responsible to the OFA. They would be responsible. There's one example right there of how you could get somebody. That's what this group is asking for. They're asking for a place at the table, but it's so exclusive and not inclusive and that's why groups are angry. I wish the government members would see that.
I really thank you for your presentation, especially the format where you've got nice summaries of your recommendations. It's going to make it very easy for me for working on amendments. I agree with these. I wish you well. Agriculture is a very important part of the economy of Ontario, and I'm glad you're here and speaking up on behalf of farmers.
Mrs Marland: Can I have some of your time, David?
The Vice-Chair: You may wish to respond to that very briefly.
Mr Sulliman: In summary, it is the responsibility of the men and women elected to the Legislative Assembly to put through the enabling legislation for OTAB. You will hear a parade of people who will come with their special pleas, their wish lists, what they would like from you, what they would like from the Legislative Assembly.
All I am asking you as responsible members of Parliament to do is to remember how integral this industry is, and the infrastructure and the backbone we provide to all of those rural municipalities outside of urban Ontario. As we prosper and as we are able to retool for an increasingly competitive world and an increasingly competitive workplace, so Ontario will prosper.
I think we are part of the solution for you if you will be partners in that prosperity with us and take our sector seriously. That's the invitation to you. It's a constructive and cooperative attitude we have, but you must take us seriously. You can no longer marginalize the second most important sector of the economy.
The Vice-Chair: I'd like to thank the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Ontario Agricultural Training Institute and each of you for coming forward today and so effectively putting forward the views of the organizations you represent. I'm sure that this committee will take your testimony here at the committee very seriously, and I think has listened, by and large, very carefully to the things you've had to say. Thank you very much for appearing here today.
Mrs Marland: I would just like to place on the record--I was interrupted before--on a point of privilege, the fact that in my questions to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture I was definitely supporting its position. I agree with them wholeheartedly. My question to them was, how can they help us to make the argument to the government when all of these other constituent groups are coming, as they heard the group even before them this afternoon?
My concern is not in the quality of their argument, but I felt that when you interrupted my question, it was just slightly unfair, Mr Chairman, because the point was lost in supporting this particular deputation and asking for its help to convince the government to recognize the second-largest employer in this province.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for that clarification, Mrs Marland. Unfortunately, as you know, we are bound by schedule and that schedule is getting farther and farther behind, but we appreciate your point of view. We would only hope that the time doesn't come off the next group, which is patiently waiting to appear before the committee. Thank you very much.
NISHNAWBE-ASKI NATION
The Vice-Chair: The next witnesses are the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, if they could come forward, please, and identify themselves.
Mrs Marland: What time is it? I have 3:32 pm.
The Vice-Chair: If you could identify yourselves for the purposes of Hansard and proceed with your presentation. For the benefit of Mrs Marland, it is 3:35 and 18 seconds. Go ahead.
Ms Ruth Corbett: My name is Ruth Corbett. I am the education policy analyst for Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, whose head offices are in Thunder Bay, Ontario. I'm almost assuming that everybody in this room knows where Nishnawbe-Aski Nation is. Just to give you an idea, it's all of northern Ontario. It's all the waters that flow into Hudson Bay and James Bay; that's how the geographic area was determined in our treaties, Treaty 9 and Treaty 5.
I'm going to make a short presentation on the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation's position regarding the OTAB legislation, Bill 96. I have with me Norm Wesley, who will be dealing with the Mushkegowuk council. Mushkegowuk council is a member of the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation. It's one of its councils in our organization.
The OTAB legislative process is occurring without the fundamental issue of first nations' self-government and jurisdiction being addressed. Where in this whole process is the implementation of the government-to-government relationship that is supposed to exist between the first nations and the government of Ontario? How is the province's recognition of the inherent right to self-government of first nations being addressed in this process?
In the proposed legislation there is no definite direction as to the participation and role of aboriginal people in the governing body of OTAB. Nishnawbe-Aski Nation is not an interest group and will not adhere to the proposal that an additional director may be appointed on the request of aboriginal people.
For Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, due to our geographic realities and the limited financial and human resources that we have, this process is moving much too quickly. This exercise is another example of the province setting the agenda and the first nations are put in a position of responding, as opposed to being equal partners in this process.
Nishnawbe-Aski Nation is recommending that provisions are made in this legislation which enable the first nations to pursue a government-to-government relationship that exists between our first nations and the province of Ontario.
Just as a reality of our situation, Nishnawbe-Aski Nation has as signatories to our treaties both Canada and the province of Ontario, and the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation will not let the federal government renege on its fiduciary responsibilities in all areas of its responsibilities and services to the people of the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation.
For the information of the clerk, I will be forwarding more background information on Nishnawbe-Aski Nation if it's required. I'll pass the rest of the statement to Norm Wesley.
Mr Norm Wesley: Thank you, Ruth. I should say that my name is Norm Wesley. I don't hold any official position with the Mushkegowuk council. I am merely a messenger. Greetings to all of you from the Mushkegowuk first nations and from the Mushkegowuk council. Our presentation today will focus on three areas: an overview of the Mushkegowuk region, the Mushkegowuk region and the federal-provincial training environment, and recommendations of Bill 96 legislation.
As a precursor to today's presentation I would like to remind the standing committee that the government of Ontario is committed, along with the aboriginal peoples, to the Statement of Political Relationship, which was signed in August 1991. It is important for all parties to keep this relationship in mind as we deal with any legislation within the province of Ontario.
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Specific to Bill 96, it must be stressed that we do not appear before the standing committee as representatives of underrepresented or disadvantaged groups. Mushkegowuk council appears today to speak on a government-to-government basis, as our Cree elders and communities have done so since we first discovered Europeans on the shores of James Bay and Hudson Bay a few hundred years ago.
Mushkegowuk territory covers 20% of the land mass of Ontario and is located in the northeast, on the coast of Hudson and James bays. The territory has an overall population of approximately 7,000 and includes eight Cree communities; namely, the first nations of Weenusk, Attawapiskat, Kashechewan, Fort Albany, Moose Factory and New Post, as well as the communities of Mocreebec and Moosonee. Mushkegowuk council consists of the first nations plus Mocreebec.
The Mushkegowuk region is a distinct area with a unique geography, culture and economy. The subarctic geography features muskeg, powerful rivers and the coast of James and Hudson bays. Of the eight communities, four are only accessible by air, while three have rail access. Only one community, namely New Post, is linked to the provincial road system.
The inhabitants of the region are predominantly Cree and have a culture and a way of life which is interwoven with the lands, waters and animals. The Cree language is actively used and is the first language of many of our elders and adults.
The economy of the region can be summarized as a mixed economy with a traditional base. Hunting, fishing and trapping are important activities which provide close to 25% of the family income. The overall value of this sector of the economy was just under $10 million for 1991-92. Other sectors of the economy include the first nation governments, microenterprises and formal businesses. The non-native business sector represents about 30% of the economy, and the Cree business sector represents only 2% of the overall economy. More detailed information on the Mushkegowuk economy is provided in The Mushkegowuk Economy: 1992 Summary Report.
It's important for the standing committee to note that the Mushkegowuk council, at the request of its own member communities, is currently engaged in preliminary discussions with the province of Ontario on self-governance within the Mushkegowuk region. Mushkegowuk council is undertaking detailed work in areas such as self-governance models, land use planning, and provincial and federal legislation and policy.
The Statement of Political Relationship commits the province of Ontario to engage in government-to-government discussions with aboriginal peoples. Aboriginal peoples themselves must decide what organizations and structures can best meet their present and future needs. In the case of the Mushkegowuk first nations, they have given a clear mandate to Mushkegowuk council to carry out self-government discussions with the province of Ontario for the Mushkegowuk region.
With regard to training and labour force development, the Mushkegowuk first nations have also requested that Mushkegowuk council speak on their behalf in addressing Bill 96. Other aboriginal organizations can raise issues of a larger aboriginal community; however, no other organization has been given the authority to represent the views of the Mushkegowuk first nations on this issue.
The Mushkegowuk communities are involved in community economic development initiatives at both the community and regional levels. The overall approach focuses on the renewal of the local community economies. The establishment of a regional support infrastructure, under community control, is an important component of this work. Efforts at the regional level are in three key areas: economic planning, business development and training.
Historically, the Mushkegowuk region has received very little training support from either the provincial or federal government. In terms of per capital training dollars spent by the provincial government, the Mushkegowuk region still ranks as one of the lowest in Ontario.
In 1991, Mushkegowuk council began to address this historical training neglect by establishing, in partnership with the Moosonee Native Friendship Centre and the Moosonee Metis Association, one of the first area management boards to be recognized in Ontario under the Pathways to Success initiative, a joint initiative of the national native organizations and Employment and Immigration Canada.
Our training board, Omushkegowuk Training Management Board, had a 1991-92 budget allocation of $2.1 million. The 1993-94 budget allocation is $2.8 million. These federal training allocations compare with pre-Pathways funding to the region which totalled $200,000 to $400,000 annually.
In early 1992, Mushkegowuk council and the OTMB learned of Ontario's intention to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. Since that time, Mushkegowuk council and OTMB have been actively involved in discussions on OTAB through the Aboriginal Intergovernmental Committee on Training and other vehicles.
It is with some amusement and a great deal of concern that we noted in 1992 that the government of Ontario was developing a new approach to training based on state-of-the-art practices in European countries such as England, Germany and Holland. Provincial politicians and bureaucrats displayed a complete ignorance of the aboriginal training structure known as Pathways located within the province and yet had detailed knowledge of European training structures. It seems that 500 years after Columbus discovered America, the provincial government would still prefer to look to Europe for solutions rather than consider the knowledge and structures within the aboriginal community.
The current aboriginal training structure within the province of Ontario, with 15 area management boards and a regional management board, could be an important model for OTAB and Bill 96. The key features of the Pathways structure are local partnerships, local control over funding approvals and direct linkages between the local boards and the provincial board, with the chair of each local board sitting on the regional body. Areas which need to be further explored within the Pathways system include questions about jurisdiction and control over funding levels and training program development.
The government of Ontario could benefit by developing a deeper understanding of the aboriginal training structure within the province and by incorporating suitable elements into the OTAB framework to the benefit of all Ontario populations.
Regardless of the overall OTAB process, the aboriginal community will clearly wish to build on the Pathways training infrastructure in order to better meet the needs of our communities. In the Mushkegowuk region, OTMB is a vast improvement over previous levels of funding and control. It is our intention to supplement the federal resources with provincial dollars. It is also our intention to work towards developing our own programs and services rather than simply accepting what is offered by either the federal or provincial government.
Mushkegowuk council wishes to clearly express that the status quo, where the province develops training programs and structures without a mechanism for input or control over decision-making from the Mushkegowuk region, is quite simply not acceptable. That approach has never met the needs of our communities and will not do so in the future. The only way we can ensure that our needs are met is for us to meet our own needs. Thus, we must have control over funding and the control over development of our own training programs and criteria.
To effectively address provincial legislation and training in a detailed and systematic manner, the Mushkegowuk communities must address two key barriers:
(1) Resources for consultation: To undertake detailed work in assessing provincial training programs, assessing training needs and developing/modifying appropriate board structures, our region requires immediate financial resources to permit a detailed consultation process to begin with our membership. It is our understanding that these financial resources are finally being approved for this work some six months after we were assured that the consultation process could begin shortly.
