ONTARIO NETWORK OF INJURED WORKERS' GROUPS
CHRISTIAN LABOUR ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS' GROUP
SKILL DYNAMICS CANADA, IBM CANADA LTD
ONTARIO NETWORK OF EMPLOYMENT SKILLS TRAINING PROJECTS
WATERLOO/WELLINGTON AREA LTAB FACILITATION COMMITTEE
CANADIAN AUTO WORKERS, LOCAL 1459
CONTENTS
Wednesday 27 January 1993
Ontario Training and Adjustment Board Act, 1993, Bill 96
Michael Tabor
Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups
Karl Crevar, president
Kamala Roy
Christian Labour Association of Canada
Ed Grootenboer, executive director
Ray Pennings, director, publicity and promotion
Independent Contractors' Group
Harry Pelissero, executive vice-president
Skill Dynamics Canada, IBM Canada Ltd
E.R. Israel, general manager
Ontario Network of Employment Skills Training Projects
Sandra Dobrowolsky, executive director
Waterloo/Wellington Area LTAB Facilitation Committee
Bill Thomson, chairman
Canadian Auto Workers, Local 1459
Michael McCue, chairman, plant shop committee
Whitby Chamber of Commerce
Ian Bergin, chair, government relations committee
Marc Kealey, member, government relations committee
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
*Chair / Président: Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold ND)
*Acting Chair / Présidente suppléante: Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury 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)
*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:
Cunningham, Dianne (London North/-Nord PC) for Mr Turnbull
Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie ND) for Mr Waters
Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L) for Mr Conway
Sutherland, Kimble (Oxford ND) for Mr Dadamo
Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Les Îles ND) for Mr Klopp
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND) for Ms Murdock and Mr Dadamo
Clerk / Greffière: Manikel, Tannis
Staff / Personnel:
Anderson, Anne, research officer, Legislative Research Service
Smith, Cynthia M., director, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1040 in committee room 1.
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 10:40 am. I want to apologize to the members of the committee for the delay in starting this morning, and I want to apologize to persons participating as presenters for the delay in starting this morning. We appreciate that this is an inconvenience. I assure those presenters that they will all receive their full allotment of 30 minutes.
I indicate, by way of explanation, that it had been agreed yesterday between this Chair and the Chair of the finance and economics committee, after being requested to do so by the Chair of that committee, that this committee relinquish room 151 to that committee. In the capacity of Chair, that was an executive decision which traditionally is within the power of the Chair. That decision on my part was announced to the committee at least twice on the record yesterday during the sitting of the resources development committee and was made known to Mr Hansen, the Chair of the finance and economics committee, and to Mr Franco Carrozza, who is the clerk of the finance and economics committee.
Their request for room 151 began during the course of last week and carried through into Friday and indeed on into Monday and Tuesday of this week. I felt it was a fair accommodation of their request. I indeed attended briefly at the finance and economics committee meeting yesterday morning and put on their record that I indeed had extended that offer. That was after the Chair of that committee, Mr Hansen, had indicated that there was no cooperation from me about the use of room 151.
When we arrived here at 10 am this morning to start these hearings, Mr Hansen refused to leave room 1, creating a great deal of confusion for participants in these hearings and no small amount of embarrassment for any number of people who don't expect to see that sort of thing happen. I sincerely regret what has occurred. I apologize again to all the staff people, the members of this committee, the participants and members of the public, both those who would be interested in these OTAB hearings and those who would be interested in the auto insurance hearings, because indeed the auto insurance hearings are similarly delayed by at least one half-hour. I cannot overstate my regret about the conduct that resulted in our not being able to use this room in a timely manner.
I should indicate that the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario will be rescheduled to accommodate them.
MICHAEL TABOR
The Chair: Our first participant is Michael Tabor. Sir, please tell us, if you will, any background you wish to, your comments on this legislation. Please try to leave the second 15 minutes of the half-hour for discussion and questions from members of this committee. Welcome.
Mr Michael Tabor: Thank you. In terms of background, I've been a trainer for about 20 years, primarily in publishing. I'll try to be brief; I've heard what you've said. I have three kinds of recommendations this morning based on my reading of the bill and my discussion with my colleagues in the industry. The first one is really rather brief.
I feel that the employees of OTAB should themselves be quite up on modern trends in training. I'm recommending that they first of all receive a quarterly seminar on current trends in training, and that OTAB publish a selection of courses so that any employee, at no expense to himself or herself, can take a single course per quarter.
I think that in all kinds of government agencies there's a perception on the part of many in the public that the people in the agency are probably bureaucrats first and stand very little chance of actually knowing what it is they're administering. I think this would go a long way towards ameliorating any such feeling on the part of the public. I think it would be generally a good thing for those employees, and I think it would increase the quality of OTAB's general operations. I wouldn't even mind seeing that legislated, although it could simply be taken as a recommendation for the eventual board.
My second recommendation concerns directors. Currently, the bill provides for seven directors representing business, seven representing labour and two representing educators and trainers. A great many people I've talked to feel that this is severely imbalanced. Surely what the educators and trainers are doing is at the very heart of what OTAB wants to accomplish, so at the very least they should have equal representation on the board.
Further, colleagues of mine within the training industry feel that it's not generally recognized that educators and trainers are two quite different kinds of fish, and that one should really separate them out and give equal representation to both.
Trainers, particularly, feel that educators, by which they mean those in universities and community colleges, are not truly providing training at all, and that even to the extent that they may be said to be providing training, they're certainly not providing the kind of timely, focused, adaptable training that, may I say, genuine trainers provide.
I'm recommending that there be four directors for business, four for labour, four for educators and four for trainers themselves. I'm cognizant of the fact that trainers, being in business, can easily come up against conflict of interest, but the bill does provide for the board to define conflict of interest, and I think it's certainly well within the capability of normal human beings of goodwill to resolve that kind of thing. I'm not sure what the original drafters of the bill had in mind by giving only one position on the board to trainers themselves, but it's the single thing that my colleagues mention to me most in this regard.
My third set of recommendations has to do with training materials. I think everyone knows that the vast majority of training materials are now produced on people's desk tops electronically with what's called desktop publishing. The trouble with that, of course, is that there's vast incompatibility across computers, across software packages. In an effort to get at this kind of problem, the International Standards Organization has spent the last 20 years creating a standard called SGML, standard generalized markup language. It is now the standard for creating, databasing, transmitting and archiving text by organizations, businesses and industries all around the world. My brief mentions that in Canada, the Department of National Defence, Statistics Canada and the Canadian Standards Association have adopted SGML; the United States Securities and Exchange Commission; the international aerospace industry; the American Association of Publishers and their counterparts in Germany; Her Majesty's Stationery Office; the American Chemical Society and on and on.
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My point here is twofold: I think that trainers in Ontario, in order to be truly competitive not only in Canada but globally, should be creating their training materials in some sort of standardized way. This is not to say that the materials themselves, in terms of content, are standardized; it's not to say they all look the same when they're printed and so forth. It simply means that the underlying electronic representation of these materials conforms to an international standard.
I feel that OTAB should adopt SGML as the architecture of choice for its own internal information systems, as a great many government agencies have, not only in Canada but around the world. I also feel that OTAB should undertake initiatives that will allow producers of training materials to create and maintain their materials in SGML. I think this will give them a competitive advantage around the world. I know there are a great many government bodies not only in Canada but elsewhere, and a great many entire industries as well as a great many of the larger multinational corporations, that simply will not accept printed materials of any kind unless an SGML file is also delivered electronically at the same time.
If OTAB were to promote the use of SGML in Ontario, it would therefore do three things:
(1) Increase the competitive advantage of Ontario training firms.
(2) It would allow Ontario training firms to move forward into the electronic age very efficiently and therefore increase their profitability.
(3) Parenthetically, I might add as a third point that Ontario itself is actually a hotbed of SGML development. There are a great many Ontario firms that do business in this area, and the spinoff business for them would not be insignificant.
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): Thank you very much for your presentation this morning, Mr Tabor. I'd like to enter into some sort of dialogue with you. One of my criticisms about the establishment of OTAB has been the balance of the different partners on the board, but I don't agree with your position, and I'd like to tell you why that is: I think the government's is skewed a little too far one way and maybe you've brought it back just a little too far.
I think the philosophy in developing the numbers as they are--though I think they're not quite in balance and I would like to see educators-trainers have a little more say on the board--is that services that are delivered by government today should be primarily client-driven, if they can be, and you as a trainer would be the provider of the service. I think for too long, in government, we've had the providers sort of dictating what the service should be rather than that it be client-driven.
I think the sense from the private sector has been that in order for us to really get involved with training--as the private sector has probably been a bit negligent in in Canada, this jurisdiction--it has to have a say. They really need to be having a say in how the dollars are spent so that their needs are addressed. So the idea of putting this together is to make sure that the workers and the employers really have a say as to the direction of training.
Obviously, trainers and educators have to be there, and I think there are not enough educators and trainers on the board. I will be preparing amendments to try to bring that balance back, but I don't agree, like you have now, that you've equalized it, with the client and the provider there. I think it's a little too far. I just wanted to say that I disagree and to give you an opportunity to enter an open dialogue with me, if you'd like.
Mr Tabor: I'm not really married to those figures that I have in my brief either, and you're quite right that I was simply responding to the vast imbalance. My point is really more generally that there should be more representation from those people. I feel that pretty strongly at the board level, because I really feel that OTAB should know what it's doing and I think it really needs the perspective of professional trainers and educators. I wouldn't be prepared to defend my exact figures very far.
Mr Ramsay: I'm very pleased with your recommendation. As you say, the idea that we should be adopting a standardized computer language and communication system for OTAB so that we could enhance communication I think is excellent, because I think we really have to move into the modern era. In fact, the type of OTAB training system that I envision would be really a series of storefront operations. Instead of what OTAB is, a big top-down operation, where we're going to build a big bureaucracy from the top and then later on put in the little pieces in the community, I would do it in reverse; I would start at the local level.
I think your idea of having a standardized communication system so that the data in each locale can talk to itself and to each other is the right idea. I think that's something that will need to be looked at, because the importance of what the government's trying to do here will not be basically what this bill addresses, and that is setting up the umbrella board for the province. It's going to be at the local level and as you pointed out, the communication between the different storefronts or whatever offices are eventually established will be of paramount importance to the whole operation and the success of it.
Mr Tabor: In that regard, since you've brought up transmitting information around the province, we'll add that SGML is the international standard for transmitting text across telephone lines. That's because it's fast and it's very inexpensive. As a little test, this sheet of paper was created in a software program called PageMaker. To transmit this through the phone line in PageMaker form takes about three minutes; to transmit the corresponding SGML files takes less than three seconds.
Also, I think it's perhaps important to realize that none of us can be really sure what's going to happen to paper overall. We most certainly will wind up with CD-ROM technologies, perhaps extremely small, hand-held computers of the kind that Apple is starting to bring out with the Newton technology. In 10 years, it may be that the primary way trainers deliver their training materials is by computer.
The federal government, of course, through the Canary project, is contemplating wiring this whole country, and it's a dead certainty that the standard for transmitting information across those lines will be, or at least will certainly include, SGML. I don't think there's any doubt about that whatsoever.
Mr Ramsay: Yes, I think that's the way we have to go. I've been a big fan of electronic highways or digital highways, and I'm glad to see that the Canary project's finally getting under way.
Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): Thank you very much for coming this afternoon--or this morning; it seems like this afternoon already for a lot of reasons I don't want to talk about.
It's always interesting to get recommendations where people have seriously looked at the makeup of OTAB itself, and that is one of the responsibilities of this committee: to take your submission seriously.
I wonder if you could talk at all about your experience with the local boards in the community. Have you had experience with the local boards?
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Mr Tabor: No, I haven't. Partly, I'm communicating a lot of concern on the part of my colleagues. I have certainly sat in on think tanks conducted by the Ontario training and development corp and things at that level.
I was initially very pleased about the idea of local boards until I went through the act more carefully and realized that not only were there those, but there could be special councils. I had an initial bad reaction that said: "Why are we dividing this up geographically? Perhaps we should divide it up into special interest groups as well." But I now realize there's an accommodation for that other sort of thing, so I feel quite happy about that.
Mrs Cunningham: So this basically is your recommendation around the main OTAB board itself. Your emphasis is the underrepresentation on behalf of educators and trainers.
Mr Tabor: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: Both public and private.
Mr Tabor: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: Do you have any recommendations for the committee with regard to the balance of public/private trainers? Public trainers are colleges and universities. We've had some input on that and I'm just wondering what yours is; the balance, I mean.
Mr Tabor: I'm not speaking for myself here, but I'll tell you that in talking with my colleagues I've encountered, to be blunt, a great deal of concern about the possibility that OTAB, being a government board, will naturally prefer to send as much training the way of community colleges as possible, that it will prefer the kind of approach they have to the approach of the private sector, and that the whole emphasis on training in the next decade, which is not only coming from OTAB but also is endemic in the whole western world, will see a rise of raw credentialism of a kind that we don't need at all.
In fact, one of my colleagues put it this way: We can't discriminate now on the basis of age, race, sex, disability or practically anything else, and yet human beings have a natural need to rate and sort each other and create hierarchies. What will happen is that half the people in the western world will now make their living training and the other half will use all their spare time being trained and getting more and more credentials, and more and more certificates and degrees and pieces of paper. That's not going to help anybody be more productive or in fact do anything for any of us at all.
That's almost verbatim from two different people. I encountered a vast amount of cynicism in that regard. So yes, I really would like to see OTAB be perceived to be playing quite fair with the private sector.
Mrs Cunningham: You might look at section 4, paragraphs 15, 16 and 17 in that regard. There's been some criticisms that the emphasis has been on--and you've stated it yourself, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong; there's too much emphasis on the publicly funded education systems and no recognition of the importance of private. Our party will be making an amendment in that regard, but if you have any suggestions as to what you would like to see and the wording of that amendment, we would appreciate hearing from you.
Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): I think I need to pick up on that point to emphasize that as has been stated on several occasions during these committee hearings, paragraphs 15 and 16 are complementary. Paragraph 15 talks about using the "diverse educational and training resources" in the province; paragraph 16 talks about ensuring the strength of the public systems there and that as a result--obviously, any government has the mandate to be accountable to the taxpayers for the money it's invested. I think everyone recognizes there has been a very strong investment in that system. So the two are meant to be complementary, not contradictory. I think most people have recognized that there is a role for both public and private in terms of meeting the training needs in the province.
In your recommendation 2, you talked about the number of directors, and I think Mr Ramsay kind of dealt with this a bit in his question, but in terms of your wanting more representation in terms of the educators and trainers on the board, you said you weren't necessarily holding strong to the numbers you put forward. I guess I just wanted to re-emphasize the point that this is meant to be a consumer-driven process in terms of them having more input than they have had in the past.
Are there any other recommendations you haven't highlighted here that you'd like to see the training framework develop? That's really what OTAB is, setting a provincial policy framework for the training before we get the establishment of the local boards to meet the local needs.
Mr Tabor: I understand that meeting Ontario's training needs is the thrust of the bill. My colleagues and I are frankly hoping that one strong result of OTAB's work will be that Ontario training firms are more competitive outside Ontario as well.
Mr Sutherland: In terms of developing here so they can do export of their services?
Mr Tabor: Yes. I simply didn't quite see, in the time allotted nor in the terms of the bill itself, any very strong vehicle for me to be making that point, and I frankly don't have all my ducks in a row on that issue anyway. I'll just mention that as a little emotional overtone to my brief.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): As I think was referred to by a number of my colleagues on the committee, you've brought some strong concern about the issue of the membership of the OTAB board itself. It's not the first time we've heard it. There are lots of groups out there that have the same concern. I guess, because so many are coming and raising it, it must indeed have some credence as an issue.
We've had groups come as well to say that we should include youth representatives on the committee, we've had groups come to say we should have the unemployed on the committee, and now you're offering another makeup of the committee.
The committee, as proposed by the ministry after great consultation, is in my mind quite simple and clear in terms of its makeup and what happens behind the scenes to arrive at it; the numbers by the business community and by the labour groups could in fact consider some of those things.
In your mind, while including the people you think should be on the board, how might we include some of these others, or should we?
Mr Tabor: I'll tell you that the only reason I focused on the makeup of the board as a vehicle for that concern was because of the perception on the part of my colleagues that no matter what happened, it was probably going to be simply another government body that would be more destructive than helpful. I don't believe that, but I do believe that the composition of the board acts as a weather vane for that perception.
I think that at the very least trainers and educators should be brought in to consult at intervals. I think that if the board itself, in its publicity and in its public face, can make it perfectly clear that it wants to listen and indeed will listen to absolutely everybody, it scarcely matters how the board is made up. I'm not particularly focused on that, but I can tell you that in preparing to present today, I talked with over 40 colleagues and I heard this from every single one of them. The thing all of them pointed to to prove the point that OTAB was in fact going to give short shrift to the training community was the makeup of the board, so that's where I decided to put my comments.
I think OTAB could in fact work very hard to hear ongoing representation from all these groups and could be perceived to be doing so by working very hard at communicating to the public that it is listening. I don't think the makeup of the board is completely critical in that regard, but it sure is a nice place to start. I certainly don't disagree that other groups should be heard from, although my sense is that one could get into diminishing returns. After the 30th or 40th group being represented, I would imagine that OTAB's work could grind to a halt. But it's always easy to say that when you're not of the group that you don't care about, so I don't want to lean too heavily on that.