(2) Fiduciary responsibility of the federal government: There is a concern that the movement towards a devolution of federal training resources and responsibility to the provincial governments will lead to a decreased level of aboriginal control over training.
Further to point 1 above, it must be stressed that the aboriginal organizations are being asked to make presentations to the standing committee without having had the opportunity to carry out an adequate consultation with member communities. This places both the aboriginal organizations and the standing committee in an awkward position. This leaves both parties with two options: (a) to slow down the legislative process or (b) to include flexible amendments to Bill 96 which will accommodate aboriginal concerns.
Recommendations on Bill 96 legislation: Mushkegowuk council takes the following positions with regard to Bill 96 legislation:
(1) The Ontario aboriginal community needs to have control over adequate provincial financial resources to meet the training needs of our communities.
(2) The Ontario aboriginal community needs to have control over the design and development of provincial training programs for aboriginal communities.
(3) The present federally funded training infrastructure of area management boards and regional area management boards should serve as the foundation for provincially funded aboriginal training. Emphasis on local native control over decision-making and linkages between local and provincial boards should be maintained.
(4) Aboriginal access to funding and control over program development must be legislated through amendments to Bill 96 or through introduction of a second bill which would create a parallel board to OTAB for the aboriginal community. However, the Ontario aboriginal community must complete a detailed consultation process with its membership before choosing an internal or external process. Therefore, Bill 96 must be amended to allow for two possibilities, an acceptable aboriginal process within OTAB or a parallel external process.
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Point 4 above will call for creative legislative legal work which will enable either eventuality. Amendments to accommodate an internal process for aboriginal peoples will be extensive. The major amendments would be in sections 9 and 10, to ensure an adequate number of aboriginal representatives on OTAB selected by and not for aboriginal communities, and section 29, to ensure first nation governments as an equal party to future modifications by the federal and provincial governments, as well as an additional section to clearly specify a separate aboriginal allocation within OTAB. Consideration should be given to improved linkages between local labour force boards and OTAB, section 18.
Community consultation will also be important for defining communication mechanisms between aboriginal and non-aboriginal sectors. In the Mushkegowuk region, local aboriginal control over training resources and program development is the only way to ensure that we can meet our communities' training needs. Adequate and appropriate investment in our human resources will benefit our communities, our region and the province as a whole.
Mr Chairman, members of the committee, that is the end of my presentation. As I said, I am merely a messenger of the Mushkegowuk council, and if you have any questions, I will try to answer them the best I can. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mr Wood, please.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): Thank you very much for the excellent presentations that have been put together. I know you're saying that you're delivering the message on behalf of the Mushkegowuk council, but the packages are well put together.
I'm concerned about whether the aboriginal groups think they could be involved in local boards with non-aboriginal groups, or should it be something that's designed entirely for the aboriginal communities on a government-to-government basis? I'm talking about the local boards, Norm, or--
Interjection: Do you want to answer that?
Mr Wesley: I'll try to answer that, Len. Based on some of the discussions we've had as a tribal council, and I think my response could probably be identical to many of the first nation communities under tribal councils and other organizations in the province of Ontario, the preferred route we would like to see as we deal with this piece of legislation, Bill 96, on OTAB is to go the route of government-to-government relations, that which is pretty well spelled out within the Statement of Political Relationship. I don't believe there's very much activity within the extent of trying to find a means of proving the elements of the Statement of Political Relationship. Perhaps this might be one of them. So I think that would be the preferred route.
That's not to say that we as aboriginal people, especially in the Mushkegowuk region, have not been able to work with non-natives and non-native communities. We have in many cases, as you will know, Len, in education and health and also with the area management boards. But the preferred route in terms of what I believe would be followed would be as government-to-government relationships.
Mr Wood: I know Tony Martin wants to ask a question, but just briefly, I'm aware of the relationship on economic development that works in Cochrane and Hearst from the James Bay and Hudson Bay coast coming down, which is all within my riding. With that, I'd just like to say that once again it's nice to see you and it's nice to see the NAN and the Mushkegowuk council come forward with a presentation on behalf of the aboriginal people. I'm sure that the group here, the government as well as the opposition, is paying attention to what is being presented today. Thank you.
Mr Martin: I just wanted to say that certainly our government, through my colleague and neighbour Bud Wildman, I think has made some strides to recognize the inherent right of self-government and done some things of that nature.
It seems to me in some of the background reading I've done re this exercise that we have as well set up a separate organization equal to at least the other training partners, labour and business, to have those discussions happen and that in fact there is some effort being made to have a process that will develop something that, in the end, hopefully will be satisfactory to the native peoples.
I believe in March 1992 that particular group was set up called AICOT which made some request to the government and then the deputy minister responded with some discussions and the discussion continues. A lot of the groups that have come before us up to this point have shared a sense of urgency to get on with this thing. I recognize that the native folks, in Ontario particularly, have some stuff to work out before you actually get down to how you do this training and what kind of training and what does the future hold.
Are you suggesting that the rest of the province wait until that is done so that it happens at the same time, or what are you saying?
Ms Corbett: I'll answer that. The position of the Nishawbe-Aski Nation as a political organization strongly believes in the government-to-government relationship and negotiations to take place with the provincial government and the federal government as well.
In the area of education and training, our view is that this whole process is a long-life and holistic process. We were actually happy, I guess hopeful, that the present government has seen fit to combine the existing or former ministries of Education, Colleges and Universities and Skills Development under one major ministry. How the whole structure is going to look remains to be seen.
But our position is that the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation is a government and will continue its negotiations in that vein. For a process that exists, we're on record also as recommending that the declaration of political intent be the vehicle in determining jurisdiction and self-government processes with the province in that it is the only process right now where the federal government is also a party to the negotiations. It always has been our belief that the federal government has a responsibility to the first nations in Ontario, and we're not going to let it forget that responsibility.
Mr Wood: Don't let them off the hook.
Ms Corbett: No.
The Chair: Thank you, ma'am. Mr Ramsay, please.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm very impressed to learn through your presentation the organization, your training and management board that you have in place. I want to ask you about that, because what we hear from the background papers that will lead to the establishment of these LTABs--they're going to come out of OTAB--is that the organizations that the federal government already has in place throughout Ontario in the non-native community--they're called community industrial training committees--are going to be scrapped and these LTABs will be the entities that take care of training.
I'm wondering what's going to happen to your funding when OTAB comes into play, because the CITCs have been funded by Employment and Immigration Canada, the same partner you have with your training boards. Do you have a sense of what's going to happen when OTAB is established and these LTABs are established in different regions? There's going to be one in the great northeast. Will this affect your organizations, or are you going to have the opportunity to keep the organizations going?
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Mr Wesley: This is one of the many elements that we have to look at. We don't know if it will impact on us to any degree, small or large, and this is what we're saying. OTAB is just an acronym that just came out of Queen's Park, if you will, and in the first nation communities, you talk about OTAB and they say: "What is it? Something you use for filing and that kind of stuff?"
Nobody really knows what it is, except for those of us, of course, who get the information. But the information has to be disseminated for the various chiefs and councils and communities to get an understanding of what this whole initiative's all about, and also how it's going to affect the current development with the area management boards and regional area management boards under the federal regime. We don't really know. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don't. But this is the nature of the beast we're dealing with, from our perspective.
Mr Ramsay: I'd be concerned, because other groups that have come before us have been concerned about the organizations that they have already been able to develop on the ground in their communities and, like you, have come together with a community of interest and have really started to be effective in providing training for their communities.
In the non-native community, of course, unfortunately it's all going to be scrapped with this new great idea that Queen's Park is going to have and it's going to put on everybody in all the communities, so I'd certainly be interested in finding out more about it on your behalf for sure. From your end, I'd certainly appreciate hearing from you what's going to happen, because this seems to be quite a revolution in the organization of skills training.
As far as I'm concerned, you should probably be left on your own. You've got a good organization in place. I'm very envious of the funding you've got. You've done very well, and it looks like you've got an effective group going there. As far as I'm concerned, you should be left to do that on your own if that's what you wish to do, because you seem to be effective.
I'm going to defer to my colleague Dalton McGuinty here.
The Chair: Mr McGuinty, please. Quickly, okay?
Mr McGuinty: I was interested to hear that you feel you have been left out of the process in terms of the process that lends some shape to the bill.
There's an OTAB project newsletter that comes out from time to time and it says in here that "The labour market partners and stakeholders were involved and consulted throughout the drafting process. The government said that having the partners help develop the bill would ensure that they'd be leading something they had created together." I gather you take some issue with that. Were you called upon at any time to express your views on this matter?
Ms Corbett: No. This is as a member of Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, and I'm dealing with the education and training initiatives of the province and the federal government. We do not receive timely information, and it takes us a while to get that information out and digest it and respond to what's happening, because our belief is that our members at the community levels be involved in this process. There are now only two or three people who make decisions and are a part of the procedure that's going on.
Mr Turnbull: Can I just get some clarification? My understanding of your brief is that you would prefer to be left alone to continue to do your own training, as your first choice, and you would do this in isolation from OTAB if it was set up. If that is not the case, you want to be more involved in OTAB and you have concerns about the funding for programs which would flow out of OTAB to your community. Is that a correct statement of the two alternatives that you've put?
Mr Wesley: Yes and no. Yes, up to the point that I guess if it wasn't possible to set up a parallel process within the province of Ontario for first nation OTAB to take place, I'm sure that there would be a lot of concern on the part of the first nation community, the first nation leadership, on how that would be interpreted in terms of perhaps the federal government abrogating its responsibility for training to first nation peoples in the province of Ontario. That is something I'm sure we're going to have to take a very good, hard look at, if in fact the development of first nation OTAB is not realistically possible within this government here.
Mr Turnbull: OTAB would be the overall organization. LTAB is what is referred to as the local organization, and there's concern that there would be weakening of that kind of structure. Let me ask you--and I'm not leading you in any direction--given the nature of training today and the competitive pressures we have around the world, is it possible that we in Canada should be looking for a national strategy rather than taking it down to continuing lower levels of government, or breaking up the pie? There are certain skill sets we're going to have to train, and flexibility is the name of the game. I just throw that out to you to see what your response will be.
Ms Corbett: Yes. In the long-term vision of our people, that is true, but in so many cases in our communities, we're looking at things from day to day, and for us to be effective partners and players in the whole area of training and the workforce in Ontario, we have to start from our community levels and what our communities envision to be their role in this whole process.
Mr Turnbull: By that do you mean you feel you can more correctly target the kind of training you need for the sort of jobs you will have locally by keeping control at the local level?
Ms Corbett: Yes.
The Chair: On behalf of of the committee, I want to thank you, Ms Corbett, and you, sir, Mr Wesley, for your appearance here today. You have provided yet another unique perspective on this bill and its impact. You've spoken for a significant community, the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation. The committee here is grateful to you and we hope you'll tell the community you speak for that we appreciate their interest and their eagerness to participate in this particular process. We trust you'll keep in touch. Please have a safe trip home. Thank you kindly, people.
Ms Corbett: Meegwetch.
ONTARIO HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Home Builders' Association, if your spokespeople would please come forward, have a seat and tell us their names or titles, if any. We've got your written submission which will become part of the record by virtue of having been received as an exhibit. Please try to save the second 15 minutes of your 30 for questions and exchanges.