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Mr Martin: Certainly, groups that represent your interest have come before the board. The career colleges or career training centres have been represented, and they're certainly excited about the evolution of OTAB and the opportunity that it might provide for them to actually become an acceptable part of the training spectrum in communities.
It seems to me that the business community itself would be wanting to use the best, most efficient instrument out there, and their representatives on the board will probably be pushing for that kind of thing to happen. That still doesn't give you the degree of comfort that you would need to give this full endorsement.
Mr Tabor: Actually, personally, it works for me just fine, but I heard such a violent reaction from my colleagues on the issue that I really felt that I should put it right up front.
The Chair: Mr Tabor, the committee thanks you sincerely for sharing your views with us, for participating in this process. It's important that members of the public feel comfortable approaching committees, this one and others like it, to share their views, to express their opinions. It's a valuable part of the process. It's an important part of the process, and we are grateful to you for your interest, for taking the time out of your day, not only to attend here but of course to prepare that submission. We trust you'll be keeping in touch and tracking this legislation as it proceed through committee and into the Legislature. We welcome any further comments.
ONTARIO NETWORK OF INJURED WORKERS' GROUPS
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups. Please come forward as their spokesperson. Tell us your name and your capacity within the Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups. Proceed with your comments. We've got 30 minutes; please try to save at least the second 15 for questions and dialogue.
Mr Karl Crevar: Certainly. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be present this morning. My name is Karl Crevar. I am the president of the Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups.
Maybe just to give you a bit of background on the network itself, it was formed approximately a year and a half ago. The reason it was formed is that, as you know, injured workers in the province of Ontario, for a number of years, in dealing with the workers' compensation system, had some grave concerns over what was developing within the system itself.
We found that for many years other agencies, other people, were making decisions for injured workers, so we took it upon ourselves to organize, to develop the organization so that we may be able to express our realistic concerns to the appropriate agencies. That is the makeup, generally, of how we developed in Ontario.
As I've indicated, we are very young. When we heard about the development of the OTAB program, we were very excited. We support the initiative of the government on the OTAB program itself because it opens a vast opportunity. As most of you know, with the workers' compensation system in Ontario, many people fall through the cracks. They never get back to work. They never get the opportunity to be retrained to get back to work. So when OTAB developed, it gave us an opportunity to participate, and as an organization we are attempting to do that at all levels, not only with workers' compensation but at all other levels.
Let me just point out that I do not profess to know the entirety of the OTAB program itself. I have had an opportunity to participate in some of the round table discussions. We felt that it was very important for us to be into that program because, as you know, the disabled and injured in this province are the most vulnerable when it comes to getting back into the workforce. I don't think there's any question about that. The introduction of Bill 162 created an even bigger hole for injured workers to get back into the workforce.
This gives us an opportunity to be able to address you. I don't know the full context of the OTAB bill, but we do have a couple of concerns that I would like to address with the committee here today. On the makeup of the board itself, when you look at the number of disabled in this province, not only in the disabled community but also in the injured-worker community, it's imperative that injured workers be represented on that board. We have not seen that. We know that there is representation by the disabled groups with whom we share a lot in common and we have worked with the disabled organizations in the province of Ontario. However, if you really want to find out what the problems are for injured workers, you should have someone there to be able to indicate to you what they actually are.
As you know--the vulnerability of human beings, particularly I refer to the injured workers movement in this province--there are many, many injured workers who do not have the opportunity to tie into any type of program through the workers' compensation system. It's not only the injured workers who suffer; it's their families, it's the community, it's the province as a whole and society as a whole that suffers, because what we find is that the people who are out of work because of an injury do not have an opportunity to participate in their own livelihoods in this province, and they should have.
When the day comes where we look at individuals as human beings and, simply because of an injury, say, "Well, because you've been hurt, you no longer have access to any programs," that is a day that we should all hang our heads in shame, because that is what is developing today.
The difficulty is, as I'm sure most of you know with workers' compensation, it's been erroneous what we find in terms of the re-employment provisions and retraining. We do not have that opportunity. So again, I emphasize the fact that the creation of OTAB gives us an opportunity, hopefully, to get access to that.
The other area I wanted to address with you--our concerns--is that we're not very clear on how injured workers in particular will be able to access the training program. I have not seen the documents and in our discussions of our own organization we have not seen how injured workers will access that program. The concern that we have is in the development of any retraining program for the disabled or the injured workers in this province, or wherever they may be. We have not seen the access or accommodation provisions in any of the discussions.
I'll give you an example. When you develop such a program, when you have a disabled or an injured worker who is in the program, particularly in an educational institute, as you know, many injured workers and disabled may not be able to take the prolonged type of training that's required on an eight-hour day. Are there going to be provisions made where, in the event that it is established, they may only be able to function for two or three hours in a day? These are the types of things that we're looking at. Will the accommodation factors be taken into consideration for the injured or disabled in that type of a program? We have not seen that in there. Those are grave concerns, because if that issue is not addressed, then it seems quite obvious that there will be a number of disabled and injured workers who will not have the opportunity to access this training program.
Rather than looking at disabled or injured workers who have a disability, we should be looking at them as having ability. They want to get back into the workforce. We want to get back into the workforce; we require assistance. With the makeup of the OTAB board we find again, and I stress this very heavily--we are excited with the program, but we want to ensure that our voices are heard and that those particular areas of concern are addressed. Because if those areas are not addressed, then the program to us is of no use. It will not benefit us; it will not benefit society as a whole; it will not benefit the individuals. So when I talk about accident accommodation, that is most crucial in this program.
I know you've had many hearings and, as I've indicated to you before, I'm not an expert on the OTAB program, but I did want to take the opportunity to address our concerns, those two particular areas that we have concerns with, so thank you very much for giving me that opportunity. I know I'm quick.
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The Chair: We're grateful to you for leaving sufficient time for some healthy dialogue and exchange. Ms Cunningham, please.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you for attending today. We have in fact had a number of representations with regard to disabled workers, but not from your group of injured workers. I really appreciate what you're telling us today and I'm very much aware of the challenges that you face.
I'd like you to answer two questions. You know that there is one director representing persons with disabilities and I'd like to be clear as to what you're saying in that regard. Are you saying that we should also have one director representing injured workers? Second, I'd like your opinion on whether or not you feel that this overall title "disabilities" would in fact speak clearly for your group, how you feel about their ability to speak for your group.
Mr Crevar: On the first question, yes, I think it's imperative that if you take a look at the numbers of injuries that take place in the province of Ontario, which are in the area of 500,000 claims at workers' compensation per year, approximately 20% are permanent injuries. Out of that 20% there are a number of people who do not get back to work, because of the lack of initiative under the workers' compensation system, for whatever reasons they may be. So when you look at those types of figures, yes, we do have a high number of people in this province who would be affected who should have the accessibility to OTAB. Therefore, to represent our views as to how it should be addressed, we feel that we should have representation in the makeup of the board itself.
We are aware of the representative of the disabled community on the board, but you must understand that the disabled community varies somewhat from what our positions are because we deal with workers' compensation issues themselves. Generally, we speak in the same language, because somewhere along the line when an individual has a permanent disability, he becomes a disabled person. So we do have people who belong to our organizations from the disabled community as well. They have a permanent injury; that's not going to go away. It's going to remain with them, and we are going to try to help and assist them to get back to employment, to become whole people again as much as possible.
Mrs Cunningham: This is a question of interest for myself. I represent the riding of London North and I'm familiar with the disabled workers at one of our big organizations. They've been tremendously helpful not only to their own managers but to the government as well. This government has taken an active interest. One of the areas they pointed out that I wasn't really aware of was the flexibility within the workforce itself to take back people who aren't permanently disabled so that you would call them disabled, but the interim time when people are trying to get back into full-time employment. Is that the area of information and recommendations that you feel you would be most helpful in with regard to the board, that interim period of time?
Mr Crevar: Yes, but it has to be on a long term. The goal has to be to return to the working environment, the self-esteem of the individual.
Mrs Cunningham: So there are both parts, which would be missing on behalf of many of the disabled workers, but maybe not, because, you know, they may have taken that route themselves. It's interesting.
The Chair: Mr Huget and then Mr Wilson.
Mr Bob Huget (Sarnia): Thank you for your presentation. I guess I'd like to touch on a little bit of the workplace issues themselves. I don't know if you've heard the term "jettisoning the walking wounded" in an employer situation, but I certainly have and have had to deal with it for many, many years. What I mean by that is that there are people who have perhaps become injured at work, and if there were some accommodations made in their daily routine or some accommodations made in the workplace, they indeed may not have to find themselves leaving the workplace and may not have to find themselves in a situation where they're wrestling with an ongoing WCB situation.
There are a lot of situations I've run up against over the years where people have been termed "disabled" and unable to carry out a function in the workplace, when in reality I think all that was required was some accommodation in their daily routines and some accommodation in their workplace and they could indeed carry on a function.
In my view, there has never been, among many of the major industries in this country, significant attention paid to the fact that the first line of action does not necessarily mean getting that person out of the workplace. I think there's a lot more that could be done to keep that person in the workplace with some special considerations to a condition that may, over time, disappear.
I can refer specifically to a situation in my area where a person was a control room board operator; the first line of action that was considered when the person was put into a wheelchair was to remove the person from the workplace. All that was required was that there be some accommodation made for a wheelchair in the workplace and he could have stayed there. In fact, after significant discussion and wrangling, that's what happened. But I think we should be paying a heck of a lot more attention to that.
On the issue of the training and OTAB, there is a situation where I guess we can discuss training injured workers who are out of the workplace trying to get back in. Shouldn't industry and shouldn't workplaces be training flexibility from the very first day they're employed so that in the event something happens to them in terms of a disability, an illness or an accident, they have the flexibility, with the skills they've acquired and developed during that employment relationship, to move into another function and thereby keep them perhaps off the WCB rolls?
Mr Crevar: Yes, I agree with you on your last comment. I have no problem saying they're "termed" disabled. In the real world today when we deal with compensation, they're "deemed" disabled. It means the same thing, generally, to what you've been saying.
I think it is important, the accommodation question. The reason we're excited about the OTAB program is because, as most of you know, particularly with the inception of Bill 162, many people who are injured in the workplace, because of the lack of services of vocational rehabilitation, have fallen through the cracks, are out on the streets; they're either on social assistance or they're receiving minimal benefits. They do not have a job and it is much more difficult for them to acquire a job. That's the real life today.
I've heard many arguments in reverse to that, but if you're realistic enough to look at it, the disabled or injured have a much more difficult time getting re-employed because in many instances they lack the education or the training to get back into the workforce. This is what is needed through the training process to address that.
I agree wholeheartedly with you. If this was started in the beginning, then maybe at some point in time down the road when something does happen, they have the skills so they can move on. Unfortunately, in the real world, that's not happening today, and that's where we're having some difficulty with many of the injured workers.
Mr Huget: That's my dissatisfaction with the workplace structure. In my view, there has never been enough emphasis in terms of the flexibility issue. For example, a millwright may be working in an industrial situation and perhaps through an unfortunate accident loses his arm. If he can't do anything else, if he's never been trained or skilled to do anything else, he goes on the scrap heap, he's out the door, and then fighting to get back into a workplace, not only that workplace but any workplace.
I maintain that if people took the responsibility--and there is a responsibility among employees and employers--flexibility in skills acquirement over the life of their employment would mean that person may be able to fill another function, just as important a function, and not have to deal with it from the outside looking in.
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The Chair: You can respond if you wish.
Mr Crevar: I agree wholeheartedly with what the gentleman has said.
The Chair: I suspect he's pleased with that response. Mr Wilson.
Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): Thank you for your presentation. It certainly rounds out an important perspective. I want to suggest too that from your work with the disability steering committee, you must have some idea of the kinds of mechanisms that are possible, just because of the discussion you get there. You perhaps know too that there are some structures set up within OTAB: not only the director, who would be a representative of the people-with-disabilities community, but also the council, which would be responsible for the various components of the OTAB project. I think the one that would especially interest the injured workers would be the entry/re-entry council, and that would allow for a very direct participation by injured workers into the policy formation of OTAB.
You've already suggested some of the reasons for that; that is, the difficulty of accessing the programs that are available and some way of keeping track of the record of achievement that workers have. I was wondering whether you might elaborate on the difficulty of accessing programs and how that could be improved under OTAB.
Mr Crevar: The example I used is that in many of the educational institutions, the accommodation factor has to be addressed. In many cases, as I pointed out earlier, will injured workers or the disabled be able to participate in a program in an institution that requires an eight-hour day if they cannot put in an eight-hour day? Will the program itself allow for that? We don't know.
Mr Gary Wilson: What kind of recommendation did you make so that the program did allow for that?
Mr Crevar: The program, once an applicant has applied for the program and been accepted, must address the individual's needs going through the educational or retraining process, whatever it might be. That has to be accepted. Yes, it may take longer. If, for example, an educational institution has a course that would take 12 months for an able-bodied person, it may take 18 months for a non-able-bodied person, a person who has a disability or an injury. Those are the types of questions we haven't seen answered, and unless that accommodation factor is met, the program, as I've indicated to you, would be of no use to injured workers or many of the people in the disabled communities.
Mr Gary Wilson: And you have, from your own experience, examples of how it's not working now?
Mr Crevar: The only examples I can give you are in terms of injured workers who participate in rehab programs, that if they do not do certain things for a certain amount of time, they are deemed to be uncooperative and are cut off their benefits. Those are the kinds of examples I can give you, simply because they cannot participate because of their injuries.
Mr Gary Wilson: Is there more time?
The Chair: For you, Mr Wilson, darned near about as much time as you're going to need.
Mr Gary Wilson: Do you see some development in these issues through your organization, which you say has been in existence about a year and a half? I understand other groups have been in existence much longer; that is, groups of injured workers. I was wondering about the progress you feel you're making by coming together, which I think is the purpose of OTAB as well, to bring all these resources under one umbrella to give it a better coordination and focus. From your own experience, do you see this happening with injured workers, and would you be able to carry this through to something like OTAB?
Mr Crevar: On the question of the injured workers' organization itself, I should have indicated to you that the provincial part of the organization that has been organized now was developed as a result of a number of organizations through the past eight years or so where we have come together. As I indicated at the beginning, injured workers organized because other agencies were telling us what was best for us, so a number of organizations developed in the province of Ontario.
The background history: Back in 1988, at our first conference, I believe there were eight organizations in place. As we progressed through the years, we're into our fifth conference, but at our fourth conference we had 22 organizations of injured workers in the province of Ontario that had decided, simply because agencies would not deal with individual organizations, that they should come together and speak as one voice.
In terms of progression, yes, we have progressed. We have been able to take initiatives on our own and to be able to address them to the appropriate agencies. It's been very useful for us to channel into the various agencies.
Mr Gary Wilson: Then I guess you'd appreciate the client-driven nature of OTAB, that the consumers, the people who need the services, are the ones who are going to have a very direct role in the running of the organization.
Mr Crevar: Yes.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mr Ramsay, please.
Mr Ramsay: Karl, thank you very much for your presentation. I very much appreciated it, because you underscore the point many of us have made--and I feel very strongly about this--that the representation is not broad enough.
I'm very concerned that the people you represent don't have as great a say on that board as you believe. I believe the same, that they should have. When you look at the workers' side, it primarily represents able-bodied working people. I don't see where unemployed people, who probably need training as much as anybody to upgrade their skills, and injured people, who probably are going to need some training to get into something else, are represented.
I agree with you: I'd like to see a particular designation on the board for injured workers. I know from the cases in my two constituency offices that this is a major problem. I come from an area where there's a lot of mining going on, so you can imagine the injuries, as you would know through your group, there are in the mining industry. We've really got to do something. These are people who desperately need training and really have been displaced, so I agree with you.
I must tell you about the organization too. You mentioned the WCB. If you'll allow me to be sarcastic, what I say to people is that if you like the WCB, you'll love OTAB, because it's based on a very similar model. What worries me about OTAB is how distant it is from government. It's the same type of agency that we in government call a schedule 4 agency and is very independent from government. You know, as I do, in trying to deal with the WCB how difficult it is to put any sort of pressure on it to get things done, because it really has a sense of independence.
I don't think OTAB should be that independent, quite frankly. I think government could get out of the business of doing a lot of things, but when it comes to dealing with injured workers and with training people, I think those are primary functions of government. I don't want to see it being so independent. I'm very concerned it could end up being like a WCB. I don't want that to happen, because WCB has to be retooled. Here we have an opportunity to design from scratch an organization that's going to be there to serve all Ontarians in regard to training.
I find your presentation very valuable today, and thank you for that. If you'd like to make any comment, please do.
Mr Crevar: No. You have stated quite eloquently what our concerns are.
Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): Mr Crevar, I want to pursue this. I think what we're really talking about here, at the end of the day, is accountability. Let's assume you can't get a representative on OTAB. How do you think you'll be able to make the government or OTAB accountable? Who would you go through to ensure that your interests are being properly represented? Let's say OTAB is doing something, putting into place some kind of program that you feel leaves out your interests. To whom do you complain?