Mr David Wassmansdorf: My name is David Wassmansdorf and I am chairman of the Ontario Home Builders' Association training and education committee. I have held this post for the past three years, along with trying to build houses and develop land in the province of Ontario. With me this afternoon is Andy Manahan. Andy is director of industry relations at OHBA.
Our committee has been following the activities of OTAB with interest and we are both actively involved with the business reference group which has been working with the government to bring about appropriate legislation and interviewing suitable candidates for the governing body, among other things.
Members of this committee no doubt have some familiarity with OHBA. Several of you heard OHBA's president, Phil McColeman, speak on the Ontario Labour Relations Act last summer, so I will briefly summarize here the composition of OHBA.
As you know, the Ontario Home Builders' Association is the voice of the residential construction industry in Ontario, representing 3,800 member companies which are organized into 36 local associations. We are proud to note that this is an expansion of one over last year. Our membership is made up of all disciplines involved in the residential construction industry, including builders, land developers, renovators, trade contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, realtors, mortgage lenders, apartment owners and managers, housing consultants, economists, planners, architects, engineers and lawyers. Together we produce 80% of the province's new housing.
OHBA holds a number of seminars each year and our many committees and publications serve as educational devices for our membership. For example, last month OHBA hosted its sixth annual Builder Forum which usually has about 24 different workshops ranging in scope from the building code changes to waste reduction on construction sites to planning process amendments. Of course, many of these workshops encompass both the political side in the form of legislative updates and the practical side in the form of technological advances.
Our local associations have monthly meetings and workshops on a variety of topics. Thus, despite the belief that some within government might have, that OHBA exists to pursue its own agenda with government, we in fact represent, in a very tangible way, our employees and our consumers, with the prime mandate of this organization being to share information and train our membership.
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From the outset, we wish to emphasize our support for the principles outlined in Skills to Meet the Challenge: A Training Partnership for Ontario, and believe that in the long term, this type of significant restructuring of training delivery will greatly benefit our economic and social prosperity. There is too much fragmentation currently within government as it pertains to training delivery programs, and the schedule 4 corporation known as OTAB, if implemented properly, should go a long way to improving coordination, equity and cost-effectiveness.
We do have some significant concerns with the draft legislation, and we have some suggestions we'd like to make regarding improvements. I'd like to address those, decision-making being one of them. At the risk of being repetitious, we will state our fundamental concern, which pertains to the composition of the governing body and the way in which decisions are arrived at. As you have already heard from the business steering committee on January 28, consensus style decision-making can be strengthened by instituting a double-majority system of voting. In other words, both labour and management stakeholders must have a majority of their representatives show support for a proposal.
In addition, a simple majority of the entire governing body is necessary for an item to gain approval. Thus, with a full representation of 22 board members, a total of 12 members would have to demonstrate support for a particular motion in order for that motion to pass. I would like to note that some members of government agree with this, particularly Richard Allen, who wrote to the labour market partners and stated his belief that this type of consensus decision-making process was something he could support. I applaud him for that and hope that this will be carried out in the legislation.
In addition, as you know, labour has shown support for this concept in the past. Business groups have taken a keener interest in the double-majority concept in the last four months because of the breakdown in decision-making at the Workplace Health and Safety Agency, which has a bipartite board of directors. A double-majority voting system would have helped to avoid the fallout at the agency, and we believe it will offer a more constructive mechanism to achieve consensus at OTAB. I'm sure we all agree that consensus can be better achieved when issues such as safety and training are debated in this manner as opposed to the polarization which has occurred when issues of this nature are dealt with in a collective bargaining fashion.
Representation on the governing body is also an issue which I'm sure you are familiar with. Labour will be entirely represented by organized labour even though its membership represents only one third of employees in the province. We believe there should be some mechanism to ensure that non-organized labour has a voice on OTAB's governing body. We live in a democratic society, and workers who have chosen not to join unions should be given a solid voice on our training direction in Ontario.
OHBA has not taken out billboards to protest government action, as other groups have, but we have closely monitored a variety of legislative initiatives. We know that the government respects the opinion of OHBA, and we contend that this government must start listening to business and not pander to union wish lists. The government of Ontario must do what is right for the people, the workers and the economy, not what is best for union power brokers.
The home building industry is primarily non-union, as opposed to the ICI sector: industrial, commercial, institutional. In fact, you may be surprised to find out that most of our home builders construct fewer than five homes per year. We have a hardworking, entrepreneurial group of people who take pride in the quality of their finished products and at the end of the day hope to make a profit doing so.
Owners of small building companies hire subcontractors to complete specific components of the house, but these owners are also, in many cases, involved in the actual building of these houses. Similarly, small renovation firms will often have the owner as the key skilled tradesperson on the job site. These people obviously have no need to become unionized, and prefer their independence.
OHBA has individuals in mind to sit on one of the four councils which will be created under OTAB. But we will be reluctant to forward these names if representation on the governing body is so highly rigged in favour of unions, and hence on training structures which accommodate and facilitate union environments. How will small business, such as the small home builders or renovators and the subtrade contractors they employ, be accounted for in this type of body? In reality, this group of owner-workers could just as easily be represented on the labour side of the governing body.
OHBA is particularly supportive of the apprenticeship reform council. It is quite clear that the long-term health of the construction industry is dependent on having a pool of talented young people who have had specialized skills developed through the apprenticeship system. A national apprenticeship survey which compared students who completed the program with those who did not found, as expected, that the median annual income was higher for those who completed their apprenticeship. Therefore, there are benefits to the individual, not only from a monetary perspective but also from the perspective of acquiring worthwhile skills.
The role of pre-apprenticeship training was touched upon in the national survey. Those who completed high school had a better chance of finishing their apprenticeship. We would take this one step further, however. It seems that many young people have the impression that construction-related employment is not desirable, and this myth is exacerbated by a lack of promotion of our industry by high school teachers and guidance counsellors. I'm sure you've heard that from other industry groups as well.
In fact, the opposite is true. Construction workers have competitive incomes when compared with many other industries and office employment. Young people also have the impression that construction is typified by road crews, when in reality we know there is a whole range of onsite construction trade jobs from framing to roofing, electrical, plumbing and so on.
Without a concerted effort to enlighten young people about the benefits of residential construction employment, there will be shortages of labour, perhaps even severe labour shortages in the next 10 years. In March 1991, housing economist Frank Clayton completed a report for the Canadian Home Builders' Association which concluded that "the downturn in new housing construction is eroding the capacity of the home building industry to respond to the inevitable recovery in housing demand. Substantial layoffs have occurred within the industry itself and the subtrades that build the houses. Builders are leaving the industry." In our industry, when we talk about builders, we mean tradespeople and other related employment.
It is two years later and we continue to have high unemployment in the construction industry. Statistics Canada reports that in Ontario the unemployment rate is 26.7%. The average age in many trades continues to rise and in certain cases it is over 50 years of age. If you drive down to a job site and look at the masonry contractors and the bricklayers and what not, you'll see how old many of them are. OHBA believes that it will be extremely difficult to find appropriate skilled tradespeople if there is a significant increase in consumer demand for new housing. One of the consequences of this is that wages will be pushed higher. This will have a negative impact on housing affordability.
We are also still waiting for a noticeable turnaround in new housing demand. The total number of housing starts of 55,772 in 1992 was 6% over the level of 1991. However, this is still only 53% of the peak level witnessed in 1987 of 105,213 starts. Housing economists tell us that new housing should pick up in 1993, and I'm happy to say that we're seeing that on our job sites. We're looking for a forecast of 58,200 for this year and 67,200 for 1994 as a result of continued strong migration and an economic recovery.
In summary, demographics are not in our favour, and any dramatic surge in demand will strain our ability to supply skilled labour. Targeted training programs are certainly part of the solution to meet housing requirements.
What can OTAB do to help us out of this situation? We're not entirely sure, but coordination and funding assistance are two areas that come to mind. Let me tell you what the home builders have been doing to help ourselves and those thinking of a career in this industry.
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The Canadian Home Builders' Association national education and training committee has just designed brochures which will be distributed to schools across the country. One, entitled Career Paths in the Residential Construction Industry, outlines a host of employment opportunities which are available. Examples are marketing and selling, engineering and design, financing, building and renovating, and managing functions. It should be noted that we are supportive of greater employment equity and that our industry has witnessed a greater diversity of individuals entering these fields over the past 10 years.
Several of our local associations have run programs whereby high school students participate in the building of a house. One such program is CTOP, or the construction trades orientation program, which was a joint effort of the Hamilton-Halton Home Builders' Association, the Hamilton Construction Association and the Mohawk College skills development office.
Once the students complete the 34-week training program, they begin immediately as productive members of a construction team. During the program the student is adopted by a company for about 10% of his total training time. Another internship program offered to Kingston high school students who built portable classrooms is highlighted in the OHBA magazine appended to this presentation.
This type of approach has resulted in excellent placement ratios for those seeking employment in the residential construction industry. For example, when the CTOP course was last offered in 1991, there was a 100% placement level. We hope that this successful approach will be continued under OTAB. "Partnership" is an overused word, but it is necessary for training to accomplish its objectives. Can the work that we are doing be encouraged under the proposed structure of OTAB?
As mentioned earlier, we concur with the three substantive points made by the business steering committee that Bill 96 needs to be focused, needs to address wealth creation and in the end should be affordable. There must be a clear link between training and employability and therefore the word "appropriate" needs to precede "labour force development programs."
An emphasis on competitiveness is required in Bill 96. Higher workforce participation rates are a prerequisite to competitiveness, and in our global economy training to achieve job creation is mandatory. Placing greater focus on competitiveness within the legislation will not diminish the importance of equity concerns. Actually, competitiveness has a number of spinoffs which help to achieve greater equity in the workforce and enhance our ability to fund social programs. It should be stressed that Bill 96 must concentrate on the private sector to really make a difference in achieving competitiveness.
Affordability is a cornerstone of what OTAB should be in order to be effective. The goal of amalgamating the training functions of 10 ministries under one roof appears to be sound and should result in economies of scale. However, we must caution that an expansion of the bureaucracy would be counterproductive to an affordable OTAB and would not necessarily result in the delivery of more or better quality training courses.
The framework we envision would be to continue allowing the grass-roots training initiatives already established under the CITCs. Local delivery entails appropriate geographical boundaries. While 58 may be too many, we believe that 22 local boards may be too few. Some local boards will cover much too broad a geographical area and this will limit effective delivery.
We recognize that Bill 96 does not directly address local board issues, but we want to highlight that these boards require a degree of autonomy to custom-tailor training programs that match local needs and labour market conditions. Therefore, flexibility is a principle which the governing body should keep in mind when setting the terms of reference. A client-needs-driven approach will assist in guiding OTAB through these waters.
The regulations under this act will no doubt have a significant effect on the shape of OTAB and on the role of local boards. We are thus supportive of subsection 30(2), calling for consultation between the minister and OTAB prior to the setting of regulations. The idea of reference committees is worthwhile and we would suggest that this will allow various sectors to provide meaningful input to the governing body.
In closing, we wish to commend the Premier on his recent initiatives to link welfare payments to obtaining job training. We are also pleased that the Honourable Dave Cooke will oversee the establishment of the Ontario training and adjustment board. OHBA has had productive contact with the minister when he was responsible for Municipal Affairs and we look forward to his pragmatic style and trust that he will influence the enactment of changes to improve this bill. We are both available to answer questions and we thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Ramsay.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much for your presentation. I found it extremely informative, as I'm not all that familiar with the construction industry. You've brought some new insights to my attention and I appreciate that.
I very much found it interesting, as I had suspected, that we don't encourage our youths to get involved in construction, that if you ask parents, "What would you like your children to be?" probably the last thing they would have on their minds might be a constructive job or working in the service industry. Yet that's where a lot of people work and it's good work.
I'm glad to see you've got your booklet developed. I think that might help our young people to make a good decision.
Mr Wassmansdorf: We're hoping so.
Mr Ramsay: I appreciate your advice on decision-making. I think that's one area where the legislation is really silent. It really doesn't talk to solving a dispute if one should arise, and I think that needs to be addressed for sure, so I was pleased to see that.
For your sake, I'm pleased to see the forecasts for housing. It's going to start to finally do a modest upturn, from your figures here. If there's any investment that can be made in the economy of Ontario, housing is not only labour-intensive but it demands a lot of materials, as you obviously realize, and it's a great way to get the economy going.
In closing, I'd just like to say that I hope what you've established in your apprenticeship programs and the tremendous linkage you have between the need for certain skills and the training that you provide can be maintained under OTAB. We have great concerns that all the present infrastructure is to be basically thrown out with the imposition of the OTAB structure locally, called the LTABs. I hope we can maintain what you've got here because, as in the industrial trades, it's very successful and yours is too. I certainly support the continuation of your programs.
Mr Wassmansdorf: If I could make a quick comment in response, we are hearing from some of our membership that the local boards are starting to have some effect in trying to get young people into apprenticeship programs that will lead people towards our industry. As those local boards get bigger and bigger, the opportunity for us to have an effect on young people and give them the opportunities in our industry would be diminished.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you.
The Chair: Mr McGuinty, briefly please.
Mr McGuinty: You've again raised a very important point, one connected with the representation on the board. It's one to which members on the committee, I guess, can grow a little bit numb because we've heard it so many times, but in fact it's vitally important. I'm glad you've raised it.
Something else that I'm attracted to is this business of a double majority, and I want to bounce something off you. Some of the presenters have said we should be looking at a triple majority, looking at the significant others, business and labour and the other groups. They as well should be participants in a majority so that we've effectively have three majorities. I just want to get your impression of that.
Mr Wassmansdorf: Andy, you've spent more time with the business reference groups than I have. I'd rather defer to Andy.
Mr Andy Manahan: In private conversation, I've raised this issue with some of the other business steering committee members. Despite the fact that we've heard the strong stance for a double majority system, I think there is certainly room to consider something like a triple majority.
But really the bottom line is that business and the employers in particular have a very strong interest in a competitive workforce, and we don't want it watered down by some type of avoiding mechanism which diminishes the business community's role. If there can be some sort of a quorum mechanism established for a triple majority that works without becoming too cumbersome, I think the business community would be supportive of that.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you.
Mr Turnbull: As your association's representative in the Legislature, it's good to see you here again. I share your concern about attracting people to the Leg--to the industry; crossed lights.
Mrs Marland: We would like to attract some other people to the Legislature.
Mr Turnbull: It is obviously a concern that, as you say, there are many trades where the people are typically over 50, particularly on the masonry side of things.
I particularly want to ask you about the composition of the board and any concerns you may have, recognizing that quite a bit of your industry has organized labour working in it but, as you know, there's a large number of union seats to be allocated.
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Mr Wassmansdorf: When you get outside the greater Toronto area, very little of our residential construction industry is organized. I was hoping I'd stressed that point enough. That's what we're concerned about, that you've got these seats on the labour side of the governing body, yet I very rarely hire a union tradesperson. We build in west-end Toronto as well as building in Guelph, and once you get outside the Toronto area, you just don't see it. It's different than in the industrial-commercial side where you see much more union activity.
Mr Turnbull: From a pragmatic point of view, if it were agreed that a proportional amount of labour seats would be allocated to the board, proportional to the amount of organized labour--let's just pick a number; let's say 35% or 40% of the labour side of it was to be from organized labour--what would be the logistics, in your mind, of choosing people to represent labour from non-organized labour?
Mr Wassmansdorf: I think we've seen at the local level where the LTABs, or what exists right now, the community industrial training committees, are operating, many of them, very well. When you get down to the more grass-roots level, I don't think you see some of the partisanship that we see as you go up the ladder. I think people can work it out between themselves at the local level with a mechanism in place through legislation. So I think we can find representatives through the grass-roots approach, through the local boards, who can represent both sides of labour.
Mr Gary Wilson: I'll just continue in that vein. Although, as some of the opposition members have said, we've heard this concern before, that is, about how organized labour can represent the interests of all workers, we still haven't heard of a very good mechanism to arrive at representatives who would be accountable to any particular group. After all, by definition, unorganized labour just hasn't got any kind of mechanism like that.
I noticed you talked about the local community, and it's true that there will be representatives chosen from local communities, but even there, there is that problem of whom do they represent. So it is something that has to be addressed, I think.
Mr Wassmansdorf: I'd also say, though, that businessmen like myself who are hiring subtrades have an interest in ensuring that the employees whom we hire--
Mr Gary Wilson: Excuse me, Mr Chair, could you ask for a little bit of quiet here?
The Chair: You just did, Mr Wilson. Don't interrupt these people.
Mr Wassmansdorf: We want to hire good, trained people so that when we go in and build a house, we build it once, we build it right. So it's in business's interest to see that we have good people.
The argument has been made at the federal level that, at the apprenticeship level, business can play a role in ensuring that labour requirements are met. We know better than most what we need and how it should be done. We've also learned through some of the other training we've done that it has to be peer taught, that there has to be a group interaction and that it has to be done on a friendly level, and I think we can do that. So there's a role for business to play in representing unorganized labour.
The Chair: Mr Wilson, did you want to give Mr Huget your last 45 seconds?
Mr Gary Wilson: The time is monitored? Then go ahead, Bob.
Mr Huget: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I'll be very, very brief. I just want to refer back to Mr Ramsay's comments about his being relatively surprised that young people were getting into the construction workforce. I would like to know, first of all, whether your organization is indeed encouraging young people to enter the construction trades, and second, whether you think that's a good move for young people in this province.
Mr Wassmansdorf: We think it is. In fact we had a committee meeting yesterday, the training and education committee, and somebody asked one of our members that very same question: Why would you want to be encouraging somebody into our industry? It boils down to that it's a lot of fun and it's very rewarding. The rewards that you get of seeing something that you build and that you create come up out of the ground are very rewarding. That can outweigh a lot of the disadvantages we have seen over the past three years.
Yes, we are trying to encourage people. The development of our brochures and trying to get our local associations out to the schools and at the career fairs and that sort of thing is, I think, having an effect.
The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen. You've brought yet another unique perspective, one of a significant industry here in the province, to the the attention of the committee. The committee is grateful to you for doing that. We appreciate your interest in this legislation and its future. We trust that you'll continue to keep in touch, either with individual members of the Legislature or with this committee. We thank you sincerely for taking the time to come here today. Thank you kindly, people.
Mrs Marland: I really appreciated, Mr Chairman, what the Ontario Home Builders' Association said about young people going into the construction industry and I concur with Mr Huget's comments. I was surprised that Mr Ramsay would have said what he did.
The Chair: I was hoping that somebody would ask them whether that Wonderboard is really preferable to the green drywall when you're doing a shower enclosure in terms of the differential in cost and the difficulty of working with it.
Mr Wassmansdorf: Better to get it done with then, and do it that way.
The Chair: Okay. You've got to pre-drill it before you--
Mr Wassmansdorf: You have to worry about it crumbling on you.
The Chair: Okay. Thank you kindly.
Interjection: Same with the bill, eh?
JOE PERNA
The Chair: The next participant is Joe Perna. Sir, please come forward and have a seat. Tell us what you will about yourself. Please go ahead.
Mr Joe Perna: Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Chairman. My name is Joe Perna and I'm here representing the interests of a number of business organizations. They include the National Council of Ethnic Canadian Business and Professional Associations, Toronto chapter, of which I'm a member of the board of directors. This organization is made up of 36 Metro area ethnically based business and professional associations representing close to 10,000 small businesses and professionals. The national organization, of which Toronto is a chapter, consists of over 100 associations across Canada in eight different cities, representing about 20,000 businesses and professional people.
The second organization I'm representing is the ETAC, Ethnocultural Training Advisory Council, of which I am one of the founders and currently the coordinator. ETAC has as its members the organizations that make up the Toronto chapter of the national council I just described. ETAC is a community industrial training committee coordinating group, or CITC. It has a small amount of funding from the private sector, with the majority coming from Canada Employment and Immigration. There is none from the Ontario government.
ETAC has been in operation for four years, and its mission is to assist people in the ethnocultural communities through specially tailored skills training courses to overcome the barriers to employment and job promotion resulting from their ethnicity. This applies especially to one of the province's best sources of employment talent, which is the ethnic peoples who are in our midst who were well trained in their country of origin but are underemployed here because of barriers resulting from their ethnicity.
ETAC operates in a way which we believe to be a microcosm of how OTAB hopes to operate, or perhaps ought to operate. ETAC's annual budget is around $750,000 and its administrative costs are about 4% of that, much below, we understand, those of many similar organizations and other agencies.
The third organization I'm representing is the National Federation of Canadian Italian Business and Professional Associations, of which I'm the executive director. This federation has seven city chapters representing close to 2,000 member businesses and professionals across Canada. Six of those city chapters are in Ontario, with close to 800 businesses and professionals represented.
Lastly, I'm representing the Canadian Italian Business and Professional Association of Toronto, of which I'm also the executive director. The Toronto association has close to 500 members.
In addition, I am a member of the OTAB business steering committee and have been involved on that for the last 13 or 14 months.
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I want to thank you on behalf of all these organizations for giving me an opportunity to present their concerns on OTAB.
It is with considerable reservation and some scepticism, however, that I am taking my time and your time to make this presentation. This scepticism is based on my understanding that it is extremely unlikely that any changes will be made to the draft legislation as it now stands as a result of any of the presentations you have heard or the written submissions you have received. This understanding comes directly from a recent meeting with the new deputy minister.
This understanding has, as a result, led us to believe that the existence of the standing committee and the efforts of those making submissions may only be a matter of optics, with not a whole lot of genuine substance to them.
Notwithstanding this particular concern, I will proceed with the concerns of the groups I am representing today. Some of these concerns are ones that have been addressed by other organizations, including the business steering committee. I'll be covering them as a means of reinforcing those concerns and to add the specific voices of the organizations I'm representing today.
Our overriding concern is this: The way the legislation presently stands, OTAB will be put in the position of being at great risk of not meeting its principal objectives reflected in its very name, that is, training and adjustment.
The talents, energies and moneys of OTAB could easily be diverted away from the tasks of training and adjustment to areas which are already being taken care of by other government agencies, or should be. The areas which lead us to this conclusion are as follows.
Improving the lives of workers and potential workers: We think it is a worthy and laudable goal that the lives of workers and potential workers should be improved where improvement is needed, a difficult task to accomplish with subjective judgements being requirements at best, however.
This task should not be assigned, as it is in the legislation, to OTAB. There are or perhaps should be other agencies to deal with this matter. OTAB should be devoting all of its resources to training and adjustment. This, along with other programs of assistance outside of OTAB, will be the best way to provide workers and potential workers with the tools they need to improve their lives.