Mr Crevar: If OTAB itself, once it's established, is doing something that is not in the interests of the injured workers, our avenues are only open to either the board or the government. I know part of the makeup of the board. There is a representative of the disabled community; there are also members of the worker community or the employer community. We can lobby. We have been doing it for some time now, lobbying various agencies to get our points across. We find it very difficult. Again I point out to you that the reason we organized is so that we can speak as one voice.
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Mr McGuinty: What I anticipate is going to happen is that the government's going to say, as it does now with Ontario Hydro or with the WCB: "We really operate at arm's length here, you know. There's a good group of people on there and they're mandated to act in the public interest. Surely that public interest would encompass the needs of your particular group, so it's really out of our hands, Mr Crevar." That's what I anticipate they're going to say.
Mr Crevar: Let me just make one point very clear: I wanted to address our concerns to you, and it's not a major concern over the makeup. What I do want to ensure is that the interest in the program itself, the legislation in the bill, addresses accommodation and access for the people who are most vulnerable, because this is a bill that is going to allow citizens--the unemployed, the various groups--access to retraining. Who best to have access but the disabled community? You cannot put them on an even par with an able body. They have much more difficulty and they require much more education and retraining. So this program has to be addressed to that particular target group. That's what I'm here for.
I'm not hung up on the makeup. We've had discussions with various members on the makeup of the board, because we work closely with the disabled community, as I've indicated before, because we share common interests. We want to ensure that the access and accommodation factors are in there, and we haven't seen them.
The Chair: Mr Crevar, the committee, and myself certainly included, thank you and the Ontario Network of Injured Workers' Groups for taking the time to be here today and share your views and insights into this legislation and this program with us. You certainly are a significant spokesperson for a significant constituency in this province. Please, when you report back to your association, the Ontario network, tell them that this committee not only thanked you and expressed its gratitude to you and your membership, but also congratulated you on what has been an insightful articulation of views on this particular bill and on the whole OTAB concept. We thank you for being here, sir.
Mr Crevar: I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity, and I encourage you to get this program in place as quickly as possible.
The Chair: Thank you kindly, and I know that you will keep in touch. Take care, sir.
KAMALA ROY
The Chair: The next participant is Mrs Kamala Roy. Mrs Roy, please have a seat and tell us what you want to about yourself. We've got your written submissions. They'll form part of the record by virtue of being filed as an exhibit.
Mrs Kamala Roy: Mr Chairman, I am just representing myself. Even though I'm a handicapped person, I'm not representing any society that has a membership of disabled people.
I have given you my written report, and basically this is what I mean to say. I'm not interested in how the setup of this OTAB is made up, how many directors, how many people who would like to have representation or this sort of thing. My concern is more on an intellectual level, taking this entire process in both micro and macro levels and seeing bit by bit how we can manage to place the unemployed people in the workforce.
I have written it down here, saying that a large number of blue-collar employees, mostly men and breadwinners, are sitting out of the workforce. Some of these men have little formal education. They are also at an age that going to school is a big ordeal, and learning the same things that their learning is an embarrassing exercise for them.
How do we deal with this? Simply by setting up a board of directors and chairman and some representation of the different members, we're not going to be successful in dealing with this problem.
My suggestion is this: We have to have, apart from the directorate and the policy implementation and all these things, an intellectual think tank, people who will think at a certain level, think as a whole and think as part of the whole and come out with solutions. We all know we have problems. There are different councils: the Economic Council of Canada, and even now Premier Bob Rae is attending a council. We all know the truth and the problem lying ahead of us; it's simply that we do not have the skills that can meet the modern day challenges in the workforce. We cannot simply solve this, deal with this by setting up a board and the board having the representation of disabled people or women or welfare employees.
One thing my predecessor mentioned that I would also like to bring out is that the representation from the private sector is not fair from the viewpoint of financial responsibility, because the private sector wants to represent OTAB equally, at the expense of the taxpayers' money. That's not a fair deal. The entire funding is coming only from the public sector. It's understandable that labour has to be represented, because we have to deal with their problems; that's why they have to be there. But the private sector, which is going to be the beneficiary later on, is overrepresented, actually.
That's one of the drawbacks of this OTAB. This is the same private sector again and again attacking our education system, and in future it might even attack OTAB too, saying that OTAB is not coming out with a properly trained labour force.
My second point is about the complacency that we have been on for a while. We know Asians are multiplying at a very fast rate in training the people and giving them a lot more resources and skills that are required by the modern world. For us, in that context Canada is a very small country and we are losing out in both directions, in the sense that we neither have highly skilled human resources nor do we have a big population base. Either way, if we sit out, we will lose.
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One of the main tasks of OTAB is to design a proper learning system for training a labour force which is fairly unskilled. If you ask any consulting engineers about designing, they will tell you that three quarters of their project time is used just in designing the project. I do not understand how the 15 directors of OTAB, doing the administrative things and transfers of funds to different institutions and all that, can really design a well-planned setup for training this unskilled labour force unless they spend a fair amount of time themselves on this instead of on the administrative duties.
But we all know that innovative ideas never came from either Wall Street or from Bay Street. They have to come from intellectuals. You have to have the education philosophers, the sociologists, the economists and the scientists to think about the problems we're facing on a minute level and come out with solutions. The executive of the crown agency can draw from this intellectual pool as and when a need arises. One of the purposes of this act is to design a labour force development program. This is a big challenge by any measure. Ideological thinking is the basis of innovation, and this cannot be achieved through board meetings and minute taking.
Most of the representatives here probably talked to you about how well they're represented, how much funding they will get from OTAB and what the avenues of the funding are going to be. This is going to be a problem whenever an organization is being set up. All the interest groups will come in and want their share of the whole. But that's not what I'm here for, because I'm not representing any interest group. I'm here on my own. I thought about this and I wanted to give my own opinion.
No one seems to think on an intellectual level. It seems like everybody wants to say: "Yes, we have a problem. We have an unskilled labour force, yes. What do we do about this? Our education system is not very good, so what do we do about it?"
These questions will be there for ever and ever unless and until we do something about it and someone thinks of the solution and comes out with something that is really viable and practical and physically possible. Free and clear thinking and consistent research in that direction is the only way to face our challenges.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Roy. Mr Martin, please.
Mr Martin: I want to thank you for coming and challenging us in this way. It certainly takes us to a different plane as we look at this whole question, because I certainly agree that you're absolutely right that the effectiveness of the OTAB board will only be in relation to somebody's ability to imagine what the future's going to look like.
Mrs Roy: Exactly.
Mr Martin: Certainly you present the fact that our world is moving more to an idea-, technological-, new-information-based industrial sector, as opposed to mining resources and manufacturing them and selling them. With that in mind, certainly places like Asia and Third World countries have a vast resource of people, and among them, I'm sure, some very bright minds and intellectual skills, and if we as a country are not willing to put the resources into the development of future-oriented ideas, then we'll be quickly left behind, and it's happening. Some of the issues raised by the discussions we've had so far I think certainly speak to that.
One of them is the question of, who is actually investing in this? Who's investing in research and development and all that kind of thing? What role should the private sector be playing in that?
There's a sense that the private sector is already creating the wealth that is working its way through the public system and back into organizations such as community colleges and universities and we shouldn't be taxing them any more. It's my sense, however, that wealth is not created by the private sector; wealth is created by the work of people and the thoughts and ideas of people as they bring them forward and are able to put some pricetag on them. Maybe you could comment.
Mrs Roy: Honourable member, I have to disagree with you, because wealth has to come from the private sector too in the industrialized nations. Canada is one of the lowest; 0.3% it invests in that, the private sector industry invests in the R&D and labour training.
Mr Martin: Okay, and that, to me, speaks to some of what I think holds up this piece of legislation, which is the notion of partnership. Certainly the private sector participates in the creation of wealth, provides opportunity for people to put their ideas into a way that can be sold and wealth can be generated. Any further thought from you I think would be helpful on just who should contribute to the further development of the kinds of ideas you're thinking about here and how that might tie into the development of this piece of legislation and OTAB.
Mrs Roy: Apart from having these directors from all the representation groups, seven or whatever I have read in here, seven from the labour groups, we also have to establish a think tank. That is my viewpoint. This think tank should consist of economists and sociologists and education philosophers and a group of scientists. They are the ones who have to think intellectually and come up with solutions. We do not necessarily have to take their solutions if they're not practical. Some of them may not be fiscally possible. We have to see the financial feasibility too, but we have to give them that duty, to think, because thinking is something that cannot be done by doing day-to-day mundane work. Thinkers have to be thinkers. Their input is entirely from a free brain, from clear thinking. That's the way I feel.
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Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you, Mrs Roy, for a stimulating presentation. You certainly hit on some of the issues that have been raised here in the committee already, and I'm pleased to hear you are looking for some balance, I think, between the practical and the theoretical. I think the board of governors of OTAB reflects that in that it has wide representation, but beyond that it has both reference groups and councils to make sure it does reflect the most recent thinking in the training field as well as give it response to the kinds of things it brings in, that it is working out in the field as well and that there is a practical nature to it.
For instance, the university sector has a contribution through the education and training group on the board. I mention that because you referred to the Economic Council of Canada, which I regret to say has been canned by the federal government. It has now found a home at Queen's University, so it still has access to things like training issues through the education and training sector.
I want to draw to your attention this handy set of fact sheets created by the Ministry of Skills Development to explain the OTAB project. In case you haven't seen them, we'll certainly send a set to you so you can read about it.
Mrs Roy: Yes, I'm aware of the Ministry of Skills Development and what they're doing here, but I don't have that--
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly. It gives a very good overview of what OTAB is about and I think it will help you in gaining insight into, I guess, the shared nature of this project; that is, government sharing responsibility with the people who need the training systems to make sure there is that overview, that fulfilment of the goals of government for its economic and social projects in the province as well as making sure the programs are there for workers or people who want to be in the workforce so they can be trained. As I say, I think there is the need for both the theoretical and the practical approach that you have mentioned and I want to say how pleased I was to hear that.
Also, you mentioned the lack of private sector investment in training. It has already been noted here at the committee, as well as in the wider community, that only, I think, 30% of companies have any training programs and most of them are for managers rather than front-line workers. It is a way of focusing attention on that kind of situation so we can take steps to redress it and in a way that I think everybody can agree to, since everyone recognizes that changes have to be made in this sector.
So, again, thanks very much for your presentation.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you, Mrs Roy, for your presentation. I think you offer good advice regarding thinking, and one of the problems with the political racket is we're often so busy--and I'm sure I speak for all members of the committee--putting out the nearest fire that it's difficult to look at some of the longer-term issues.
I want to address something you raised on page 2 of your written presentation. You talk there about the private sector being represented in terms of the decision-making on OTAB, but that it wasn't taking any fiscal responsibility and it ought to be contributing somehow. I want to pursue this a bit further.
My feeling is that often governments generally have been doing too much rowing when really they could be steering. What would you think of some kind of program which, rather than pursuing, I think, what you were talking about to its logical conclusion, which would mean that the private sector is going to have to kick in money directly, so in addition to the taxes they pay they'll have to kick in money directly to support this training program? What would you think of the idea where the private sector took it upon themselves, and they could be encouraged to do so--without setting up an additional bureaucracy--through some kind of a tax incentive program. You'd say: "Look, folks, set up a training program, subject to our approval. You train those people. We think it's a credible program. You're going to get a benefit for it; we're going to reduce your taxes somehow." We don't have to do it then as a government. What do you think of that kind of a program?
Mrs Roy: I don't think that's a very practical program. It's like giving the post office to the private sector and telling them: "You manage because it's too much for us. We are having problems with strikes and all the labour force and we cannot manage." A letter going to the Northwest Territories will be $1.50 instead of 43 cents. That's not a very feasible proposition, because anything the private sector takes in, first and foremost, it's the profitability that it takes into consideration. For people like me, if you are disabled or for any other reason you cannot perform the job, you're gone from the private sector.
Mr McGuinty: You don't trust the private sector to train people properly.
Mrs Roy: No, not under the circumstances that we are in right now. Maybe in Japan it works, maybe in Germany it works--I do not know--because they work together, the private sector and the public sector work together hand in hand, but not in this part of the world. So we still cannot give that trust to the private sector totally.
Mr McGuinty: Yes. I speak as an elected member of government, and I wish I had the faith in government that you have in order to carry out some of those kinds of programs, because I just don't.
Mrs Roy: Someone has to pick up the pieces. Someone has to do it.
Mr McGuinty: That's steering. I mean, that's what I call steering.
Mrs Roy: That is what we have come to now, because we all know, we have all recognized, that we have a skills problem. No one has done anything so far until this OTAB is started. So government has to do it in the end.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you for a most thoughtful presentation. I think you really do understand what's happening in the world today when it comes to the inadequacies of our country and our province to meet the needs of a tremendously well-skilled workforce. I think you also have, from what you've said, the understanding that we don't have the money in research and development that we ought to have.
I'm the critic in our party for Education, Skills Development and Colleges and Universities. I'm actually meeting with the colleges tomorrow for a couple of hours, talking just about this issue. We'd like to find some solutions to it, because they again raised it at our standing committee on finance with regard to the pre-budget hearings last week. So I'm most interested in your observations.
I'm wondering if you've ever thought about one of the solutions that certainly has been put forth to me by both the public sector and private sector and again, more recently, yesterday by Mr Jack Cooney, who represented the union of mechanical contractors, where he talked about a training fund. In his case, the employees contributed to that training fund, so that the company itself endeavoured to retrain and train workers, and he was quite familiar with it. I forget just what company. Did you hear that yesterday?
Mrs Roy: Yes, I heard that.
Mrs Cunningham: It was interesting, wasn't it?
Mrs Roy: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: It's one way of doing things, and I think that's what this committee is looking for. I'm wondering if you would like to give us any other observations on those kinds of innovations, because I feel that companies will do this in a different way if we give them the opportunity and the direction.
Mrs Roy: Yes, companies will have to do it eventually, because government alone cannot carry the load all the way. These are the same companies that will benefit in the future from this labour force that we are training.
It's not the dollar value I'm talking about, no matter where the dollar comes from. I'm talking entirely about the concept: how well we can put this person with the grade 10 education, with no other skill, in the regular workforce and making a little above average salary--minimum wage salary. I'm not saying he has to be given the same as the example I quoted, but this is a true case. I picked this up last year some time from the Star. This is not something I made up. So how well we can make this person work and put him in the workforce, this requires thinking. This is what we need; it's not the money. We have the money. We can find money, because OTAB is now, what, $1.2 billion?
Mrs Cunningham: The organization itself is between $400 million and $500 million, just for the organization of the thing.
Mrs Roy: My concern is not about money; it's about how we do it.
Mrs Cunningham: That's right. One of the complaints of the private sector, in fact some Canadian companies that are investing in training around the world and not in Canada, is that we don't have a training structure. With credit to the government, it's trying to find a way to do that, and the purpose of these hearings is for people like yourself to come and give it some good advice.
I think what you emphasized to me is two things. First of all, people who are losing their jobs right now are not people with university degrees, which underlines the importance of higher education. Second, you mentioned education, which I'm particularly pleased to see, because I feel that much of the training ought to be in our public school system in apprenticeship training, which doesn't exist right now. Both secondary schools and our colleges need to be beefed up in the area of apprenticeship training. I'm wondering if you would reflect on that for just a moment.
Mrs Roy: I do not want to overstep on our education system. We leave that to the schools and the teachers and the boards. Let them come up with the different solutions to get the students to learn better and at least finish their high school diploma. But really, OTAB should completely dissociate itself from the education system. We have nothing to do with the school system which will get involved in that. In my opinion, OTAB should only be working with the private industries as far as the apprenticeship is concerned, and increasing the labour--
Mrs Cunningham: But that's where there would be the overlap, because we know that in Ontario, our apprenticeship training doesn't finish until age 27 or 28, whereas around the world, other countries, the countries that the government has quoted--I'm talking about Germany, Great Britain--are finishing at age 21 or 22.
Mrs Roy: That's because the tab is also picked up by the private industry, not only from the public sector.
Mrs Cunningham: That's right.
Mrs Roy: Here the public sector is the only one that has to carry--
Mrs Cunningham: That's right, but that is also in cooperation with their school systems. I don't feel it can be separate, because of the age we're looking at.
Mrs Roy: It cannot be, but only at the apprentice level can we have some sort of association with them.
Mrs Cunningham: Okay, that's fine.
Mrs Roy: As far as the school system goes, educating the primary, grammar school, high school children, we shouldn't be involved in that.
Mrs Cunningham: Except where they're involved in apprenticeship programs.
Mrs Roy: Apprenticeship programs.
The Chair: Ms Roy, the committee expresses its gratitude to you and welcomes you here today and indeed wishes that more members of the public would, as you do, participate in these processes. It's important that not only do associations and organizations and interest groups express their views but that people like you, with backgrounds and skills and talents of their own, feel comfortable coming to these committees and discussing this and other equally important issues with us. I trust that you will keep in touch.
Mrs Roy: I feel strongly about this.
The Chair: Yes, we're confident that you do, and you've expressed your views most forcefully. You've obviously piqued the interest of all of the members of the committee. That was demonstrated by the nature of the exchanges and dialogue and questions that took place. Thank you kindly and please keep in touch with all of us. Take care.