Supporting the existing public education system: This again is a worthy and laudable goal for many reasons, but it should not be mandated to OTAB. What OTAB should be mandated to do is to seek out and provide the very best, appropriate training and adjustment for the best price. If the existing public education system can provide an efficient and effective manner, then OTAB should use it of course. However, if the existing public education system cannot, then it should fix itself through its own means, not with the support of OTAB. To repeat, OTAB's job should be to seek and provide the best, appropriate training for the best value from wherever it is available.
Representation of independent workers: The labour market partners have left out one very important member--independent workers. While the business steering committee was charged with the responsibility of putting forth a slate of eight candidates to represent the composition of Ontario's business sector, the mandate to labour to put forth a similar slate for the labour sector is apparently quite different. The labour representation on the board will apparently consist only of eight organized labour people, which represents only about 30% of the Ontario workforce.
We are very puzzled as to why the remaining 70% of the workforce of independent workers is not represented by the eight labour representatives on the governing board. Surely if 70% of the workforce is independent of labour unions, then 70% of the eight governors representing labour should be independent workers. Perhaps this is an oversight on the part of those who designed the structure of the governing board.
The Ontario workforce: The way OTAB's governing body is set up, it would seem that workers are only those who are members of organized unions, and there is no apparent recognition of those who work independent of those unions.
There is also no apparent recognition in any of the language of the legislation about the vast amount of our workforce who are the owners and operators of small family-owned and slightly larger independent businesses, businesses started by immigrants, our ethnocultural community members. These businesses provide employment for all kinds of people. They also need well-trained people to survive and grow. The owners and operators of these small businesses are workers too.
The role of local boards: We feel the local boards should be empowered so that they can determine what training and adjustment is required in their area of jurisdiction, notwithstanding that their empowerment should fall within broad guidelines and objectives established by the governing body.
It should be clear to any discerning advocate of an effective training and adjustment program that only at the local grass-roots level can the training and adjustment needs be properly determined and delivered.
Of equal importance is the need to recognize that it is the local business operator who will know best what kind and level of skilled help is needed to meet the demand for the services and/or products produced in his or her business.
All too frequently, we find that segments of our education system are quite willing to provide and students are quite willing to take training courses that have little potential for improving access to employment opportunities.
Training tax: The idea of OTAB or some other department of government applying a training tax to business keeps popping up. It is our understanding that there are two assumptions for considering this idea as a means of funding OTAB. One is that the business sector does not spend and has not spent enough money on skills training. The second is that the business sector can afford to pay such a tax.
When considering the second of these views, one should also look at the businesses that have gone bankrupt, quietly dissolved or moved out of the province. We submit to you that it is not because they were making too much profit and therefore could have paid an additional tax over the ones they were already loaded down with, and this says nothing about the nightmarish costs that would be required to collect something such as a training tax per se.
As for the idea that the business sector has not spent enough on training, one would have to wonder how Canada and Ontario ever managed to become the envy of the world for its standard of living and for the wide range of technologically and qualitatively superior products and services it produces.
Let me hasten to say that it was by no means singlehandedly done by the business sector. It was done through the partnership of business, labour, organized and independent, government and Canadian society in general.
Competitiveness and wealth creation: These are two ideas which the business sector has come to realize are dirty words. They are hopeful that one day soon these ideas will be widely accepted as being good for all of us. Believe it or not, the business sector is concerned about the greater good of all Ontarians, because if it's not good for all, then it's not good for business.
We need a workforce which can be successful in today's very competitive global economy, and yes, there must be to some extent competitiveness among each other in the same way that the players in the computer industry, for example, are competing daily for people to buy their particular products. Without a competitive attitude, everyone loses out on the very things we all seem to want to "improve our lives," to quote a phrase contained in the draft legislation about improving the lives of workers.
It is the competitiveness of business that is the engine of wealth creation, and without wealth creation, there can be no wealth to distribute. If we can all embrace this one idea, and in the context of training and adjustment in Ontario, the problems of joblessness will be replaced with the problem of how to distribute the wealth.
In summary, the members of the organizations I'm representing today are concerned that OTAB could become a consolidation of a number of less-than-efficient bureaucracies into one larger bureaucracy. They are concerned that OTAB is going to find itself increasingly lured into being all things to all people, simply because of a few inappropriate phrases that have been built into the legislation, which, as I said in my opening remarks, will apparently go into law as it stands.
We implore the standing committee to prevent this from happening and do everything it can to make sure that the legislation empowers the OTAB governing body to do one thing and one thing only, and that is to seek and supply the best appropriate training at the best value for all Ontario workers and potential workers.
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The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. Ms Marland, you have five minutes per caucus and the five minutes include response time, so you may want to consider that when you're asking your questions.
Mrs Marland: Oh, I will, Mr Chairman.
The Vice-Chair: I thought you would.
Mrs Marland: I am very grateful for the guidance and the leadership from the Chair.
Mr Perna, I think this is an excellent brief. I really appreciate the information and the viewpoint you present to the committee through your comments. It's actually one that I haven't heard before from that particular perspective, and I really thank you for bringing that to us.
Naturally, I'm very interested in your comments on page 4. You're being very frank. You talk about whether or not this whole exercise of the public process of looking at this bill and the review--you say that it's with considerable reservation and scepticism that you're taking your time and our time to make this presentation.
Then you go on to say, "This scepticism is based on my understanding that it is extremely unlikely that any changes will be made to the draft legislation as it now stands as a result of any of the presentations" that we have heard or written submissions that we have received and, "This understanding comes directly from a recent meeting with the new deputy minister."
The new deputy minister with whom you met is who by name?
Mr Perna: Mr Pascal.
Mrs Marland: Mr Pascal, the best deputy minister in the government at the moment. I'm not surprised that you would come away from a meeting with full understanding of something without being misled at all. But you say that, "This understanding has, as a result, led us to believe that the existence of the standing committee and the efforts of those making submissions are only a matter of optics with no genuine substance."
I'm really sad that you have to say that but I have to tell you I agree with you. I realize it's a tremendous level of frustration for the people who are coming before all of our standing committees at the moment with this particular socialist government's legislation, but we hear time and time again, in the comments by the government members of our standing committees, that there's no way that this government is going to really listen constructively to information that is brought in a genuine, sincere way to critique their legislation and in fact to make it better for everyone in the province. I think particularly of your excellent point about the fact that in Ontario 30% of the workforce is unionized, yet half of this board is going to be represented by unionized labour.
It's difficult for me to ask you any questions because I agree totally with the points you're making here, and I think speaking for the particular groups of people you do speak for, Mr Perna, for the people who built this province, in fact for the people who built this country, to be a success. Particularly, I guess I'm biased about the leadership that those business people have brought to us in Ontario.
Mr Wood: Take a look at your cousins in Ottawa.
Mrs Marland: I'm very concerned about what is happening in Ontario today, and this legislation is just one further example, unfortunately, but I'm totally sympathetic with the points that you've made.
Mr Perna: May I respond to that?
The Vice-Chair: If you could respond, please.
Mr Perna: Make sure you understand, now, the point is that my understanding from the deputy minister is that indeed there won't be any changes to this legislation. He added that unless there was some major thing that would come along that might encourage some change, it would stand as it is.
I haven't had the luxury of being able to hear all the presentations during all these hearings, but I have been involved in this thing for, as I said, the past 13 or 14 months and have been to the meetings with all the labour market partners. All the issues, I believe, that have been presented to the steering committee have been heard by the OTAB project committee, by Minister Allen, by his deputy minister. I don't believe, except for a few little angles--when you turn the facet the light comes on a little bit differently--you've heard anything particularly new. If you haven't heard anything particularly new, you can be assured that nothing will change, because they have all heard all this already.
Mr Martin: I am somewhat disappointed that you and Mrs Marland both have such little faith in the process around this place. I've been here for only two and a half years. However, in my short time I've travelled on a lot of committees and there have indeed been significant changes, in every instance, by way of amendment from both the government side and the opposition side of the committee structure. However, that's not my question.
On two or three occasions, in the last couple of days actually, I've heard reference to a couple of things that leave me somewhat disturbed, if that's where people are coming from in front of this very important piece of legislation. Underlying all of this legislation is the need for change re the partnership that exists in this province as we, as you say, create wealth and, through that, create jobs and opportunity. It seems to me we need to be working probably differently with each other and recognizing the needs of everybody involved, all the partners.
Certainly business is a very important factor in the creation of wealth, but it would seem to me that in order to create wealth you also need the input and the sweat and energy of people; and people who are happy and satisfied workers generally produce the best. Anything that I've read in the last few years tells me that companies that take care of their people are usually the most successful companies.
It would suggest to me that it would be wise to make some comment to that effect in this piece of legislation, so that it would be part of the underpinning of anything we would do, and also the recognition of the very valuable contribution that colleges and universities have made over the years to the high standard of living that we have in this province and the contribution well-trained workers make there.
I have some difficulty understanding how we're able to separate the wellbeing of people from the creation of wealth and from the protection of the infrastructure we already have there re colleges and universities and other institutions, how that could be in any way seen as somehow getting in the way of doing what this piece of legislation is intended to do.
Mr Perna: May I respond?
Mr Martin: Yes.
Mr Perna: What you're saying is precisely what we see as the problem. You as an individual and anybody around this room can only do so many things. If you devote your attention to doing one thing well, you'll probably do one thing well. If you try to do 10 things well, you won't do anything well.
What we're suggesting here is that OTAB has one job, that is, to provide the best training and the best adjustment for the best value. If the public education system for some reason is unable to do this in certain areas and in certain ways, it should not be OTAB's job to support the public education system. It should be the public education system's job to pull up its bootstraps, fix what's wrong, be competitive and get the job done in the most efficient way, providing the best value.
That's not OTAB's job, but there is the Ministry of Education and all the other departments and the colleges and their chairmen and all their staff. They can figure out why they might be losing the training contracts that might be going to the private sector. But if OTAB has somebody tap it on the shoulder and say, "Look, we've got this big investment in our public education system and you're not giving it enough of the training dollars, you're giving too much to the private sector," then OTAB becomes burdened with a responsibility it shouldn't have. That's not OTAB's job.
Mr Sutherland: If I can--
The Chair: One moment. Mr Martin wants to respond and then you can jump in.
Mr Martin: I have some difficulty with the issue that you can only do one thing at a time. It seems to me you're a perfect example of a person who's able to do, actually, four or five things at one time. You're executive director and coordinator of a number of different organizations here and I'm sure--
Mr Perna: And I do them all poorly too.
Mr Martin: Is that right?
Mr Perna: Yes.
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Mr Martin: Okay. I suggest to you that in fact in everything we do, as we move into the next century and try to compete in a global marketplace, we should be trying to be coordinated and cooperative--
Mr Perna: That's a key word.
Mr Martin: --as much as we can with all of those people, institutions and organizations that are going to carry us there. That may be in some instances the public sector, where it comes to education.
Mr Perna: I'd like to respond one more time. Please make no mistake here. We're not suggesting that OTAB go into a corner, close all the doors and windows and not pay attention to what's going on. In fact if the governing body is doing its job, it will be interfacing with all of the different government agencies and private sector agencies and business to make sure that the training it's delivering and the adjustment programs it's delivering are going to be meeting the needs in sequel out there.
They're going to work with those agencies, but they're not going to do the agency's job. What they should be doing is saying: "Here is a problem. You fix it. It's not our job to fix it. We're trying to do training." That interaction is critical to this. We don't want to see OTAB be isolated. If it is, it's not doing its job.