I want to thank the members of the subcommittee for their assistance and guidance this morning in dealing with the problem of lack of committee spaces as a result of the recalcitrant Mr Hansen. I express my gratitude to those subcommittee members. They were helpful to me, and I appreciate their wise counsel.
We are recessed until 2:30 in this room.
The committee recessed at 1215.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1431.
CHRISTIAN LABOUR ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
The Chair: Good afternoon. It's 2:30. We're scheduled to resume. The first participants this afternoon are the Christian Labour Association of Canada. They of course are going to introduce themselves and tell us their titles or status or capacities within that association, they being here as spokespersons.
I want to particularly welcome Harry Pelissero, the former MLA MPP for the riding of Lincoln. Mr Pelissero of course chaired many a committee, as well as being parliamentary assistant in a number of capacities, the agricultural area and Tourism, while he was here at Queen's Park. As I say, we especially welcome you, sir, back here.
Gentlemen, please proceed. Tell us your names and your positions or titles, if any. We've got your written submissions. They'll form part of the record by virtue of being filed as an exhibit. Please try to save the second 15 minutes at least for discussions, questions and dialogue.
Mr Ed Grootenboer: My name is Ed Grootenboer. I'm the executive director of the Christian Labour Association of Canada. With me is Ray Pennings, our publicity promotion director. Mr Pelissero is sitting to my right; that's not a political designation.
With your indulgence, we are appearing here together on this subject of OTAB because we think it's an extremely important issue, perhaps one that should override the hot political topic of auto insurance, because in the long run this issue is going to have more repercussions in this province than what we do with auto insurance today or next year.
With your indulgence also, I'm asking that the Independent Contractors' Group and CLAC do their submissions back to back. The reason we're appearing together is that we have the same perspective on this. Also, we want to publicly demonstrate that employers and trade unions ought to be able to work together, especially when their interests are the same and they have the same issues of fairness and equality to bring to your attention. For that reason, we would like to do our submissions back to back and then reserve the time available after that for joint questioning, if that's all right.
To give you our submission, I would like to lead you through our written document, which you have before you by now. The Christian Labour Association of Canada, CLAC, is an independent trade union within Ontario and Canada; that is, our union is neither affiliated provincially with the Ontario Federation of Labour or the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, nor nationally with the Canadian Labour Congress or the CFL, the Canadian Federation of Labour.
The reasons we are not affiliated with these trade union organizations have everything to do with the main point of our submission, which is that the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board legislation has to be amended with respect to the representational structure in the legislation as it presently stands. We are convinced that OTAB is going to be another playground for the same two adversarial ideologies that dominated the recent public discussions surrounding Bill 40, something which is also very much evident in the short history of the Workplace Health and Safety Agency.
Such a struggle for control and supremacy between irreconcilable interests is unavoidable when one party, or perhaps both, is unable to put its own interests aside for the sake of the common good. The track record and the philosophy of the OFL and the BTC in this respect are not compatible with working cooperatively with anyone, unless it furthers their own goals. On the other hand, employers and business interests, when faced with such a forced partnership, are very adept at playing the adversarial game themselves.
Government legislation will not change these realities. In fact, this legislation accepts and supposes that the best results will come out of confrontation and a struggle between sworn enemies. The Minister of Skills Development himself could only be hopeful in this regard when he stated to the Financial Post that "appointees to joint agency boards are supposed to serve the public interest first, not that of their constituency."
Returning to the reasons CLAC is not affiliated with the existing central labour organizations, it should first of all be observed that the BTC is off limits to any construction trade union that is not chartered by the American-based AFL-CIO. Thus, CLAC, or any other non-AFL-CIO-chartered union active in the construction industry, cannot be represented by the BTC in the OTAB structure.
With respect to the OFL, CFL and CLC, and also the BTC, affiliation is not possible for us because we fundamentally disagree with their class-struggle mentality and their adversarial ideology. These organizations concentrate on centralized union power and control, not only when dealing with employers but, as it is hard to change bad habits, also when dealing with workers and with independent trade unions. Consequently, these unions and their central organizations have developed a very warped view of fundamental democratic principles.
For example, freedom of association is limited to joining the "right" union and, when there are bargaining rights, by forcing workers to join the union in order to work; that's why the closed-shop provisions. Freedom of expression is curtailed when dissent is stifled or differing opinions are ridiculed, and the plurality of trade unions and the rights of non-affiliated trade unions members are ignored in favour of a monopolistic trade union structure. It's therefore not surprising that the existing provincial labour organizations, representing only about a third of Ontario's workers, should be suspect when it comes to representing the interest of all workers.
As mentioned earlier, we raise these matters not simply to explain ourselves and CLAC's position in the Ontario and the Canadian labour relations community but, more importantly, to point out the fiction of the OFL's and the BTC's sudden conversion to working together harmoniously with business community representatives and for the good of all workers in the province.
Our experience in the field of labour relations, in cases before the labour relations boards and through our involvement in the health and safety agency, confirms almost daily that the overriding priority of the OFL and the BTC is the building of self-serving, monopolistic structures, even if that involves patently unjust behaviour and the wilful disregard of the rights and freedoms of workers in independent trade unions.
While CLAC faces sometimes difficult challenges, we are proud of our continuing pattern of growth, also in these difficult economic times. We can only interpret this growth as being due to our progressive and positive labour relations policies. These policies are based on Christian principles rather than on socialist, purely pragmatic or Marxist ones. Thus, CLAC does not force union membership on anyone, even where labour law permits it; promotes a cooperative style of labour relations with management; tolerates and deals with differences of opinion, and seeks to involve its members in bargaining unit and and workplace decisions.
Currently, we represent some 6,000 members in Ontario from all walks of life and faith commitment, working in various sectors of industry. Our policy towards other trade unions and their members is to respect their rights and freedoms. Our policy towards employers is to work with them as equal partners for the wellbeing of our members and the good of the enterprise as a whole.
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In the area of training and skills development, we have for many years worked cooperatively with our members and their employers in promoting, developing and monitoring programs that benefit our members, their employers and industry as a whole. We have done and continue to do so, via not only the existing apprenticeship and community training programs but also via our collective agreements, with provisions for on-the-job training, trade skill updating, across-classification skill enhancement, open promotion systems etc.
CLAC is about to release a publication by a task force we have commissioned on the effects of competitiveness, efficiency and productivity on workers and their families. This publication also deals with education and skills training and the needs of workers in the industry. I'd like to release that today, but it's not been officially released yet. If you're interested in getting a copy of this study, we'd be glad to take your name and supply you with a copy.
Returning to OTAB, bipartite involvement in training and skills development is not a new phenomenon. As mentioned above, CLAC has always regarded this area as an important part of its trade union mandate at the bargaining unit level as well as on the larger scale. Unions in general have been active for many years in improving and advising on the qualification and training programs available, including those offered under the auspices of the Ministry of Skills Development.
What is new under the tabled OTAB legislation is control, and here is where our introductory comments and observations become relevant for the legislative committee's consideration. Labour representation on the governing body is reserved for the exclusive labour organizations, which at best can speak for no more than a third of Ontario's workforce, perhaps substantially less than one third when one considers the involuntary members acquired via these unions' closed-shop or union-shop provisions. This is not representative participation in OTAB, by any stretch of the imagination.
But that's not the worst of it. The real concern for all of us should be: Can the OFL and the BTC, in view of their philosophy and their track record, be expected to act evenhandedly and in the best interest of the approximately 65% of Ontario workers who do not want to belong to these organizations' affiliated unions? I want to stress that the 65% are not forbidden from joining these unions; they don't want to. They have not chosen, in a free society, to belong to these central labour organizations.
Peeling away all the rhetoric about a new era in labour relations, broad consultation, public involvement, cooperation and partnership, what is there on the public record that reassures us that these labour representatives indeed can put self-interest aside and have progressive ideas about what it might take for this province to remain as efficient, productive and competitive as it can be in a global economic environment? What has really changed that we should entrust these labour representatives with control over public funding amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars annually? Our answer is that nothing has changed on this score.
The American-based AFL-CIO construction trade unions that make up the BTC are still the monopolistic, dinosaur-like unions that cannot abide the presence of other unions in the industry, and we can verify that. The BTC, at its 1990 annual meeting, unanimously passed a resolution to the current government demanding total jurisdiction over all construction work in the province: little there to indicate that these unions' representatives can and will put aside self-interest when dealing with training fund allocations and access to programs. At the same time, the BTC unions have actively opposed attempts to liberalize apprenticeship-to-journeyman ratios, thus preventing the training of more people in the construction industry.
The OFL does not instil confidence either with respect to its motives and its ability to work cooperatively with business or its willingness to represent the 65% of workers who are not members of its affiliated unions. The public spectacle surrounding the Workplace Health and Safety Agency and its spate of resignations are not things to be shrugged off or lightly dismissed as "growing pains." These are the result of fundamental beliefs and convictions about control, power and domination.
Thus, OFL president Gord Wilson stated in a June 18, 1992, letter to the OFL executive board--he was dealing with some industrial health and safety organizations that had the nerve to consider assigning worker representation on their boards to persons not responsible to the OFL--said that the "strategy"--those are his words--must be to "advance our bipartism policy." The emphasis on "our" I have added. I have a copy of the letter here.
In other words, health and safety--and training and skills development--is not a vital area of public policy, but rather a strategic opportunity to expand influence and control and to further the OFL's policies of domination and self-interest. To confirm his ideological, adversarial mindset, Mr Wilson warns his colleagues in this same letter, "If our strategy is not carefully implemented and coordinated, employer associations may attempt to assume the training of workers within their sector." Isn't that terrible? Obviously, Mr Wilson does not believe in the slogan "Safety is Everybody's Business" and is calling for unions--read OFL--to be funded to train all workers.
I can confirm that in a recent conversation with Workers' health and safety training centre officials in Hamilton, our people were bluntly told that they are out to do all the training under the new legislation, and when we asked about non-AFL-CIO construction and other industry workers, they bluntly said: "We don't care about them. We don't care if they're ever trained." Now, these people are being put on the central agency that's going to regulate and institute and control training in this province for supposedly all people.
Given this, we think it is highly irresponsible to leave important areas like health and safety and, specifically, training and skills development to a representational structure that one party is determined to control, and even if the hope for a balance of power is maintained, we do not think adversarial negotiations produce the best results. In matters such as this, we cannot afford to be satisfied, or pretend we are well served, with mediocre saw-offs and compromises. Best results can only be obtained when all parties are able to act for the common good together.
Thus, we see OTAB, with its built in conflict-of-interest factors, as well as with its undemocratic and limited representation on behalf of labour, becoming an extremely expensive experiment that is going to run hard aground on internal politics and self-interest. The workers of Ontario--indeed, all of us living and working in this province--will be the losers.
We urge the legislative committee and the government to seriously consider the following recommendations regarding Bill 96: first, that labour representation on OTAB's governing body, the central body, should be opened up to truly reflect the makeup of the province's labour force; second, the OTAB legislation should specifically provide that the four proposed councils and the local boards in their labour representation shall not be dominated by or reserved for only appointees or nominees of the OFL and/or the BTC; and third, the legislation should provide for the right of the government to intervene, veto or amend the decisions and actions of OTAB's governing body.
We do not need another fiasco like the Workers' Compensation Board. Public funding should involve direct public accountability via elected representatives. That's what the government and the opposition parties were elected for: to be accountable for how public funds are spent. Don't give it to an outside agency.
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The Vice-Chair (Mr Bob Huget): Thank you very much. If, by unanimous consent, we can move to the Independent Contractors' Group presentation, then we'll have combined questioning at the end of that presentation. Is there unanimous consent?
Mr Ramsay: Mr Chair, I just think it would be clearer to maybe deal with those issues, because it's sort of focused on one particular issue, maybe to keep everybody's mind--
The Vice-Chair: That's fine with me if there's not unanimous consent.
Mr Ramsay: First of all, I'd like to congratulate you very much for your presentation. Many people have come forward with the same sense you do that this representation is really stacked, if you will, on the workers' side towards the OFL, as it obviously is, but no other group has so concentrated on it and given such a full explanation as to why it's wrong. I agree with your position.
I'd like to outline a little bit for some of the government members who we over here feel have to be educated as to why this is wrong. Many feel that it's some sort of prejudice some of us might have against organized labour, and that is the furthest from the truth that could be.
I think what you have brought home, very rightly, is that on the workers' side there will be eight representatives coming to the table with the very same mindset. We could debate all day and all night about the rightness or the wrongness of the mindset. There are many good things that the OFL proposes in its pamphlet; some things I might not agree with 100%, but it's not that it's all without merit. There are some very good things there.
The point is you don't bring everybody to the table on one side with the same mindset. That's all. They certainly should be there and they should be represented in good proportion, proportionate to the people they represent. I wouldn't mind if they're organized even a little beyond that, but not at 100%. We want to hear from other workers with other ideas about what training should do for working people, men and women, in Ontario.
You're right, and I'm glad you're here to hammer this point home. I'm glad you've completely focused your paper on this because I think it really needs some thorough discussion. Anyone who says, "Oh, you're against organized labour, you're against unions," is wrong. I support men's and women's right to organize. In a lot of companies, it's the best way to go, even for management. They like to deal with a democratically elected group of people. It's the best way to organize in a very big company, especially to interrelate. The prejudice isn't there. It is just, let's hear other voices at the table, and you're calling for that.
Mr Grootenboer: The problem is not even their mindset. I can put up with their mindset. They have the right to their opinion as to how they want to see the world run and structured. The problem is the representation. It's the sole mindset. We speak from within organized labour. We count ourselves as being part of organized labour. We may not be the biggest portion of it. We don't look to dominate it. I hope that CLAC never gets as big as the OFL because it involves too much control and power.
We want to see that all workers are represented fairly. We have grave doubts, on the basis of a long history of confrontation and struggle with the OFL, particularly the BTC, that they can act in the public interest. They will not act in the public interest. We're here to warn you about that, particularly the government.
I know there are political ties and we should rid ourselves of them and face the question openly and honestly. Can these people honestly represent, when they themselves say to us--they won't say it publicly, but to us--in meetings on health and safety, "We're not interested in representing non-union"?
Mr Ramsay: Quite frankly, they can't. They can't represent everybody and, primarily, what we're going to see is a group of people who represent traditionally male-dominated, industrial-commercial workers when there's a lot of other people in working society, such as injured workers. There's a lot of unemployed people who don't have any direct representation. We've got to be tapping in to other sectors of the economy that traditionally, for whatever reason, have not been organized. There are many main sectors of the economy that just won't be there. We want all the voices from Ontario. We want OTAB to be inclusive and it's really quite exclusive, by this.
Mr Grootenboer: Right now it is, yes.
Mr Ramsay: That's what's wrong with this. I plead with the government members. I know they've got to pay back the unions. They did it with Bill 40 and they're doing it with OTAB, but if they really want to produce a good piece of legislation, open it up for the benefit of all the people in Ontario, make sure all our working people in Ontario have a say, because training is so important.
Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): Thank you, gentlemen, for coming this afternoon and, certainly, as my colleague has pointed out, bringing to our attention this major percentage of the workers in the province who aren't being represented here: 65%. On page 10 you say, "Labour representation on OTAB's governing body should be opened up to truly reflect the makeup of the province's labour force."
Mr Grootenboer: I haven't got instant answers, so I don't think we should hotly debate that today either. There are probably a number of ways, but if we want to remove control and operation of a body like OTAB from the auspices of the government and give it to a quasi-independent agency, and if we want that to represent the public interest, which currently it doesn't, in my view, then we're going to have to find some system to represent everybody.
Perhaps it's got to go via some kind of public election procedure whereby you obtain a registry of all tradesmen, although not all trades are registered, by any means; not today, anyway. But you obtain some kind of registry and get some kind of representative balloting going on, nominations and the whole business, public exposure via newspaper ads, whoever is interested in running for this, and get them nominated and elected. Then it will be truly a representative body, at least from labour's side. On the employers' side, they can talk for themselves.
But I think that's what you've got to go to in order to get this. You can't say A without doing B as well.
Mr Jordan: Would you say that four members of the non-union group would be a fair representation?
Mr Grootenboer: All workers. Let them elect their representatives.
Mr Jordan: How many, though? We have four from the organized labour side.
Mr Grootenboer: Why should there be any reservations on any seats? I'm just talking off the top of my head now. Let everybody who wants to run for this put up their name and put their platform on, and let workers, whether organized or unorganized, elect them.
Mr Jordan: But there would be some limit of representation for that group on the board, the same as any other group.
Mr Grootenboer: I view them as being elected members to this body, electing workers at large, not just a particular trade union. I could run for this board, put an ad in the paper and say: "Workers, I'm running. Here I am. This is what I stand for. Elect me."
Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you for your presentation. You've certainly raised some important issues. Just on this issue of representation, of course others have raised that as well, as my colleague from the opposition has pointed out, but I have to say that just as many have praised this kind of representation as being the only way that has been seen to work, not only in this formulation but at the federal level with the Canadian Labour Force Development Board, which was set up by the Progressive Conservative government, which turned to organized labour to nominate the representatives there.
Mr Grootenboer: Surely you're not intimating that the Conservatives did something good for a change.