Mr Sutherland: Just to pick up on that, I guess maybe part of the problem is in terms of trying to explain the intent of the legislation. I notice you've made reference to the clause about the improvement of lives of workers and potential workers, and that's come up a lot. I guess somehow people have taken that to mean that OTAB is going to do everything to improve the life of a worker.
I think your last explanation was very good, that its mandate is providing training services, providing adequate training, of course, to ensure that we have the skills to work with business, to create the wealth and to ensure that all of the players can play in the creation of wealth, because obviously if they're not, they're not going to be purchasing products and the cycle isn't going to go forward.
I like your last explanation of how they're going to interface in terms of doing those things. I mean "the improvement of lives of workers." Obviously, we recognize that within that they're going to do it. There are some things that they're going to have to interface on. For women coming into the workplace with children, they're going to somehow have to interface that some provision is made for child care, but we don't expect them to look after the housing needs of people. I think that's the message that needs to get out when you look at those types of phrases and some of the other phrases.
The reality is, creating wealth ties in with social justice. You can't have a recovery--we have a statistical recovery. We're not going to have a full recovery with over 10% unemployment. We've somehow got to get that unemployment rate down by getting more of the people who are not in the workforce into the workforce somehow, and that's a combination of two, achieving both goals, economic renewal and social justice at the same time.
I think some of the interpretations given that this means it's going to do everything, I'm not so sure that in reality and in practice it will be doing everything.
The Chair: Mr Perna, I'm going to let you have the last word.
Mr Perna: In the training organization that I'm working for, the largest part of the people who are being trained are women who have not been able to get a job at all. They're on welfare, they have babysitting needs, they have travel needs, they have language problems, and I'm extremely sensitive to those needs. Those are factors which are allowing them access to the training. OTAB should be concerned about access to training.
Improving the lives of workers, back on the point of Mr Martin, enlightened employers and even those who are not so enlightened realize that their businesses cannot succeed without good employees, happy employees, productive employees, healthy employees. They know this. But when you build into the legislation a phrase that says, "improve the lives of workers," and give that job to OTAB, you're giving the OTAB governing board a responsibility for which there are many other government agencies already doing that task. If the lives of workers are in jeopardy in some way or not being improved adequately, these other departments should be doing their job.
OTAB's governing body should interface with them and kind of help them along, but don't ask them to do that job. Their job is to make sure those women and those construction workers etc get the training they need to be able to get a job or to get improved employment positions. That's all. Focus your attention, be a specialist, and if you're a specialist, you'll be a winner. Each department can be a specialist and work together, and then we'll have the partnership I talked about in that last phrase.
The Chair: Is this dialogue so provocative that you feel obliged to add something? Go ahead. The government caucus went a little over time, so I'll make sure we accommodate you.
Mr McGuinty: Mr Perna, you've made an excellent presentation and you have focused on one of the problems that besets this bill, which is, what the devil is it all about? Are we after training here? Are we after social objectives? Are we after satisfying particular interest groups? Does the public interest have any bearing on all of this at some point? You've addressed that very effectively.
You've spent some time dealing with this matter, more time than most of us here have. I was wondering if you were familiar with this particular aspect. I know it will be a cause for concern. It certainly is a cause for concern for me. OTAB, we are told, is going to be a schedule 4 agency. The definition of a schedule 4 agency is one which is intended to be completely funded out of the revenue generated by its programs. You are aware that Bill 96 incorporates a provision that authorizes OTAB to levy fees, and you are probably also aware that the Ontario Federation of Labour has advocated or certainly made more noises about training levies to be imposed on employers.
My concern is that what we're going to do is set up an agency here which is going to be looking to employers for funding, and in many cases, as we've heard today and throughout the course of our hearings, employers are already engaging in processes to train their workforce. I'm just wondering what kind of concerns this gives rise to.
Mr Perna: I did address that in my comments here. Whoever is in government--it doesn't matter which party it is--if you don't pay attention to the needs of small business, who's going to lose? The small business is going to lose something, but the whole province is going to lose. Everybody's going to lose. If you took a lesson from one of the premiers in the eastern provinces, he made some legislation that's reducing taxes for small business, because I think it's common knowledge that small business is what seems to be the engine for jobs etc.
You can put the tax in, whoever wants to put the tax in. It's not going to pay off, because the businesses are struggling to stay alive and some more of them go out of business because they're borderline businesses. Some may say: "Maybe they should go out of business. They're not efficient. They're not competitive enough." It isn't going to make any sense.
Another thing is that all we need is another sort of taxing mechanism. I find it, and everybody I know in all these organizations finds it, totally ludicrous that still today, after however long the GST has been in place and however hated it is by whoever is hating it, we have two taxes and we have 10 governments and another government collecting all these taxes.
I can tell you right now, if you want to build up the training budget, wipe out one of those taxes and blend it with the other one. I don't care which way you go. Take it out of the feds and put it in the provinces or take it out of the provinces and put it in the feds, but don't do it twice. We're paying two groups of people to collect the same taxes from the same people. It makes no economic sense. If any of you have a business or had a business, you wouldn't tolerate it, but we're tolerating it.
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Why don't we create what I want to call real jobs instead of artificial jobs? With all respect to politicians and bureaucrats and government employees, the real jobs come out of manufacturing and services. The rest of it is to assist that and all the people who are in the process. If you create a huge bureaucracy to collect taxes and then to do it again and now do it a third time, to say nothing of how you're going to figure out who pays what and who gets the benefit because they've already paid something into it, this is not efficiency. This is not what I hear Mr Rae saying today. Mr Rae is talking about streamlining and cutting down and downsizing. Where could you find more money for training than by getting rid of duplication of tax collection efforts? Triplicate it, why don't you? Thank you very much.
The Chair: Mr Perna, you've obviously been provocative. That's a good thing.
Mr Perna: At least everybody's awake anyway.
The Chair: You've sparked some interest on the part of the members of the committee, and I tell you, the committee's grateful to you for your interest, for your participation, coming here to Queen's Park today and being prepared, as you have been, to spend time with us sharing your views with us. We are grateful to you.
Mr Perna: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you kindly, sir. Please keep in touch, either with individual members or with the committee as a group. Take care.
ONTARIO FEDERATION OF INDIAN FRIENDSHIP CENTRES
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres. Those spokespeople will please come forward, have a seat, tell us their names, their titles or positions, if any.
Ms Sylvia Maracle: Serial numbers?
The Chair: Well, somebody's liable to ask you, but it's none of their business.
Ms Maracle: I'm Sylvia Maracle. I'm the executive director, and I'm a Mohawk from Tyendinaga who happens to be in Toronto for a while. I'm joined by Tim Thompson, who is the education policy analyst--he's a Mohawk from Gibson, from Wapekeka--and Nena LaCaille, who is one of our trainers, who's a Seneca from Pennsylvania originally.
Thank you very much for the invitation. We have a written brief, which I'll try not to bore you with too much. I offer apologies on the part of my president, Vera Pawis-Tabobondung, who is caught in a snowstorm just outside of Barrie and unable still to make it here, and my vice-president is grounded in London. So we're pinch-hitting, and I hope that you'll find we are able to do that and their money in employing us is well spent.
In order to be able to discuss the proposed Bill 96, the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, we wanted to take a minute to express to the committee, to have you understand, if you will, what role the friendship centres play in aboriginal development in this province and why our comments with respect to training may or may not have some import for you.
Friendship centres, by definition, service urban aboriginal people in Ontario. By agreement, it appears that almost half of the status Indian population from Ontario reserves lives in urban areas, and of course the Metis and non-status population had no such reserve land base. Additionally, because Ontario is such a land of milk and honey, we receive migrating native people, we used to be called, migrating aboriginal people, from other provinces and territories who come here in pursuit of education, training and employment.
About 30 years ago, the friendship centres developed through a very informal nucleus of attempting to deal with urban life skills, with what happens when you come to town: How do you find a house and a job and how do you approach things, how do you fill out forms, in fact who do you talk to? Friendship centres sort of grew out of that in a very informal setting and ultimately created a formal organization of constitutions and letters patent and things like that.
The friendship centres in Ontario are core-funded through a federal program by something that used to be called the migrating native peoples program. We had not quite as much protection as migratory birds, but then a bit more so as years went by in terms of developing something called the aboriginal friendship centre program. We receive programming funding and support through various ministries of the provincial government.
When we started, it was very basic. It very much was targeted at looking at employment and training for our people, a place to live and food on the table, and to some extent we still do that, but now we do a lot more sort of social programming, cultural programming and recreational programming. As the years went by, friendship centres found they were in the business of providing training to try to establish a level playing field for our people.
Whether we like to admit it or not, if we have an accent and we're very brown and we come from environs which are not always southern or urban in the north, there are difficulties with respect to participating in the quality of life in that community. Friendship centres felt we needed, more so than anyone else, to make the commitment to employ our own people, to employ people who had a heart, who believed in what we were doing, and that we were prepared to provide the skills, the knowledge and the technical assistance for them to do their job.
Friendship centres, over the course of the years, recognized ourselves as training institutions, as hiring people that perhaps no one else will hire in a community, some not quite as urbane as Toronto, like Moosonee, Cochrane, Geraldton and Sioux Lookout. In some of those communities friendship centres continue to be the major employer of aboriginal people in those towns.
One of the things we have found ourselves working on lately is defining that our training, our education notion, is a lifelong process, that it indeed begins before we arrive in this world with traditional teachings while our mothers are carrying us and continues until the last breath that we take in this reality. In defining that as training, you can understand, dealing with OTAB, that it might not be easy for us to find our niche, that indeed it might not be a system that would facilitate our involvement as aboriginal people from a culturally based perspective of training at all.
One of the other things we recognized in friendship centres being training institutions is that our staff do not stay with us for long periods of time. They've gone on to become executive assistants of ministers in the government, bureaucrats, they've worked for other Indian organizations, they become negotiators for land claims and indeed college and university professors in other places. Having started out perhaps in centres with very little or no formal training, that exposure to on-the-job training, to mentoring, to sorting out the system for them has encouraged people to go on and to pursue opportunities that have been available to them.
The other thing that friendship centres have contributed to over our development is the development of other aboriginal organizations: housing corporations, child and family services, agencies, hostels, a variety of new day care initiatives, all kinds of other agencies in town so that not everything is centralized in the centre.
Probably we employ, seasonally at least, more than 1,000 aboriginal people, which makes us a significant employer in Ontario. It's seasonal because a lot of our work, as you know, comes from both the federal and provincial governments and it's around projects, make-work, summer/winter works and those kinds of things. When we were working in the federal government we used to call them LIP, LEAP and whatever. We didn't know what the trend was at the time.
One of the things we're trying to do in centres is--you cannot have any television or radio in your home and not be aware of what's happened to us with respect to residential schools; with respect to the systemic issues that have resulted in our leaving mainstream educational institutions; with our returning to colleges and universities in very large numbers but often not as the young 19-year old from Mississauga does.
We're mature students, we already have families, we're coming a long way from our home communities and having to battle with post-secondary institutions. Therefore, training, training on the job, mentoring and very specific programs that are designed in our communities are imperative to us. The other thing is that we've had very low participation rates, which the OTAB project and various other ministries can tell you, with respect to participating in what is considered mainstream training.