Mr Gary Wilson: I think we'll let the facts speak for themselves on that one.
Again, I suggest it's because it's seen not to work the other way. The other thing, of course, is the foreign jurisdictions, which also turn to organized labour as representing workers because the "organized" defines that approach, that they are the ones who have an organized approach to what the workers' interests are.
The other thing is that you say, "Let business speak for itself." Well, business has said it wants to nominate its people as well, because they've recognized that if they turn to the government to nominate, then the government has to nominate the labour as well, which defeats the purpose of this, which is a shared responsibility for labour training issues.
It's been well recognized by all sides in this committee hearing so far that the system isn't working now, so the kind of arrangement we have now simply won't work, and that is the driving force behind the success of OTAB, that it's seen that we've got to move in different ways.
When you speak of the self-interest, I must say I found that question begging throughout your presentation, because you've determined for yourself what the interests of labour are without addressing, say, the interests of the other groups in OTAB. But leaving that aside, one of the interests, as I say, is getting a training system that will work, because it's recognized that what we have isn't working now.
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As I say, as far as representation goes, it seems that organized labour can speak for the interests of all workers, mainly because they're workers, but in the final analysis, there's no one else to speak for workers.
The second thing I want to point out is that your third recommendation here speaks about the legislation and the right of the government to intervene. What do you think of section 5 of the legislation where it talks about the minister's directives and what appears to be very firm control over OTAB as far as its addressing the public interest? Maybe you'd like to comment on the first part of my remarks and answer the second.
Mr Grootenboer: I'll comment on the first part and then I'll let my colleague take the second part.
You spoke of foreign jurisdictions. Wherever you're referring to foreign jurisdiction--I'm quite familiar with the international scene, by the way--I think you're talking about countries that for one reason or another have a much greater proportion of union membership.
Mr Gary Wilson: Not in all cases. Germany, for instance, is one of them; Sweden, the Netherlands.
Mr Grootenboer: Sweden is practically 95%.
Mr Gary Wilson: Sweden is very high, that's right.
Mr Grootenboer: Everybody by law must belong to a union. It's much like Quebec in construction. You must belong to a union or you're out. You don't work. But that's another topic.
You finished off with the statement, "Organized labour can represent all workers." I agree with you, but we've tried to show in our submission, not for any ulterior motives but out of deep concern for the basic interests of skills development and training, that the organized labour body in this province can't do it. They've shown they can't do it. You can dispute that. I can give you hundreds of examples where they have shown themselves to be interested only in serving their own interests. I cannot trust them to do this, not because I'm with another union. I'm speaking with genuine, sincere public interest on this issue, with no ulterior motives whatsoever.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, sir. If you could respond very quickly, because we must move on to the next presentation.
Mr Ray Pennings: Sure. Regarding government control, I suppose you're referring to the fact that when the budget is given every year, they have to have--
Mr Gary Wilson: That's one aspect, but specifically in section 5, it speaks of the minister's directives.
Mr Pennings: There are a number of provisions. I guess what concerns us primarily, as we look at what happened at WHSA and the sorts of entrenched battles when ideology is very clearly on the table and you've got the two sides that are in their respective positions based on that, are we going to sit there for a year and let these sorts of fiascos happen while the real training of the workers, which we all agree isn't happening properly today and needs to be addressed, is going to become the victim? We're talking about adjustment programs for unemployed people. We're talking about people who need help today.
Frankly, we don't see the protection in these amendments that allows the government to intervene in those sorts of disputes and situations. We're not talking about active day-to-day control over every issue. We're talking about those sorts of divisive disputes which we see as inevitable based on the track record of the parties involved.
Mr Gary Wilson: Certainly, it would not be in the public interest.
The Vice-Chair: I'd like to thank the Christian Labour Association of Canada for its presentation and both of you for very eloquently bringing forward its concerns.
INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS' GROUP
The Vice-Chair: We will move now to the Independent Contractors Group. Mr Pelissero is seated at the witness table. Could you proceed with your presentation.
Mr Harry Pelissero: My name is Harry Pelissero. I'm executive vice-president with the Independent Contractors' Group and I'm here today on behalf of our group.
Our membership represents firms that are responsible for about $500-million worth of construction activity in the province of Ontario. The type of employee organizations in those firms cover the entire labour spectrum. We have firms whose employees belong to international unions, we have firms whose employees are members of the Christian Labour Association of Canada and we have firms whose employees choose to work in an open-shop environment.
We believe the type of employee organization should not be a barrier to bidding and/or obtaining a job, particularly in public sector contracts where taxpayer funds are being spent.
We'd like to present a couple of concerns related to Bill 96. According to a press release of December 18, 1991, the co-chair of the Canadian Labour Force Development Board said, "Decisions about training and human resource development should be made by people most affected by those decisions." The Independent Contractors' Group agrees with this position.
However, the structure of OTAB does not support the co-chair's statement. The structure of OTAB, according to Bill 96, will be as follows: eight labour directors--we know seven will be coming from the Ontario Federation of Labour and one from the Ontario building trades council, eight business directors, two directors from the education and training community, one director representing francophones, one director representing persons with disabilities, one director representing racial minorities, and one director representing women. It's the eight labour representatives that are of concern to the Independent Contractors' Group. Unionized employees account for approximately 38% of the total workforce. To allow this minority 100% of the labour representatives on OTAB and local boards is unrealistic and unfair.
The minister attempts to address this concern in his question and answer sheet of November 23, 1992:
"Q. I don't belong to a union or business group. Who represents me on OTAB?
"A. Members of the governing body, as well as bringing forward their labour market group's particular views and priorities, will be required to act in the broader public interest. All governing body members, including business, labour and other representatives, will have the responsibility to consider the needs of employers, current workers and potential workers in Ontario."
Section 9 of Bill 96 reads:
"Directors
"(3) Each director shall be selected in consultation with organizations representing the group that the director is to represent."
Therefore, the proposal for representation on OTAB is flawed and needs to be corrected.
The Independent Contractors' Group recognizes unions should have 38% of the labour seats on OTAB--in response to Mr Jordan's question--because that's the percentage of the workforce they represent. The excuse for asking only the Ontario Federation of Labour and the building trades council representatives is based on expediency, not fairness.
Let me explain. Government has thought, "We can go to the unions and ask for nominations, because they're an identifiable group, but how would we approach a majority of the workforce who choose to work in an open-shop environment?" This can be done in several ways, and I'd like to put two ideas forward for your consideration.
First, you could change existing governmental reporting functions to determine the percentage split between open-shop and unionized employees. This could be done by revising either UIC or WCB reporting, because if you work in the province of Ontario, you have to have unemployment insurance deducted. So there's an opportunity, as an example, of taking an existing structure without creating a new one and giving you some information.
Then from that you could develop a nomination process. Certainly, you wouldn't need the nomination process for the organized sector, because it would be able to bring forward its nominations. We support in principle that those groups that represent a certain percentage of the population should be able to bring forward their nominations.
Second, you could contact existing associations that have access to the open-shop sector and request nominations. Organizations, architects, engineers etc are all in some sense an employee organization.
These are two ideas that could be looked at and developed in a little more detail.
Imagine the cry of "foul" if only open-shop employees were named to represent all of the workforce. Unions would want to demand fairness, and rightly so. This is all we're asking for--fairness. In response to Mr Wilson's question that organized labour can speak on behalf of the total workforce, if the question was put the other way around, can open-shop employees speak for the total workforce, as my 13-year-old son would say, "Not." That's not going to be reality.
The Independent Contractors' Group has the same concern regarding the representation on the local training and adjustment boards. The OTAB project office, which I spoke to, states that nothing will happen on developing guidelines on local boards until Bill 96 becomes law.
Mr Gord Wilson, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, is very clear in his understanding of how the local boards will be constituted. In a memo dated March 19, 1992, to the heads of unions, staff representatives, labour councils and affiliates, he writes:
"It has already been agreed to by both the federal and Ontario governments that representatives on local boards will be chosen by their own constituencies exclusively. In the case of labour, this means that local board members will be chosen by the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Provincial Building Trades Council in consultation with our affiliates and local labour councils."
OTAB and local boards will be responsible for directing the spending of millions of taxpayer funds. Both open-shop and unionized employees make financial contributions; both groups of employees should be represented in the structures.
The Independent Contractors' Group requests the committee to bring forward the necessary amendments to Bill 96 regarding the board of directors having representation from all sectors of the labour force. We feel it is a question of fairness.
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Just to emphasize the point on the local boards, with respect to comments made by Mr Grootenboer from the Christian Labour Association of Canada around the health and safety agency, we have a concern that if funding proposals for training projects are either put forward by the Christian Labour Association of Canada or open-shop employees or employers, in fact they may not get a fair hearing in terms of allocating those dollars and cents.
So as well as your deliberations on Bill 96, you also need to be looking at developing some guidelines and standards for the local boards and, at a minimum, have an appeal mechanism within the local boards so that if an agency, an individual or a group of employees come forward and their particular project is not funded and it's placed on a low-priority scale or outright rejected, there has to be some type of an appeal mechanism put in place, either at the local level or to a provincial agency.
Again, we want to thank you for the opportunity to share our concerns and we'll be willing to answer any questions you have at this particular time.
I'd maybe like to respond to Mr Wilson's question with respect to the Canadian Labour Force Development Board. The reason that the Canadian Labour Congress was tagged with the responsibility of naming individuals to the Canadian Labour Force Development Board was basically a deal made between the federal government and the Canadian Labour Congress, which said it would not participate in any way, shape or form unless it had all the nominees to that board. That's why the Canadian Labour Congress is involved in part of that participation.
Certainly, just because it's in place at the federal level--we think that's unfair as well. There's a federal election coming up and hopefully we're going to raise that as an issue as well. We think that could be corrected in terms of amending Bill 96, again from a fairness point of view.
If we divided 10 seats between business and labour, I have no problem with giving four seats to the organized sector and the other six seats to the open-shop sector, and I would have the same concern for individuals who are not identified with any business organization at this particular time. Be it the chamber of commerce, be it the Canada Federation of Independent Business, I would have the same concern. How do you tap into a growing sector of our population that are becoming self-employed, that are small entrepreneur organizations, that are going to have some skills training and retraining needs as well? If it's good for the goose, it should be good for the gander, in the sense that, the other side of the coin, if we saying we're setting aside some seats and a percentage for the open-shop employees, we should also set aside some seats for those individuals who are not represented by the "traditional" business groups.
I'm more than happy to answer any questions, Mr Chairman.
Mr Jordan: Thank you, sir, for your presentation and basic answer and explanation on my previous question. You were saying you'd be satisfied with a split of six and four?
Mr Pelissero: Whatever the percentage is. It depends on who you're throwing into the equation.
Mr Jordan: If eight represents a third of the workers--
Mr Pelissero: Right. Again, it depends on how OTAB is going to be structured. So 40% of eight--again, when you talk about organized workers, that's all workers. Private sector and public sector make up that approximately 38% of the workforce, so they in turn should then have the ability to nominate 37% or 38% of the seats.
Mr Jordan: You've more or less concentrated on fair representation in your presentation. I was wondering if you have other areas of concern relative to this legislation.
Mr Pelissero: I guess two concerns in the sense that, how much authority will be given to the local boards? How much authority will they have in terms of spending of dollars and cents? As a result of that, we have the same concern with respect to the representation on the local boards if, as according to Mr Wilson's memo of March 19, they've been promised that they will have the ability to exclusively name individuals to these boards representing their constituents.
I don't have any problem with that, as long as you allow the same opportunity for those individuals who work in an open-shop environment. We're not saying, take away the ability for the federation of labour and the building trades council and the Christian Labour Association of Canada to put forward nominations. We're saying, allow them to put forward nominations in respect to the percentage of the total workforce they represent.
Mr Jordan: How do you see it applying to an example we were given this morning of a worker at one of the breweries, who worked there for 20 years at a job that didn't require a specific trade, and now he's going to be laid off and he has grade 10 education? Do you feel this board should be looking at those people on the basis of first increasing their basic education, say to a grade 12 level, or should the board be looking at it on the basis of direct training into a direct type of position?
Mr Pelissero: I would hope the board is going to be as flexible as possible in terms of the changing workplace. If we put in some standards and guidelines today and the workplace changes dramatically within a year, I would hope that both the local boards and the OTAB would have the ability to be flexible with respect to the type of training they're becoming involved in.
I also have a concern in terms of a reporting function and who is responsible. I think the elected officials, the MPPs, should be ultimately responsible for OTAB's operations, without the government farming out all of that responsibility to a crown agency, in order to avoid the type of situation we have now with the Workers' Compensation Board saying, "We found a loophole; this way, we can build the $180-million or $190-million building." I don't think that is the intent of any government in drafting any piece of legislation, to allow their pension fund to be used for those types of activities.
Mr Jordan: That's the complaint I'm getting in my riding: "Sure you're going to give them training, but when he comes to me to work in my business, it doesn't suit."
Mr Pelissero: In terms of training, using the example of the brewery worker, you may want to consider a proposal based on vouchers. You give an individual X number of dollars and say, "You go into the marketplace and you figure out who is going to be the best organization, the best trainer, to train you to meet the changing workforce." A voucher system might be a method, where rather than telling the worker he has to go to this particular organization to receive the training, if you've got a number of organizations that are offering either that type of training or specialized training, you look at a voucher system.
Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): I'd like to pursue something that has come into my mind just listening to you speak. It seems to me that what lies at the basis of the board's function is to assess the need for what training has to be put into place, and that if they get it wrong, they get it wrong for everybody. If business gets it wrong, if labour gets it wrong, if the community people don't identify the trends correctly and they put into place a training system and get it wrong, then it's all wasted.
What I'd like to perhaps have you pursue is what kind of board. How can independent workers, who are not tied into any kind of system that has a chance of statistically analysing what the trends could be, be any more likely to get it right than, say, the large labour organization that sees who within their organization is being laid off, or the local business community that sees what businesses are happening to grow in their area?
You're talking about including people, and that's great. I'm talking about including the kind of input that's necessary to make, as close as possible, the right guess. After all, you know, Robert Reich, in his book The Work of Nations, has pretty much set out what in the 1990s will be the parameters for defining the work of nations. Now that he's Clinton's appointee to labour, I think we have to put that into some perspective in what we're dealing with here. How do you do that?
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Mr Pelissero: I'd like to respond in the sense that you say if both business and labour get it wrong, then everybody suffers. Mr Grootenboer says 65%; I'm saying 60%. I would like the opportunity for that 60% to 65% to be part of that decision-making process if they in fact end up being wrong. Right now they're being excluded from offering any type of opinion, offering any type of expertise they might have with respect to the training process. Right now you're saying that all the seats belong exclusively to and all knowledge related to training resides with the Ontario Federation of Labour and the building trades council.
Mr Wiseman: No, that's not true.
Mr Pelissero: Sure it is.
Mr Wiseman: Not when you look at the board.
Mr Pelissero: Sure, the way the board is structured right now in terms of nominations. You're saying that organized labour has the advantage of having the statistics and are able to analyse it etc; your words. I'm saying that all knowledge doesn't necessarily lie within that group of people.
Mr Wiseman: I didn't say that. I asked, how do you get the composition on the board to have as great an opportunity of getting it right as possible?
Mr Pelissero: By allowing as much input as possible from a total representation of the labour force; that's how you get it right.
Mr Ramsay: By getting as many different views in there as possible.
The Chair: Mr Wood.
Mr Wood: Talking about percentages, going back to September 1990, I think we are trying, as a government, to represent most of the people and trying to get a training program out there. But you've got to remember that a majority government was formed with less than 40% of the population. The other percentage went to the Conservatives and Liberals, who form the opposition parties; they give advice as to what changes they'd like to see to legislation. So when you talk about percentages representing labour or business, whether organized or unorganized, people like to think they're speaking on behalf of everybody as a government, that when you put a committee of that kind together, of 22, 23 or 24 at the OTAB level and then other groups at the local level, the people are speaking for the betterment of Ontario as a group to have a good training program out there. I just wanted to see what reaction there was to that.
Mr Pelissero: If you want to compare it to the election, it would be like saying to 60% to 65% of the population, "We're having an election, but you can't vote." That's what you're saying to 60% to 65% of the population with respect to the eight seats on the labour side: "We're having an election, but you can't vote. We'll take your dollars."
Mr Wood: I don't agree with that.
Mr Pelissero: I'm just using your analogy. If you look at the Legislature, there are representatives from the Liberals, there are representatives from the Progressive Conservatives and there are representatives from the NDP. I don't see the same type of flexibility or structure within the eight seats to allow that makeup.
Mr Wood: No, I'm talking about the 22.
Mr Pelissero: Even within the business community as well, as I said earlier, I'm more than willing to say that there has to be some mechanism devised to allow those individuals who are either in business for themselves or a small company, whatever, who don't belong to either a chamber of commerce or to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business--I use those as the two big-name organizations--that you can develop the same type of nomination process that I identified with respect to changing some reporting functions on the UIC, because that's where the dollars and cents are coming. They're coming from the UIC through the federal government.
Mr Gary Wilson: Well, the feds didn't do it, nor did other jurisdictions.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Ramsay and Mr McGuinty.
Mr McGuinty: Good to see you, Harry. I was hoping there for a minute that you'd actually be able to solicit some kind of intelligent response to a query that has been put to us countless times, as you might imagine, as to where the fairness lay in having representation of Ontario's labour force provided by a small minority. I don't think a good answer will ever be given to that. I appreciate your efforts, and I hope the government will mull this about for some time and come up with some kind of amendment at the end of the day.
Mr Ramsay: Or an honest answer, anyway.
Mr McGuinty: Let's just pursue this, though. Let's assume that no amendment is made and programs are being implemented, that something is going on at OTAB or at the LTAB. Who are you going to hold accountable?
Mr Pelissero: Under the present scenario I'm not exactly sure, but I'm assuming OTAB, which is unelected in the sense that it's at the nomination of its particular interest groups. Within the development of the OTAB board of directors in terms of the nomination process, certainly if I had nominated someone who wasn't acting in what I felt was my best interests, I would want to have the right to recall that particular individual. That's an issue as well.
In terms of fairness, while we still have a couple of minutes left, I would hope that the two opposition parties here today would be willing to go on the record with respect to amending Bill 96 or the OTAB process, should either of the two opposition parties form the next government. You see the inequity, and you have the opportunity to go on the record as saying, "Yes, we think the OTAB nomination process should be amended to allow, not only from the business community but from the labour community as well, the ability to have a nomination process and the representation of the total labour force."
Mr McGuinty: My concern is what's going to develop here, that if those groups that do not see their interests specifically represented contact their member, the member will say: "Listen, it's kind of like Ontario Hydro or Workers' Compensation. They operate pretty well at arm's length; they've got an independent group and they pretty well run the game themselves." Even if I were a member of organized labour and I felt that the person up there representing my interests wasn't doing a good job, I'm not sure how the accountability exists in that regard either, appointed by the government for a certain term.
In any event, I hear what you're saying with respect to a commitment. I'm sure my learned colleague will take that under advisement and we'll be discussing it.
Mr Ramsay: I'd just say to Mr Pelissero that I am preparing an amendment now to bring greater fairness to the representation on all sides. We'll be moving those amendments later on.
The Vice-Chair: I'd like to thank the Independent Contractors Group for its presentation and you, Mr Pelissero, for so effectively bringing those views to the committee. Thank you very much for your participation.
SKILL DYNAMICS CANADA, IBM CANADA LTD
The Vice-Chair: The next group is IBM Canada, if it could come forward. Good afternoon and welcome. If you could identify yourselves for the purposes of Hansard and then proceed with your presentation, you're allocated one half-hour. The committee would appreciate having 15 minutes of that half-hour for questions and answers.
Mr E.R. Israel: My name is Rony Israel, and I am the general manager of Skill Dynamics Canada. It's an IBM Canada company dedicated to learning excellence. With me is Laurie Harley. She is the manager of public affairs for IBM Canada. We welcome the opportunity to comment today on Bill 96, An Act to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board.
I'd like to cover three areas in my remarks: First, I would like to briefly tell you why I'm here and feel qualified to comment on OTAB; second, I'd like to offer my personal views on implementing workplace changes; third, I would like to comment on the specific provisions of Bill 96 and offer suggestions for improvement.
Let me say first of all why I'm here. I am appearing before you today wearing several hats. For the past three years I have been the director of education for IBM Canada. I have been involved in managing IBM's annual investment of about $50 million in education and training. To put it into perspective for you, we have invested about $4,500 per employee. Our total budget approaches that of a medium-sized Canadian university. IBM has always believed in investing in its human capital, but last year we actually picked up the pace and we have increased our spending by about 20% per employee. I'm going to let you know why we have picked up the pace.
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First, let me remind you that 1991 was the worst business year for IBM Canada in its 75-year history. We recognized that we had to accelerate our transformation to a market-driven, quality company. We had to re-engineer our offerings so they were able to satisfy our customer needs. We also had to re-engineer our business processes to be more responsive. Over the years, we had become an internally driven company and that had to change dramatically.
To succeed in our transformation, we had to reassess the skills of our people. We had to reskill our people to meet the new requirements. Simply put, it was a matter of survival for our company. For us, survival comes from a very flexible structure with a very highly skilled sales force and workforce where everybody is expected and given the opportunity to contribute. This kind of workplace allows an organization like ours to consistently meet customer needs, and ultimately that is the only real security we have.
I am proud to report that IBM Canada had a very strong business year in 1992 and we have returned to profitability. That is a very positive sign that our transformation is working. So I am here today representing an employer who understands the importance of training, has invested even more in difficult economic times and does a lot of investment in reskilling its own employees.
I also wear the hat of a private trainer. As part of IBM Canada's transformation, we started two years ago to move from an internally driven company to a market-driven organization. That meant shifting the focus to developing and delivering education services that met our customer requirements. As I said in my opening remarks, in January of this year I became the general manager of a new company we called Skill Dynamics Canada.
Our relationship with IBM is somewhat parallel to that of the OTAB's relationship with the Ontario government. We are still affiliated with IBM and we are accountable for achieving business objectives, but we operate at arm's length, with greater flexibility and autonomy. IBM is my largest customer, but my focus at Skill Dynamics is to offer our services to a broader Canadian marketplace. Our home base is the state-of-the-art that some of you already know.
We have invested $200 million in our education centre in Markham that can accommodate up to 3,000 students, with classrooms available in IBM branches from coast to coast. Today we offer over 450 courses that range from how to operate a personal computer, to how to manage stress, to programs for leadership and executive development. So skills training is the business of my new business.
Finally, I would like to offer my comments as someone who has spent his career in the technology business; as a matter of fact, my past 25 years. I appreciate the need for high levels of technical, engineering and scientific literacy required in a world-class workforce, as well as the softer skills such as communication and teamwork. But my background has also allowed me to see the widening gap between the skills business needs to survive in the information age and the skills being developed in our formal school system.
It is not that the schools are not doing a good job or they are doing a poor job; it's that the change is happening so quickly in the marketplace that the education system is not capable to keep pace with it. I understand reform of the formal education system is not within the OTAB's mandate, but I would like to caution the committee that unless it follows a parallel process of reform, the cost of the training gap in the workplace will become prohibitive.
Those are my credentials. Let me move on to offer a personal perspective on successful workplace training. Let me begin by applauding the government for the important initiative that it is launching with OTAB. OTAB provides an opportunity for Ontario to lead the change process in our workplaces and not simply to respond to it. Every employee and employer in the province has a vested interest in its success. When government decides to embark on this type of innovative approach that turns over substantial amounts of tax dollars to an arm's-length organization, there must be confidence that the new body will be successful in its mandate.
Over the past two years I have been involved with the transformation of IBM Canada and the creation of Skill Dynamics Canada. I have learned several key lessons and I would like to share my personal view with you before I get into the specifics of Bill 96.
The first and most critical lesson we have learned is that for change to occur there must be a vision, a picture of what we want to see in Ontario workplaces when we enter the 21st century. That means identifying the characteristics of tomorrow's workplace and the skills we need to fill tomorrow's jobs. That is a task that should be led by business and labour with input from other workplace partners. If we focus only on today's problems, we will be playing a continuous catch-up game. If we anticipate what's coming, we will be able to leapfrog and we will be very well positioned for challenges we will face down the road.
Once we have a shared vision and know where we are headed, we need a strategic framework, a roadmap if you would like, that outlines how we're going to get there. The framework should help to articulate several key factors: Our mission is one factor, that states why we exist; our strategies, how we are going to achieve our mission; our implementation plan; and our key measurements, which really translate into how well we will be able to measure our success. The entire framework is built on our set of values, the things that we believe in that will shape the culture of our organization and guide all our decisions.
Strategic frameworks for innovation and for innovative organizations such as OTAB should be models of transformation, the structure and processes of the information age, not the industrial age. Let me put the emphasis on the word "information" for a minute. The industrial age was driven by investment in physical equipment, by hierarchical organizations that directed and controlled what we call the busy finger work, the type of simple work, repetitive work, performed by unskilled workers under direct supervision.
That era has gone. We now live in the information age. It is driven by investment in human capital, by flexible, responsive organizations and management systems that foster empowerment of the knowledge worker who contributes to the development of our high value added products and services that meet market needs. It is a very different paradigm. If OTAB is to have a successful impact on changing skills in the workplace, its own strategies must reflect that new paradigm shift.
In addition to a vision and strategic framework, the final success factor is leadership. Leadership means listening and consensus building, but it also means tackling tough decisions when viewpoints differ. The common vision and the shared values will provide the foundation, but it still requires leadership to set priorities and to balance conflicting objectives.
To summarize, my experience suggests that to drive change you need a vision, a strategic framework and clearly defined leadership to make it happen.
With these factors in mind, let me turn to Bill 96 and make some comments and proposals about it. I suppose the best term to describe my reaction to Bill 96 is disappointment. I had very high hopes for the OTAB process; I have been involved with it for two years, as I said. My expectations seemed to be consistent with many of the public statements made by the the Honourable Richard Allen when he spoke of a training system that would be second to none in delivering the highly skilled workforce we will need for economic renewal and job creation in this province.
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OTAB has the potential to be an effective agent for change, not just another agency that offers access to training. If I compare Bill 96 to the critical success factors I have just described and I have personally gone through, it comes up short in several key areas. It lacks a vision. It confuses values with purposes. It focuses primarily on how-tos and provides no formula to ensure for effective leadership. Let me explain what I mean by these comments.
There are four purposes outlined, as you all know, in Bill 96. The first is to enable the workforce partners to play a role. That's what the first purpose says. In my view, that is a strategy for how OTAB plans to operate; it is not a purpose.
The second purpose is to give access to programs and services that will "lead to the enhancement of skill levels, productivity, quality, innovation and timeliness and the improvement of the lives of workers and potential workers." In my view, that is a mission statement that explains why OTAB exists. Unfortunately, access to training programs alone does not improve the life of any worker or potential worker. Training is a how-to that opens doors in the workplace. Improving the lives of workers comes only when the skills are put to work, creating value added products and services that the market needs.
The third and fourth purposes provide good descriptions of the value system and the principles under which OTAB will operate. That is, it will operate under the principle of equity and access and within the framework consistent with the economic and social policies of the Ontario government. In my view, these provide an essential foundation for OTAB's operation, but they are not the purpose of the act.
Then let me move on to what is missing, from my perspective. What's missing is a vision that will make OTAB not just another agency but an innovative model for bringing about meaningful change. The vision must focus on the skills Ontario needs to create wealth so we can strengthen the quality of our social and physical environment. Without that vision and a supportive strategic framework, I am concerned that OTAB will not realize its full potential, and that means we all lose.
Here are several suggestions I have for improving the bill:
(1) Add a strong statement of OTAB's vision to the purpose clause, for example: an Ontario with the most effective highly skilled workforce in the world that makes Ontario an attractive home for investment in knowledge-based work.
(2) Clarify OTAB's mission statement. Replace words such as "giving access" with action-oriented phrases such as "drive change." OTAB exists to foster high value added workplaces and should be accountable for its success in upgrading skill levels. Remove words like "improve the lives of workers and potential workers." I don't think it is realistic to hold OTAB accountable for this board mandate.
(3) Turn the third and fourth purposes into statements of principles. For example, "OTAB is founded on the fundamental principles of access and equity. OTAB recognizes and supports Ontario's linguistic duality and the diversity and pluralism of Ontario's population." These values and principles will guide its operation consistent with the economic and social policies of the Ontario government.
(4) Strengthen OTAB's commitment to innovative structure by enshrining a client-driven and quality approach to delivery of programs and services. This will ensure several things:
It will force OTAB to adopt an organizational structure and culture that will tap the creativity and ingenuity of the workforce by providing more authority and responsibility at the local level.
It will allow local boards to reflect the training requirements of their local communities rather than fit a pre-set mould.
It will allow all trainers, whether publicly funded or private, to compete for opportunities to deliver training based on quality criteria. Introducing quality criteria and competition will also foster change in our formal education system.
(5) Provide business and labour with the ability to fulfil their leadership roles in OTAB. Ideally, OTAB decisions will be made by consensus; however, failing consensus, a double-majority rule should be included that requires business and labour to support decisions within the framework of an overall majority.
In summary, I'm an avid supporter of the OTAB concept. I am disappointed that Bill 96 fails to capture the innovation and the imagination needed to foster cultural and behavioural change in Ontario's workplace. I have offered my comments to you in the spirit of improving the process that has great promise and I want very much to succeed. I am open to your questions.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr Israel. It was certainly a very sensitive discussion of the issues that are behind OTAB. I was really pleased with your introduction and your first two sections. Of course, when you got down to discussing the bill, I was a bit disappointed to hear of your disappointment, but perhaps not that surprised.
Mr Israel: That's okay. Maybe we can make it better now.
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly, and given your high standards, perhaps it's going to be hard to match it. Anyway, we certainly want to use your experience. You touch on a number of points that we're trying to achieve through OTAB. I just wanted to ask you, though, about your experience at IBM. Just to make this clear, when you talked about the training that you've carried out there, I think you used a figure of $4,000 per employee?
Mr Israel: It is $4,500 per employee.
Mr Gary Wilson: Right. How does that work out? Would that be for each individual?
Mr Israel: This is an average. If you take the total $50 million that we spent for our employees--we have about 10,000 employees--that is about $5,000.
Mr Gary Wilson: Okay. What I'm getting at, though, is that we have a statement from Allan Taylor, who says that only 30% of private companies provide training, and that training usually is at the top end, that is, managers and executives, rather than front-line workers. How does your average work out?
Mr Israel: We don't differentiate between managers, we don't differentiate between professionals. We are all employees of the corporation and we all invest in our own skills development. The company has really invested this amount of money, but it has been delegated to each individual to take the training and the skills that they require to do their job best.
To give you an example that might be interesting to you, we have also made arrangements with universities that have a capability to transmit via satellite information to our workers and provide them with the ability to use our facility and our technology to take undergraduate and graduate courses to enrich their skills. So we put the technology to work for our employees with no differentiation if they are managers or not. As a matter of fact, if any category has been neglected, it is probably the executive category.
Mr Gary Wilson: Yours is different then from the one Mr Taylor describes. You'd say yours is more evenly divided.
Mr Israel: That's correct.
Mr Gary Wilson: I wanted to ask you, though, about what you mentioned here on page 4, that in part of the vision you say you agree with the fact that the major labour market partners are making the decisions or sharing in the decisions that involve OTAB.
Mr Israel: That's correct.
Mr Gary Wilson: I was just wondering about the client-based nature of it and what you see as coming from that, especially given your experience of dealing with all sectors of IBM, how that would carry over into the larger workforce.
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Mr Israel: If I understand your question correctly, it is why do I believe that labour and business must have a consensus and understand the issues.
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly. You also make a point of saying other workplace partners as well.
Mr Israel: That's right. What we need to understand is that we all have, as workplace partners, a single and common goal, which is to develop a very highly skilled workforce. That's the only way we see Ontario develop and attract businesses into Ontario. It's not by having a nicer building or a nicer machine. People will come to Ontario to benefit from and exploit the highly skilled, valuable people.
When that is understood and that is shared, it doesn't matter if you're a businessman or if you're a worker or if you're a minority representative. We all have the same basics. We are dealing with human beings. Humans are what we need to deal with. As a result, we have to share the fact that we need to skill these people for the future, and not to skill them only because they happen to be part of a minority group or another group.
We all have our own preferences, and that's fine. What is not fine is when these preferences take political slants and minimize the skill investment in our people, and therefore we all lose. The individual represented by a group loses if he doesn't get the skills that he needs when he needs them to compete very aggressively, and not with the worker next to him; he has to compete in attracting the world investments to us.
That's the reason why, with my experience, we made no differentiation in any of our investments if the individual was a woman, was handicapped, was a coloured person, an aboriginal, a man, a woman, an English, a French or whoever. We wanted to make sure that everybody had access to all the training they need, as they believe they need it, to be competitive and make us better as a whole.
Mr Ramsay: Mr Israel, I'm just blown away by your presentation. It is so precise, it is so on the mark, it is wonderful. I wish I had the power to offer you the job of being the CEO of OTAB, because you are the type of person the government should be getting in there to get the agency set up and get it running.
Mr Israel: Thank you for your nice words.
Mr Ramsay: Absolutely. I cry when I just read this bill, because you've put it in a much more polite way than I will, but the purposes and the objectives are so airy-fairy, they are so weak. We had a purpose that really we were going to do something to produce highly skilled workers in Ontario. Then we started talking to a lot of people and, "Gee, we had better start making a lot of people happy." So now we've got about 18 objectives in here. We're going to support the public school system, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. We're getting so off the mark on what we really wanted to do, and you nailed it right down again and tightened it up.
What we really want to do here is create an agency that will produce highly trained, effective, efficient workers, the best in the world. That's what this is all about.
Mr Israel: Tremendous to hear that.
Mr Ramsay: I don't think it says that anywhere. You've given us some very good language that we could put in here. I thank you for that help and I would like, if you'll allow me, to steal some of that to incorporate into amendments because I think it's just very helpful. I think it's excellent.