The other issue I want to talk to you about with respect to friendship centres is that we have been involved--and perhaps some of my colleagues who have been here earlier than I have have talked to you about something called Pathways to Success, an initiative with the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission designed to increase training, to increase employment opportunities and to look at the Canadian labour force development.
Pathways to Success was an initiative that was a response to some 600 letters, calls and meetings from the aboriginal community telling the federal government that its employment and training programs were not meeting our needs.
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It was decided that a partnership that is a bit inequitable in that they still have the money and they say, "Here's how much it is; do the best you can," but a partnership none the less, was created, and the friendship centres participated with other aboriginal groups in Ontario to create 15 aboriginal area management boards, as they're called. They all feed into a regional system, which is province-wide, called the Regional Aboriginal Management Board of Ontario. There we attempt, from our own perspective, decision-making about our pots of money, as they're decentralized; they're held by the government, but control or decision-making is decentralized. The ministry approves anything over $100,000 as a project, just to keep its hand in it, I guess.
Anyway, we have been involved in that initiative. We've been involved in it now for more than two years in Ontario and we've had some serious successes. We've had very few weak links in the chain of Pathways to Success. It's not perfect; it's not full aboriginal control but it does contribute towards the self-determination that we as aboriginal people--whether we live in first nations or in urban areas, are male, female, able-bodied, disabled or are even francophone aboriginals--have been able to participate in. It is a place where, as boards, we sit from all perspectives and make decisions with respect to our training, to our employment and ultimately to the labour force development.
We sort of take that friendship centre development and our participation in Pathways and come here now to discuss OTAB. OTAB, as we understand it, is supposed to propose this new partnership with broad participation from a variety of groups to participate in--guess what?--labour force development, training and employment, exactly initiatives that we have been involved in for many years and in a different forum.
At the same time that the province is discussing the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, the province has committed itself to aboriginal peoples, through the Statement of Political Relationship and through a variety of other understandings, to create a different relationship. That's exactly the crux of our presentation today. We do not want a relationship with Ontario that on the one hand says, "We'll deal with you on a nation-to-nation basis," and on the other hand says, "Let's begin to develop the institutions which will promote your self-determination," and then on the other hand says, "But you're simply one of a list of players and the relationship is going to be prescribed to you in something called the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board."
It is not the intention of friendship centres to suggest that the people identified in OTAB should not continue to address their unique and special needs. Indeed, there is probably a need for a process and for commitment and support given to people who are normally disadvantaged in a system.
But friendship centres do not want to compete with those interests. Friendship centres are more comfortable and have had more success in an aboriginal-specific process. We do not want to participate in training that is so far compromised to meet the norm that in fact it meets no one's needs. We want to address our needs consistent with our own development. We do not want to be part of the OTAB legislation, except for Bill 96 to indicate that it does not apply to us. We want aboriginal people and aboriginal communities to provide aboriginal training, employment and labour force development.
We have already had experiences with the government through two acts: An Act respecting the regulation of Health Professions and other matters concerning Health Professions, and An Act respecting the regulation of the Profession of Midwifery. While those may seem small and insignificant acts to you, they have provided for us to be exempt from mainstream legislation. They have provided for us to be exempt from the governing bodies created to control those structures and have recognized our own people, our own direction, our own traditional approach, our own cultural knowledge as a legitimate way and base to provide services to our people.
We believe it is imperative for aboriginal people to design, develop and deliver aboriginal training. It is also important that we be given the resources, time and opportunity to pursue this rather than be forced to meet someone else's timetable or preferred approach. We cannot simply participate in an agenda established for the general population and further compete not only to be heard, but for minimum resources.
We are requesting the committee to make amendments to the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board Act, that those amendments be such that the bill not apply to aboriginal people and respect that aboriginal people be able to provide training in a manner which is appropriate to us.
We believe that the evolution of our relationship with the government of Ontario, and indeed the people of Ontario, does not require us to continually fight for our place in the process. An aboriginal process--one developed, designed and delivered by aboriginal people--will meet our needs. We do not want to subjugate our process for one that's prescribed through OTAB. We do not want token representation or participation and to be one out of 22 or 23 voices. Friendship centres support the creation of a distinct aboriginal labour force development and training process.
The federation would therefore strongly urge the standing committee on resources development to revisit the bill and ensure that aboriginal people can design their own process and not have one imposed upon us.
Thank you for your time and attention.
The Chair: Thank you, kindly. Mr Wood, please.
Mr Wood: I don't know if I have a question, but there are a few comments I want to make. You've got an excellent presentation you've brought forward. There are a number of friendship centres in my riding. You're aware probably that I represent the area from Cochrane and Moosonee circling around back by Ogoki and Constance Lake and down through Hearst. There are a number of friendship centres I meet with on a regular basis. I'm aware of the hard work that is going on by people like Dorothy Wynne and other people in the communities who are trying to get training programs out there and put the urban aboriginal people into work of some type.
I'm also aware of the fact that 90% or 95% of the aboriginal population in some areas is unemployed. They depend on whatever they can get from trap lines. The fur industry is having a hard time and rates are really low. There's no doubt about it that there is a lot of hardship out there in a lot of those areas. I just wanted to throw those comments out. I've listened very intently to what you've brought forward. We'll be discussing that in committee with some of the other people, as the government, as we go along. I'd like just to thank you again for coming forward with your presentation.
The Chair: Please feel free to respond if you wish.
Ms Maracle: I don't have a response really, except to suggest that obviously Mr Wood does know his community. It may sound very peculiar to some of you that we don't want to be named in the OTAB legislation, because you say, "Gee, you have all this unemployment." But at the same point in time, ultimately, in order to have meaningful development in our community, it has to come from us. It can't be prescribed and it can't be any more just one person who represents an aboriginal view.
By the time the seven or eight provincial territorials have been here or sent in their briefs, the thing we have all agreed on, which is somewhat miraculous, is that we have agreed we don't want OTAB to apply to us. We don't want one super-Indian whom we can find who is going to represent everybody's interests, both in a cultural sense, in a male-female sense, in a young-old sense and in a sense of overall development. Some people want very cultural, very traditional-based approaches. Other people are quite willing to participate in medical sciences. I don't know if the person has yet been born who can do that. It's going to create more division and animosity in our community.
We can rally around being unemployed and we can look at doing something. We could talk a lot of things about training and about recommendations one might want. I understand the process of committee. You're dealing with legislation, so we had to confine ourselves to those comments, but we do appreciate the support and that some people are aware of friendship centres and that it is not an easy job.
We rely on a lot of volunteers as well, as you know, Dorothy being one whom you've mentioned. Those people don't get paid, but they need training, because mainstream isn't doing the work. The child welfare workers aren't out there or MNR is out there too much, depending on which perspective you're looking at. We rely a great deal on our people, who require all kinds of training to just be able to participate in some sense, as we said, on a level playing field.
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The Chair: Mr Wilson, be real brief, please.
Mr Gary Wilson: Yes. I just wanted to make a point that you've alluded to. You said that so far in the legislation, Bill 96, it is just conditional in its reference to a representative of the native community.
Ms Maracle: Yes.
Mr Gary Wilson: If a request is made by a recognized group, then that would be accepted, but it is understood that there are, I guess, considerations that the native community wants to take into account here and you've certainly mentioned several of these.
Ms Maracle: I think we would be happier, frankly, if we took the approach that we took in the Regulated Health Professions Act, which was to say it will not apply to aboriginal people for these reasons: for the reasons that we don't want to lay institutions on them any more, that we don't want them to be perceived as a sense of minority, that there is a different way to play, that the approaches we have taken haven't met aboriginal needs, and that frankly it's a waste of time and energy and resources if people are going to continue to prescribe things to us. We need to do that development ourselves.
I understand that it is somewhat of a benign reference. In fact, they flew it by me. I have many other hats, one of which is that I am the co-chair of the aboriginal intergovernmental committee on training, which is how all these groups got here, because we had to crack the whip over there.
We ask to be exempted. We had our traditional healers and our midwives exempted from the other legislation. We're saying, "Why bother to make a passing reference that says we can have one super-Indian?" It's not real. It's not realistic. It sets up expectations in other communities that we've told you: "By all means, go ahead and meet their needs. Just don't drag us as one of a list of voices."
Mr Ramsay: I'm very sympathetic to what you're asking and I actually would be prepared to move such an amendment. The only thing I would want to be sure of before I did that was that Pathways to Success was going to continue.
What we understand from the federal government is that once OTAB becomes established, and OTAB "may," according to the legislation--it should be "shall" but anyway--set up the local boards, the LTABs. Then, the federal processes, the committees, the CITCs, as they're called in the non-native community, community industrial training committees, will be scrapped.
What I fear is that maybe the same department that funds your ministry, Employment and Immigration, may be scrapping your program. I don't know this, and I guess my question is, do you know this? What's going to be the future of your Pathways to Success?
Ms Maracle: Any of you who've dealt with the federal government knows what the length of its promises is. I can tell you that we have two full years left on a $200-million mandate, that we are in the process of evaluating it, that those of us who are involved in that other process do not--if this were a federal committee, we would suggest to them that they should not be offloading, that their federal responsibility is to aboriginal people, irrespective of residency, that our processes have proved more successful than their 20 years of attempting to deliver a variety of other initiatives and that very much it will remain in place.
If I had a crystal ball, I'd be inclined to suggest that Pathways to Success will continue and very much this government should be encouraged to make sure that aboriginal issues are not offloaded and that we're just not all thrown into some nice mixing bowl, saying, "Gee, it's okay because we're taking care of it."
This hasn't been done, and regardless of what happens with Pathways, there will be a successor. Aboriginal people are not about to take a step back to the white paper policy. Certainly, we have commitments from all three parties, or three major I guess, that participate, that given what may happen to them in the next 10 months, any of them, they are interested in continuing a relationship with respect to employment development and training with aboriginal people. It would be very much throwing the baby out with the bath water. It's a model that works; it's cost-efficient; it's had impacts. I don't see it sort of disappearing tomorrow.
Mr Ramsay: I hope not, because as the two senior levels of government redefine their roles and responsibilities, I would imagine it is the desire of the native community that the federal government retain that responsibility for native affairs.
Ms Maracle: Exactly, and it's our desire that whatever's going to be done with the province, we do so in a coordinated way between aboriginal people and the province and that we're not part of a whole list.
That list, as you know, is very popular. The list is used in human rights; it's used in employment equity; it's used in training; it's used whenever we're talking about the disadvantaged. I think that's unfortunate, that we shouldn't be sort of fourth or fifth on a list and that aboriginal people and aboriginal issues, whether it's in this province or wherever, need to be dealt with in a distinctive way.
Mr Ramsay: Right. The other element there too is that, with the Charlottetown accord, it looked like training was going to be handed down to the provinces, but now with the defeat of that and with what we hear from the federal minister, his musings, it looks like the federal government wants to retain some jurisdiction over training. This is what the OTAB process was supposed to do, combine it down at the provincial level, which probably for the non-native community would be actually just fine; that's from my perspective. So I would think, then, that the federal government would retain those responsibilities. With that caveat, I'd be prepared to move that amendment to exempt you from this legislation.
Ms Maracle: Thank you.
The Chair: Mrs Marland, then Mr Turnbull, please.
Mrs Marland: Sylvia Maracle, I don't think you need to be at all concerned about the fact that your--I've forgotten who you said was where, somebody in the snowstorm in Barrie--
Ms Maracle: Yes, our president.