I really like the philosophy that you have adopted at IBM in regard to the worker being able to empower herself or himself to get knowledge. That's what I would like to see a government do: Whatever system it is, you have a smart card, you have a storefront operation in each town and city, and you're able to go in basically and get a bit of counselling as to what you might need and get some agreement there and be able to go off on your own and get that training that you feel you need, with some advice so that you can acquire that skill and knowledge to prosper. I think that's really important.
I think your business particularly is a very progressive business, and more businesses need to be catching up to your ethic. I wish more businesses in Canada were. I think they're not all there, for sure. You're a leader. Government's got to catch up to that ethic too. Again, you are to be congratulated. We wouldn't have the problems if all businesses did what you did. We wouldn't need OTAB actually. The private sector really hasn't pulled its weight in this country in regard to training. Not all of them have recognized, as your company has, the importance of skills training, and you are to be congratulated on that.
I appreciate accountability. I think that's important too and I think we need to incorporate some sort of system to measure the results. That's got to be important, and I'll certainly be working on that. I like the whole idea that this whole organization has got to be an agent for change. I think that's important too.
Again, I'd just like to thank you for your contribution. I certainly will be trying to move some of your ideas into this legislation.
Mr Israel: Thank you very much for your comments.
Mrs Cunningham: It's a pleasure to have you here this afternoon. You have made some important statements, but I think the fact that you're here representing a company that has contributed so much to this province and this country, we're very appreciative that you took the time to be here and we value your recommendations. I'm afraid you're going to have to do a little bit more work, though, because I'm going to ask you some questions.
So far, we have not convinced the government with regard to changing the purpose clause, although I feel it's seriously listening. I don't think I'd take more of your time on that, but I will ask you to talk to two issues you raised. Do you have the bill before you right now?
Mr Israel: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: Section 4, paragraphs 14, 15, 16.
Mr Ramsay: I have it here, Dianne.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you very much, David. I would ask you to look at--
Mr Israel: "To promote appropriate and sustainable levels of investment in labour force development."
Mrs Cunningham: Yes. Actually, take a look at 15 and 16. The complaint from the private trainers, first of all, is that they're not recognized, they're not valued. They feel that the government wants to steer the training dollars into public sector colleges and not-for-profit trainers, whatever that means.
They're saying that "to make effective use of Ontario's diverse educational and training resources" is weaker than "to seek to ensure, within the scope of OTAB's operations, the strength of Ontario's publicly funded education systems." They feel that in those two clauses the publicly funded education systems, to be quite frank, the community colleges--"to seek to ensure" is stronger, and they want to be either recognized by direct reference, private trainers, or to strengthen and add to clause 15. I'm wondering if you would comment on that.
Mr Israel: Sure, I will. Thank you very much for raising it to my attention.
The first comment I would like to offer is, the reason I put the emphasis on quality is because it doesn't matter who provides the training, a private trainer or a publicly funded trainer, as long as the quality of the course--and quality means it meets the needs of the skills that need to be improved to get it highly skilled. That is the measurement and the gating factor.
The fact also that you are using and calculating success by how much money you have dished out is the wrong measure. It doesn't matter how much you pay as long as you are giving it to the people who are using it to improve their skills and taking it for the best available on the market, regardless where it comes.
Your suggestion of an amendment to remove the word "publicly," which is the one I have said, to include private trainers comes from my personal experience that I have colleges that you are publicly funding and they have a hard time being able to respond to the needs of the people you are funding. People are coming to them, knocking on their door, they want skills improvement, and they cannot deliver it.
Colleges are turning to me, saying, "Can we have a partnership program? We will flow you the dollars that we are being funded," so I can provide them with a quality education. I'm saying, don't have middlemen. You're just fooling the worker. Just make sure that the worker has access, but access after consultation and coaching of what are the skills he or she needs to develop in order to be successful.
Success of the worker is what we all have at heart. If as a government with this bill success for you is having colleges survive, that's the wrong purpose. Colleges, private trainers, publicly funded, non-publicly funded: They're all in the same game of improving skills. Quality of the skills and being up to date, looking forward and not looking backwards, is what is required, and that's the reason I made the comment about the gap, that today we are all disappointed that maybe business is not investing enough.
Let me tell you, if you are disappointed today and nothing happens by forcing the publicly funded education system to narrow the gap, you are going to have a collapse on your hands. Business cannot afford to bridge the gap all the time. Let me give you a figure for your records. At IBM Canada, the first-time employee we hire off campus, who has gone through all the publicly funded system, just 15 years ago was costing us anywhere between $50,000 to $100,000 to bridge the gap. It is costing us today over $250,000. Guess what is happening? We have frozen our hiring. We are hiring fewer and fewer people. We cannot afford to hire and spend $250,000. This is at IBM. Imagine businesses where $2 million is their whole annual revenue. What do you expect from them?
You have to make sure, as representatives of the workforce and for the good of Ontario, that you put in the law, as you said very well, that quality training is the aim and it doesn't matter who provides it; you will be facilitating and refunding the workers to get to it.
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The Chair: Thank you, sir. I want to thank you on behalf of the committee--IBM Canada, of course, but Ms Harley and Mr Israel--for your interest in this matter and for your attendance here today. Clearly, you have provoked a great deal of thought among members of this committee and that's a good thing. We are grateful to you for taking the time and having the interest to come here and help; that's in effect what it is. I'm trusting that you'll be tracking this legislation as it continues on in committee and then back into the Legislature for third reading. We welcome any further comments and we extend our real appreciation for your being here this afternoon. Take care.
ONTARIO NETWORK OF EMPLOYMENT SKILLS TRAINING PROJECTS
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Network of Employment Skills Training Projects.
While they're seating themselves, let me thank Mr Huget and Ms Murdock for assisting me by functioning as vice-chairs while I had to be out of the room for the first 60 minutes of this afternoon's session. I am grateful to them.
Please have a seat. Tell us your name, any titles or positions that you may want to. We have your written submissions. They'll form part of the record by virtue of being filed as an exhibit. All the members will read them carefully. Try to leave us the last 15 minutes for some exchanges and dialogue, please.
I want to welcome Mr Stockwell, who notwithstanding that he's not on this committee, expresses his interest in this legislation by coming here this afternoon, as is his right under the standing orders.
Go ahead, ma'am.
Ms Sandra Dobrowolsky: My name is Sandra Dobrowolsky. I am the executive director of the Ontario Network of Employment Skills Training Projects. I would like to thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to make a presentation today in relation to Bill 96. What I'd like to do initially, though, is to tell you a little bit about our organization very quickly, and community-based training, because that is what our organization is and does.
The Ontario Network of Employment Skills Training Projects is an umbrella organization in the province of Ontario whose members sponsor about 200 community-based training projects. Community-based training, for those of you who do not know what that is, I'll give you a bit of a definition of it. Community-based training is a participant-focused model of training or pre-employment preparation. It is delivered by registered not-for-profit organizations. The model ensures access to training and/or pre-employment preparation by individuals facing barriers to participation in the labour market.
Community-based training is based on the following philosophical principles: a focus on personal autonomy of participants; an holistic approach in which counselling and support services are integral, continuously working towards a barrier-free access; a cultural sensitivity, in its broadest sense, to the diversity and specific needs of participants; and they operate within anti-racist and anti-discriminatory practices and policies. Community-based training is characterized by flexible training which addresses individual needs in non-institutionalized environments.
My organization has been involved in the OTAB consultations since last November and we are one of the representatives on the education and training steering committee. We are there representing community-based training, so we've been very involved in the whole process and we have some specific ideas about Bill 96. I'm going to address the paper you have in front of you.
Specifically, what I did was a line-by-line analysis of the bill. In section 4, on page 4 of the bill, if you have the bill in front of you, it has "Objects." "To identify and seek to eliminate systemic and other discriminatory barriers to the full and effective participation of disadvantaged and underrepresented groups in labour force development programs and services."
Our feeling is that this section is limited in its approach. The barriers to full and effective participation have as much to do with lack of support services, such as child care, housing, transportation etc, as they do with discrimination.
Also in "Objects," paragraph 4(1)13 is, "To seek to ensure that labour force development programs and services are of high quality and achieve the best results and the best returns on investment...."
While we, of course, agree with the premise of cost-effectiveness, the statement "best returns on investment" raises a flag for community-based training, since the people we offer training to may not be as cheaply trained as those people who are more job-ready. People who are not job-ready have a set of barriers that is not so much related to the recession's lack of jobs as it is to personal or systemic barriers. Our concern is that the training needs of our target groups will not be considered by OTAB to be worthy of investing in, not "the best returns on investment."
In addition, in order to assess the cost-effectiveness of training, standards of measurement must be developed. This would ensure that the cost-effectiveness measurement is applied in a consistent manner.
Paragraph 4(1)16: "To seek to ensure, within the scope of OTAB's operations, the strength of Ontario's publicly funded education systems." Our belief was that the OTAB model is designed to help create economic renewal for the province of Ontario by ensuring that Ontario's labour force is highly skilled and adaptable. It has never been our understanding that OTAB is designed to protect the public education system. It is a recognized fact, both within and outside the public education system, that it must embark on true institutional reform.
It seems that to ensure the strength of a system without the concomitant requirement for its reform flies in the face of what OTAB was designed to create, a highly skilled, adaptable workforce able to attract and sustain investment in this province. The source of that was Skills to Meet the Challenge, A Training Partnership for Ontario. That was the consultation document.
Paragraph 4(1)18: "To recognize and support, in labour force development programs and services, the diversity and pluralism of Ontario's population." This is a philosophical statement without substantive proposed actions. Added to this sentence should be "and a stated commitment to promote training appropriate to the needs of this population."
Clause 4(2)(b), "Criteria," and subsection 12(2), "Public meetings": One is to "operate within a framework of accountability to the government of Ontario." and the other, "At least two directors' meetings each year shall be open to the public."
Both of these address the issue of accountability, but they stop short of the type of accountability that will be necessary. The meetings of the OTAB governing body should not only be open to the public, but actively seek participation of the public. Openness must be included as an operating principle in the legislation. This is crucial to the sense of public accountability. There is a need for a clarification in the legislation. As it is presently written, it remains too open to interpretation.
Subsection 9(2) on the directors: In the legislation, it says, "There shall be 22 directors, appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, as follows:" What we're saying is the labour market partners who are specifically named in this section do not allow for flexibility in that once legislation is enacted, it is very difficult to change and can be quite inflexible. We recommend amending that section and adding that "additional directors representing labour market partners not now represented may be appointed in consultation with the groups that those directors shall represent."
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In subsection 9(4), "Criteria": "In the selection of directors, the importance of reflecting Ontario's linguistic duality and the diversity of its population and ensuring overall gender balance shall be recognized." We believe that these criteria stop short of requiring equity goals for the labour market partners' directors. The question is whether the labour market partners will voluntarily ensure that their representatives are representative.
Temporary vacancies: According to subsection 9(8), "If the position of a director becomes vacant, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may appoint...." What we're saying is that the filling of vacancies and temporary vacancies should be achieved in consultation with the organizations representing the group that the director is to represent.
Subsection 15(2), the bylaws: "The directors shall pass bylaws dealing with conflict of interest, which may impose restrictions...." What we're saying is that the conflict-of-interest guidelines must be expanded beyond the personal conflict-of-interest to organizational conflict of interest.
The reference committees: We're suggest the language be changed to say not that the "reference committees may be established," but that the "reference committees shall be established." Reference groups must be established to ensure the accountability of directors. In addition, the words "and others as needed" should be added after the words "section 10." This would allow for additional reference groups to be established if the need arises.
Section 20, "Funding": "OTAB may provide funding to reference committees, in accordance with the regulations." What we're saying is that the wording "may provide funding" should be changed to "shall provide funding." If reference groups are not funded, then the reference group's ability to complete its tasks will be dependent upon its economic resources. Some reference groups have more access to financial and human resources than others. The issue then becomes one of lack of equal access.
Section 30, "Regulations," regarding the decision-making: This is an issue that I'm sure everybody is bringing up, and I was just listening to the gentleman before me. It's a very difficult issue and we talked about it within our own organization. What we're recommending is that a triple majority vote be used when consensus cannot be reached, meaning five out of eight business, five out of eight labour and four of six equity and education-training. We recognize that the model is to be driven by business and labour, but we believe that unless a decision-making mechanism is created that will ensure the other labour market partners have a role to play, they are nothing more than token partners.
We're suggesting a triple majority. If you can come up with another decision-making mechanism that ensures we don't have tokenism within the directors on the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, we would be glad to hear it, but at this point we can only think of a triple majority.
Section 30 in the regulations: "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations respecting the establishment and composition of reference committees." We recommend that the following be added to the above statement: "and that the reference committees may include groups named in subsection 9(2) and section 10 and others."
There are miscellaneous issues that are not addressed in the legislation; that is, evaluation. The legislation is not complete, in that there is no provision for mandatory evaluation of the operations, mandate and composition of OTAB, its councils and local training and adjustment boards. Evaluatory procedures must be built into the operations to ensure quality, cost-effectiveness, accountability and sustainability. This must be built into the front end of this initiative so that it will have the capacity to evaluate and adjust on a continuing basis.
An appeal, the last item: There must be an appeal process built into the legislation as it relates to the allocation of funding for training programming.
That's the end of my presentation. I'm open to any questions, if you have any.
The Chair: Thank you, ma'am. I am sure there are going to be questions and comments. Mr McGuinty.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you for your presentation. I want to focus on your comments with respect to accountability.
First of all, I must say that I'm attracted to this idea of having a public meeting to ensure that there's some kind of openness. Can you comment a bit more generally in terms of the accountability? I have a grave concern that there's not going to be any accountability in any real sense, that we're going to end up with an organization funded by the government, and that the people who are making decisions at a level where they're going to be dealing with the money and distributing it are not going to be accountable to the taxpayers. I wondered if you might comment on that.
Ms Dobrowolsky: I was just going to say what you just said, which is that they will be responsible for allocating a great deal of money, public funds. Having meetings that are not open to the public, meetings that are behind closed doors, makes it appear that there is a lack of accountability. There has to be an appearance of accountability as well. People must feel that they know what's going on, that things aren't being done behind closed doors. The one example that I must give you, which everybody brings up, is the Workers' Compensation Board.
This initiative is a wonderful initiative, but there has to be a very strong sense of accountability to the public. The public must feel that they have definite input into those decisions that are made. Having open meetings to the public I do not see as problematic and our organization does not see as problematic.
Mr McGuinty: Yes, I would consider it to be absolutely fundamental.
You also raised some good points with respect to the reference committees. You see, I didn't pursue the development of this legislation. To some extent, I have an advantage, because I just look at the bill, and the bill makes reference to reference committees. It says they may be established in accordance with the regulations and in reference to those particular groups under subsection 9(2) and section 10, and OTAB may provide funding. What is your understanding of what role reference committees would play?
Ms Dobrowolsky: That is very much a part of that issue. I have to give you an example. The education and training steering committee will turn into a reference group. That steering committee is supposed to be representative of the education and training sector in the province of Ontario. It is supposed to inform the rest of the education and training sector in Ontario of what is happening and to get feedback from them about the positions that they want that committee to take. So it becomes the first level of accountability in relationship to the directors who are on the education and training steering committee.
If those reference groups are not funded, then in some cases there will be labour market partners that would not be able to have access to that flow-through of information, because they couldn't afford to do it. They couldn't afford to travel in from Ottawa or from Sudbury or from wherever to become part of the informing of the directors. In other words, once the directors are appointed, there have to be reference groups behind them or some strategy where they can get their advice. They just don't go blind into this thing and sit there for the next three years and make their decisions based on their own sense of what should happen. They are to go out into the constituency that they're serving to find out what those issues are, and the reference group serves that function for them.
Mr McGuinty: Right. As you point out, unfortunately, the reference committees are simply not mandated under the bill. There's no obligation in here that they even be formed. All right, thank you.
Mrs Cunningham: I want to congratulate you on such a thorough presentation. I don't say this very often, but unless I'm corrected by my colleague Elizabeth Witmer, who's been working hard with me on this, I think I agree with everything you said. There are a couple of places where I'm wondering if you would expand, but you've obviously given it close scrutiny, and that's great. I mean, that's what the committee's looking for.
Paragraph 4(1)16, the objects: I noticed in many places you've actually given us the wording that you'd like to see.
Ms Dobrowolsky: Yes.
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Mrs Cunningham: I'm wondering if you would like to be more specific here. I noticed that you were here for the previous presentation and you saw the questioning around the fact that the private sector trainers are concerned that they're not recognized. I think they're also concerned that this protection of the public education system has been overstated, or maybe the other's been understated. I'm wondering if you could volunteer or offer something in view of an amendment to paragraph 16, or maybe we should just add another clause. I don't know.
Ms Dobrowolsky: In terms of that, "To seek to ensure, within the scope of OTAB's operations, the strength of Ontario's," there's a wee wording that can be done on that which would be "to build on the strengths of," which is something that our organization would be more comfortable with. "To build on the strengths of" is very different than "to seek to ensure the strength of" something. There's a totally different focus to it.
We recognize that the public education system is a very large, very important system in this province and we don't have a problem with building on the strengths of that system. Where its strengths are, those should be built upon. We do believe that number 15--I don't have it in front of me.
Mrs Cunningham: I'll just read it, "To make effective use of Ontario's diverse educational and training resources."
Ms Dobrowolsky: That's a very weak statement.