Mrs Marland: --and your president stuck in London, because you are a very dynamic young woman, and you certainly have made an excellent presentation on behalf of those for whom you speak.
Ms Maracle: We would tell you it's a cultural predisposition of our nation.
Mrs Marland: I love it. I don't think you need to worry about the fact that they're now going to be able to read in Hansard what a good job you did speaking on behalf of the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres.
It's interesting, I have to admit, Sylvia, to hear you talk about--I'm using your words--"one superIndian," or one superaboriginal is probably what I would be trying to say, but I feel the same way when I look at the makeup of this board that defines one director representing women. Some of the arguments that you make, I realize how personal they are for you, and I respect that very much, but that fact is that when we look at the makeup of this board, with one representing persons with disabilities and one representing racial minorities, the more we do this with boards, the further we get away from accomplishing what it is that we want, which is equality for everybody, because every time we define the differences, we go back two steps, in my opinion.
I'm just wondering what would happen if we start dropping the labels. For example, surely among these seven directors representing labour and seven representing business, we might be lucky enough somewhere in there to have a woman or someone with a disability or a racial minority and, based on what you're talking about where all your people are moving, we probably, even without planning it, would have somebody with an aboriginal background. Wouldn't that be ideal, rather than having them there because they were any one of those things that are being defined under items 5 through 8, as far as the makeup in the board?
Having said that, I also realize that at this stage I'm sympathetic to what it is you're saying about wanting to get on with your own business because you know your own people. The friendship centre is a wonderful name for the work and the scope of work that those centres have been doing. I can understand why you're saying here, "It is also important that we be given the resources, time and opportunity to pursue this rather than be forced to meet someone else's timetable and preferred approach."
When you talk about the preferred approach, I hear very clearly, Sylvia, what you're saying; it's a preferred approach because you know what works. That's the bottom line of what you're saying. That's why you had the input in the other acts that you referred to, the Midwifery Act and the Regulated Health Professions Act. That's really what you're saying. Eventually, I'm sure that your descendants and my descendants will be sitting around a committee like this maybe 100 years from now, hopefully where there won't be any differences. Would that be an ultimate goal for you, where there would no longer have to be differences identified and enshrined?
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Ms Maracle: I guess if I have to, as a representative of my people, sort of talk about vision, what we'd like to do is to participate in the social and cultural fabric of the communities in which we reside in a self-determined way that respects our cultural distinctiveness. We had said earlier, and it perhaps bears repeating, that we have no desire, as the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, to tell women or to tell the disabled or to tell racial minorities or to tell trainers or anybody else, business or labour, how they want to go about constructing their business. We very much encourage you to put the best minds and hearts you have to that job, by all means.
In the aboriginal community, I think you're right: We know exactly what we want and we know what works for us. We simply need to be able to do that and to not have one more piece of provincial legislation--or federal, for that matter--that applies to us that presupposes some conditions that we don't think we can operate in. Even the notion as benign as the wording is, about how, at some point, "legitimate" or "recognized" representatives of aboriginal people would put forward a name, simply will not happen in my lifetime.
The people who are coming after me are much more assertive that aboriginal people have to be responsible for aboriginal people and that our own letting go of our culture resulted in a very downward spiral that we're in that affects us socially and in terms of education and in terms of recreation and in terms of power and participation. We are attempting, as a federation, people who work in urban areas and working with our colleagues, to return to and to pick up our culture, to stand up on our own two feet and make a life for ourselves. We cannot do that today and we probably can't do that in the next 10 or 20 years if we're constantly going to be legislated to have "one."
We're not "one." We're not a homogeneous cultural community. We have very different opinions and approaches, and they need to be honoured in the multicultural approach that everybody's taking. That notion of difference has to be applied to the aboriginal community as a whole. What they will want to do in the remote north and in northeastern Ontario and in central Ontario and in the south and on reserve and off is going to be what that community knows works for it. There isn't sort of a prescribed formula that says, "Here's where we're going," except that we are in serious recovery. Training and employment opportunities can help us back on a track of wellness, but it's a track that we've got to clear, that we've got to identify and discover, and learn to walk.
The Chair: Ms Maracle, your half-hour is up. However, we're blessed with the unusual circumstance--and, again, I don't want to tell you by any stretch of the imagination that you have to stay any longer. But because we have some time, unless the committee tells me not to--and I can't see them doing that--I would invite you to stay, if other committee members have more questions, some more exchanges that people would want to participate in, and if you feel comfortable staying.
Mr McGuinty: Perhaps I could ask a question.
The Chair: Wait. I want to know if these people have a timetable.
Ms Maracle: The life of the people, as you know, doesn't end just at 5 or 6, so we're at your disposal for a little while.
Mr McGuinty: Just to pursue your sole recommendation, which is that you be exempt from the purview of OTAB, why could we not continue to maintain Bill 96 in its existing form? That is, it allows for the appointment of a director on the request of native groups. So you're not obligated in any way to participate in the program, are you?
Ms Maracle: Several thoughts come to mind. One is the notion of jurisdiction. At what point did the Constitution change the province's ability and authority to extend its purview over, for instance, Indians and lands reserved for Indians? There is an issue here from a very technical perspective, but there's more of an issue of an ethical question.
As the chair of the Aboriginal Intergovernmental Committee on Training, I've had the responsibility of going to some very large OTAB consultations and saying to the participants in their various committees and sectoral interests that we do not want to participate in their process and had people with very well-meaning intentions stand up from the women's community and say, "Gee, we have aboriginal women; we have every right to say something," from the disabled community stand up and say, "Gee, there are aboriginal disabled and we have every right to say something," and so on. Do you see?
At what point is the system going to legitimize the institutional development we've taken on ourselves, the fact that there exist aboriginal organizations in Ontario that have been given mandates, that people participate in, that have the right as the legitimate representatives of the aboriginal community to articulate what we want? How many times does our voice have to be expropriated? How many times would you let yours? I don't go out and speak for MPPs, in sympathy or solidarity. I don't speak for men who come from European descent. I don't speak for francophone women. I don't speak even for the aboriginal disabled. I ensure that there's a process where the different perspectives of our people can speak. I don't want to be expropriated any longer, by anybody, in whatever benevolent, kind, small-l liberal way people want to do. I want to be who the Creator made me to be and the systems and the structures and the governments and the decision-making that we were given to apply to us consistently. That's why we don't want a reference, because some time we'll change our mind. I promise you, the leadership who are coming are a lot more assertive about who we are than I am and they're just waiting for me to mellow so they can move me out of the way and step into my moccasins.
Mr McGuinty: If you're mellow, I'd hate to see mean. You speak very eloquently and I hope the government members are listening and will respond to your request.
Mr Ramsay: They'll have the opportunity next week.
Ms Maracle: Exactly.
Mr Huget: Thank you very much. I appreciate your presentation. I notice that during the dialogue in the last few minutes you mentioned that you're in the process of recovery and that training and development issues can help you in that recovery. I wonder if you could elaborate on that a bit in terms of this process of recovery and what exactly is taking place and what needs to be done to indeed help that recovery.
Ms Maracle: That's my specialty, and I didn't plant the questions. We speak very nicely to each other often, people who are in government and the aboriginal community. We're very polite. We don't use words like "colonization" and "racism." We don't use words like "economic despair." We don't talk about the family violence, the sexual assault, the alcohol and drugs, the disproportionate number of people incarcerated. We don't talk about the lack of ability of a foreign system that's been thrust on us to make decisions that will affect our lives: where I'll be buried, where my dog can be buried.
For a long time that external notion of civilizing aboriginal people, the lack of recognition that we were a magnificent people at the point of contact, that we were truly civilized in the way we related to each other, that we didn't have prisons, that we didn't have issues of directing male anger, all of those kinds of things that have been applied to us, eventually, over the course of the years and through the educational system, through the mass media, through our own despair, we began to internalize those, to believe them, to direct our negative energy, that sort of downward spiral that I spoke about earlier, towards ourselves, towards our own people who are not as powerful as perhaps we are.
We need to stop that. We need to begin to look at creating healthy relationships, relationships between men and women. At the point of contact, you have to remember, in treaty parties, the status of your own women in your own societies. They were chattels, their fathers decided who they would marry. I challenge you to tell your 15-year-old daughter today who she'll marry.
Mr Ramsay: Anything.
Ms Maracle: Exactly. So as part of our recovery we've had to look at what it is that we borrowed. What behaviour have we put on that's contributed to the point at which we find ourselves? It's not as simple as saying, "We have no land and we have no resources." We have no self-esteem; we have no positive image of ourselves as aboriginal people and we need to create--one of the things the friendship centre really stresses in training is, let's develop the individual. Let's not make an engineer or a court worker or a this or that; let's talk about healing the person. Let's look at their physical issues--and that means sexual as well--let's look at their mental, their emotional and their spiritual issues, and if we can feed that, if we can find some good in who they are and feed that into them, that person will be able to look up and begin to take care of themselves, to participate in a meaningful way, to set directions about where they want to go.
How training can help is that it can be delivered in a culturally sensitive manner, that we don't sort of warehouse people when we send them back to retraining and upgrading courses in a massive college with thousands of students or 35 people in the room; that we can look at smaller community-based projects and initiatives to foster that development; that we can look at involving our elders and our traditional people; that we can do things in our own language and not feel the remnants of the residential schools where they were beaten for them, where they were taken away, where they were sent home summers. To this day, a reserve is not a desirable place to be paroled to. We don't get out on early parole, either in this province or in this country, if we're going back to a reserve, because that's not considered a healthy environment.
We've got all of these kinds of issues to deal with and if you don't have a roof over your head, you don't have a job, you don't have food on the table, and you can't clothe your own child, you don't get that sense of worth, of who I am, of who I can be, that magnificent human being, that Sonkwaia:tison, the Creator; the great mystery instructed that we would walk. Nobody can give that to us. You can get obstacles out of the way. You can keep legislation from tying our hands, you can look at resourcing in a real sense so we can make up the fact that we're not even in the race. We're not even at the starting blocks. We don't even know what starting blocks are and where the race is going.
That kind of development and that kind of removing barriers, of not letting people say, "Gee, I know what's good for aboriginal people; I know one." We call that in our community "favourite Indian syndrome" and I'm very pleased to say I'm nobody's favourite Indian. They don't call me up and say, "Sylvia said."
It's that kind of notion of wellness, of recovery that I'm talking about and we have to do that from a variety of ways. We have to certainly attack violence in our community; we've got to attack addictions in our community--and I'm not just talking about reserve communities; I'm talking about urban communities. We have to look at employment and training that prepares people to take their place in a very short time and feel like they are citizens, that they are contributing in this province, that they're part of it and that they're important. I think those are some ideas of what I'm talking about recovering from and where we'd like to go.
The Chair: Please let me thank you, Ms LaCaille, Ms Maracle, Mr Thompson for spending time with us this afternoon. You've been effective spokespeople on behalf of the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres. You have clearly prompted some great interest on the part of the members of the committee and we are grateful to you. We hope you will keep in touch either with individual members or with the committee as a group, and that you'll be watching this legislation as it goes through committee and on into third reading. Thank you kindly, people. Take care. Have safe trips back home.
It's 5:55 pm. There are no other participants appearing today and we will therefore adjourn until tomorrow at 10 am. Thank you kindly.
The committee adjourned at 1755.