Mrs Cunningham: That's what I feel too.
Ms Dobrowolsky: There's no question that is a very weak statement.
Mrs Cunningham: It's not as strong as "to seek to ensure," is it?
Ms Dobrowolsky: No, it isn't. It's very different.
The issue for us is that the cycle of learning means that a person, you or I or anybody in this room, at some point in our life might need to have access to any of the training systems. The five that have been articulated are the school boards, the community colleges, the universities, the private trainers and the community-based trainers. At any given time in your life you might need one of those systems. You might need to use the services of one or another of those systems. Our organization believes, as the previous person did, that whoever can deliver the best training should be delivering the training.
The concern for community-based training, which is very different than other presentations that you might hear, is the issue of the potential worker, not so much the workforce but the potential worker, because community-based training works with and trains people who in many cases have never been part of the workforce or have had a very erratic attachment to the workforce. So our concern is for the potential workers and for people who have had barriers to employment and to training and barriers to the public education system. But you're right; there's a big difference between those two statements. We're not opposed to seeing paragraph 16 if the wording is changed to "building on the strengths of."
Mrs Cunningham: Of the five groups.
Ms Dobrowolsky: Yes. "Building on the strengths of the public education system" is a little different than the way it's stated now. I would like to see paragraph 15 strengthened a little bit too because it's very weak.
Mrs Cunningham: Okay. On page 4, subsection 15(2), under bylaws in your brief you're talking about, "The directors shall pass bylaws dealing with conflict of interest, which may impose restrictions on directors' activities."
We've had some interesting comments. They haven't been in this regard, but this is very interesting. There have been some complaints that there's a problem within the business community as to who should represent business, whether it should be big business or small business. They have a group that is trying to work that out now. We're hoping that when they come back, both will be equally represented or at least there would be a consensus as to what the weighting ought to be.
With regard to the other partner that we need so badly, because it hasn't been there in the past, it is labour. All of the labour will be from organized labour: OFL, seven seats, one for construction. So when you talk about beyond the personal conflict to organizational conflict of interest, I don't know whether you're talking about that, whether it be the group they represent, but the concern has been that the OFL says it speaks for all business, even the two thirds that are not organized. I see this as relating to that same problem, but that may not be why you've got it here. I'm just wondering if you would just speak to that for a moment.
Ms Dobrowolsky: For us that was two separate issues. I didn't address that because I was only addressing the bill in this presentation, but one of the recommendations we made initially in our response to the consultation document was that business have representation from large business as well as small business, small business being zero to nine employees, which is probably the majority of--
Mrs Cunningham: It is.
Ms Dobrowolsky: Yes, okay. We felt the same with the labour, that some of those positions should represent unorganized labour. That's our position with that.
In terms of this conflict of interest, if an educator-trainer works for the college system and an issue comes up about large amounts of money to the colleges, that's what we talk about, the broader conflict of interest, that we would consider that those guidelines be expanded to include that, not just that that person personally would benefit from the decision but that the organization he or she works for on a full-time basis would benefit from that decision.
The Chair: Thank you. Ms Murdock and then Mr Wilson, please.
Ms Sharon Murdock (Sudbury): Actually, my point is on the same point that was last raised by Mrs Cunningham on section 15. I'm taking just a somewhat different tack, because I would think that the organizational conflict you're saying that it should be expanded to include is included by the section that says, "with necessary modifications," and that was my point when I read 15(1). I looked at that and thought it could also mean--I'm wondering whether or not you have addressed this issue, and if you have, I'd like your viewpoint. When you read something like "with necessary modifications," did your group look at the possibility of that precluding someone with a training background as being in conflict sitting on OTAB?
Ms Dobrowolsky: I'm sorry?
Ms Murdock: Do you want me to repeat that?
Ms Dobrowolsky: Yes, please, and in another way.
Ms Murdock: Oh. Okay. What kinds of conflict did you look at when you looked at the possibility of defining the kinds of conflict that might occur under the definition of "with necessary modifications"?
Ms Dobrowolsky: I'm sorry, I was listening to--
Ms Murdock: She's taking up my time. I mean, I've got to talk to her here.
Mrs Cunningham: Just trying to help you. I was trying to help Sharon by putting the act there, because I couldn't remember that myself.
Ms Murdock: Just kidding.
What kinds of conflict, other than directors' liability, which is pretty clear under the Corporations Act, did you look at or did you discuss under that?
Ms Dobrowolsky: It was our understanding that the conflict of interest this referred to was a personal conflict of interest for each director. They personally would not financially gain by decisions they were taking part in. This was our understanding. We wanted that broadened. Now, our understanding might be incorrect, which is very possible, but we wanted that broadened to include, say, if the gentleman who was sitting here before from IBM was one of the directors, if there was a decision that was made that could financially benefit IBM, then that director would be--
Ms Murdock: Organizational conflict. I understand that. I don't disagree with that.
The Chair: Mr Wilson, did you want Ms Murdock to use your time?
Mr Gary Wilson: Well, I want her to be satisfied with her concern.
Ms Murdock: It's okay.
Mr Gary Wilson: Are you finished?
Ms Murdock: No. I'll talk to some other people about it.
Ms Dobrowolsky: We haven't gone beyond that.
Ms Murdock: Okay. Thank you.
Ms Dobrowolsky: Sorry.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks very much for your presentation, Mrs Dobrowolsky.
Ms Dobrowolsky: That's good. That's a difficult name to pronounce.
Mr Gary Wilson: Not bad, eh?
Ms Dobrowolsky: I'm always impressed when I hear that.
Mrs Cunningham: That's all he's been thinking about.
Ms Dobrowolsky: Have you been practising it?
The Chair: You're right. For a fellow named Wilson, that's not bad at all, sir.
Mr Gary Wilson: I'm married to somebody named Oleinikow and it always throws people, but it hasn't helped much.
Ms Dobrowolsky: We used to live in Kingston. Aren't you a representative from that area?
Mr Gary Wilson: Yes, that's right, Kingston.
Ms Dobrowolsky: Maybe you've heard the name before in Kingston.
Mr Wiseman: Like the first day in class.
Mr Gary Wilson: I won't try it again. Let's get to the questioning. Of course, you've been involved with the education and trainers' steering group, haven't you?
Ms Dobrowolsky: Yes.
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Mr Gary Wilson: I just wanted some of your reaction to that. Have you been pleased with the way that's worked out? Have you felt that your community-based training groups have had the contribution, the participation, that you had hoped to get and to see in OTAB as well?
Ms Dobrowolsky: We've been participating as equal partners. We have the same number of representatives on the steering committee as everybody else.
One of the things we are coming to realize is that the education and training sector--and I think it's going to happen in all the groups. We're five totally different sectors. We've got private trainers, which are very different from community-based trainers. Even though we're not public institutions, we're very different in our philosophies of operation, so it has been a very difficult alliance. I realize it's going to take a very long time for us to come together and have one vision. Maybe that is what the problem is with the whole process, that we haven't yet come together and got a sense of ownership to one large vision. We're still very separate, and those are concerns we have in the operation of this: that if we stay separate, it just won't work.
Mr Gary Wilson: But given the systemic barriers that exist now, and in your presentation you make it clear that you think even OTAB isn't addressing them, although I'm not quite sure that the phrase "systemic barriers" covers what you're raising, don't you think that's one of the hopeful signs; that since you have worked separately from the other groups, coming together in spite of the fact that at the beginning at least it's not problem-free, it does offer the best chance for identifying the barriers that exist, especially among the clientele you serve, and then bringing it to the attention of other groups, the other labour-market partners?
Ms Dobrowolsky: Yes. That's one of the roles that we've found has been very helpful, because we've been very involved in this consultation process. Very few people really knew about community-based training or knew the kinds of people with whom we work and how successful we are. That process has expanded people's information in terms of the education and training sector. We feel like we're the conscience of that committee, because we're always there talking about: "What about people who have barriers? What about people who need to be in training a little bit longer or for whom it's going to cost a little more? They have as much right to training as somebody who is more job-ready."
The Chair: Thank you, ma'am, for appearing here on behalf of the Ontario Network of Employment Skills Training Projects. You've spoken effectively on their behalf, Ms Dobrowolsky. We appreciate your attendance. We are grateful to you and your organization for expressing the interest and taking the time to address this particular issue. We trust you'll be tracking the bill as it goes through committee into clause-by-clause and any amendments. We invite you to keep in touch, and we tell you that it's important that you and others like you share their views during this very public process so that the legislation can be dealt with effectively by the committee. Thank you kindly.
Ms Dobrowolsky: Thank you very much.
WATERLOO/WELLINGTON AREA LTAB FACILITATION COMMITTEE
The Chair: The next participant is the facilitation committee of the Waterloo/Wellington Area LTAB. Please, sir, tell us your name and your status with the LTAB and proceed with your comments.
Mr Bill Thomson: Thank you very much for giving us the time to come before you today. We have a report that is being typed now, and I'll send it down. What I'd like to do is summarize it.
I am the chairman of the local facilitation committee. It's been under way for some three years. It started out as a thing called Partnership 2000, made up of labour, business, the educational facility people in our community, the trainers, both private and public, the community-based trainers as well, and social services and even municipal representatives. We got together to see if as partners we could work cooperatively together to coordinate and facilitate training and retraining in our particular area so that our people could perhaps move through the system a little more efficiently and quickly and eliminate the overlap that is present and is delaying the process. Part of our mandate was to assess the need as to the kind of training, short-term and over the next two or three years.
As I say, that's been under way for some time, but a year and a half ago we changed it from Partnership 2000 to a facilitation committee in the Waterloo/Wellington area concerning the formation of a local training adjustment board as the various reports became public.
I must also inform you that besides chairing that particular committee, which has some 40 people on it in those two areas, I'm also the chairman of the Uniroyal Goodrich Local 80 adjustment committee. As you know, that particular plant has closed, and we now have 800 people we're moving through a process of training and retraining, upgrading their education and finding them jobs. This has been a very important group we work with, originally made up of three union people and three management. The same six are there, but no longer are they union and management; they're a team.
I also have been sitting on advisory committees of both our school boards, because over the years I've been very interested in the whole educational and training system. I have retired as the commissioner of economic development for the city and have been in the planning field up there for many years.
Our committee has no funds and no staff, so it's been using all our partners to be able to put together things. We've held three major public meetings: We've had representatives of the province as well as the federal people at our public meetings explaining what is taking place or what is about to take place and getting involved with a question-and-answer period; then we send out a newsletter, with the help of many of our partners, to all the people who've been coming to those public meetings. We've been trying to keep people informed and keep them with us as we move along.
As a group, we believe in the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board in general, the makeup and the issues, but we feel that Bill 96 may require some clarification and emphasis. We believe that local or regional--whatever you want to call them--training and adjustment boards are essential. We feel they have to reflect the geographic terms, the labourshed-commutershed of economic regions, of which ours is one. We feel they must reflect the character of the area. They must have strong links to the whole community, as well as to OTAB itself.
We feel that an LTAB can recognize the responsibility people must take in acquiring their lifelong skills. We feel we have to encourage them and help them make the opportunities available so that they can participate, thus helping to develop a higher-skilled workforce of well-trained people who can acquire multiple skills, adapt to the rapid changes taking place that are now so common not only in the world but in our province and particularly in our own area, become more flexible in terms of workplace habits, change and job needs, and be able to solve problems, think and work in teams. These attributes will attract new opportunities to an area in terms of investment and jobs, so we feel the local training and adjustment board has a major responsibility.
To do all of this, they must be empowered to conduct research and collect and analyse the data on their own area of responsibility and jurisdiction, of course in cooperation with OTAB, which hopefully is doing the same thing on a province-wide scale so we can fit inside something; from this, to determine the need now and in the near future, prepare a proper business and training plan with priorities and costs and submit it to OTAB for approval. Also, the local TAB has to be accountable for its actions and its own funding, and the results must be tabulated and monitored, perhaps by the provincial TAB. We feel the meetings, too, must be open to the public.
On approval of OTAB, we need to turn the funds over to that LTAB so it can make decisions quickly and efficiently according to its own plan. We feel this would reduce waste and overlap and increase coordination and effective use of trainers and training programs available for those most in need: our people. This will create a partnership relationship between the LTAB and the people and the users.
Thus, to assure a responsive atmosphere to people's needs, permit ready access by the people for help and ensure equity and efficient, swift delivery of training and adjustment help to the people, OTAB must, through an approved business and training plan based on need, transfer the funds and power to the local TAB. If people in one area of the province, and an LTAB as well, must constantly turn to or bug OTAB for this or that, we'll be in a bigger mess than we are today.
Clear, concise policy directions and guidelines must be developed by OTAB for the LTABs, and LTABs have to do the same thing. To be efficient and effective and help the people in a period of constant change and shifting needs, we feel nothing less should be acceptable to this committee and to the province.
I think we always have to keep in mind that the whole purpose of OTAB and its federal counterpart is to meet the needs of our people; it doesn't meet the needs of the labour market. These are the labour market partners of Ontario as a whole, and in the various economic regions. So training and retraining, upgrading the skills, encouraging upgrading, offering opportunities to do so, is what we're all about, I trust.
We have no real problems, as I mentioned before, with many of the things in the bill, nor with the director membership as a whole, but we feel that the director membership at the local area has to reflect and be chosen by our own people in our own economic region: chosen by our own labour people and our own labour councils, which are already on our committees, our own business groups and associations, our own educational institutions and our own training organizations and of course our own social groups. We don't feel this should be done by some provincial labour organization or provincial business or educational organization. We feel that has to be something done by ourselves, within the guidelines and the rules of the OTAB itself.
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We're well organized and structured at the present time with all our partners. We've had nothing but full cooperation from our labour councils and our business people, who've been sitting around the table for three years discussing this and getting used to each other. But again we need flexibility to reflect the area. For example, our three universities, the college, the four school boards and some of the community trainers have formed a resource group, or, perhaps, as the bill calls them--I forgot the name for a moment, but we just call them resource groups, as they call themselves. This group has felt that perhaps it needs two representatives instead of one on our committee, and perhaps another one from the private training group. These kind of things we have put into our report which we will be sending down to you. We feel there has to be some flexibility at the local area, to be able to fit within the mandate and yet not upset the co-chairs of both labour and business.
Something similar may be needed from the various social groups sector because there are so many of them, and it may be difficult within all that group to just have four. Again, we feel we have to reflect the whole area. We feel that someone down in Queen's Park shouldn't be telling each of the areas around the province what they need in their own area, because very seldom do people in Queen's Park know what we need in our own areas. Having 24 directors truly representing an area can still constitute an effective board. I've been working in this province for some 35 years, and it doesn't make any difference which party's in power; we still have problems of them understanding what the heck we do out there in the boondocks.
I urge you not to overlook the fact that small businesses are the backbone of this province, and it is here where the job opportunities are growing and where training is very important. It is here where a great deal of in-house training is already under way, and it has to be encouraged and recognized. They have major needs, and on an LTAB can assure the quality training in the whole workplace, not just in the classroom.
Our existing structures work very well in many instances and help the small businesses and our workers, so when we create the new training structure we have to make sure we retain and build on what is good and what is working; thus the importance, again, of empowerment to the local TAB, made up of our own partners forging even better partnerships among themselves and of course with OTAB.
I know there's been some thought of a levy for training, and we've discussed it at our own particular group. We just feel you should remember that small and medium-sized businesses are now overtaxed by every level of government and by school boards as well. They struggle with training and being efficient while trying to gain more of the market. To tax them to train people may drive the nail the last half-inch. Just think about it first and be careful if you feel the necessity to levy a training tax. We're not saying we're against it, but I think you have to be very careful in today's situation.
We also feel it's about time that someone sorted out the boundaries for the local TABs. As you very well aware--and I am too, by attending many of the meetings in the various areas around us, including our own--there are some major arguments going on about what constitutes a boundary, and we feel this should be sorted out quite soon. It has been difficult lately keeping our partners together as each little entity fights to retain its own turf, or some of them are trying to create turf from someone else's turf. All sorts of dreamed-up reasons are coming out in the open on why they need to have their turf protected or create even another training committee within the group we are already working on.
I think some of them have forgotten that we are here to serve people, and people in need care little about petty political boundaries or turf protection. It's not a municipal boundary, an existing small adjustment board, a business group, a union or an educational institution that is important any more; it's people and their needs, and training can be accomplished in a factory, in a classroom, a portable on a parking lot--we have six on the Uniroyal parking lot doing all of this at the present time--a church hall and on a labourshed area. We think that's what's important. That's what the people have been telling us and that's what is real.
In our area, the labourshed-commutershed recognized economic unit is Guelph, Cambridge, Kitchener-Waterloo and the surrounding area, and we feel that things like this should be sorted out so we can get on with discussing and creating better partnerships within our area.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you very much, Mr Thomson. We're very appreciative of your presentation today. I, for one, really respect the involvement you've had, so we'll be listening very carefully. Elizabeth Witmer, my colleague from Waterloo, sends her best regards. She's doing other work today in her community, so I wanted to say that.
I should mention what I did find out yesterday on the local boards. I called Employment and Immigration, Mr Valcourt's office, because there seemed to be some misunderstanding, in my view, among some of the presenters and some of the committee members with regard to what basic principles are behind the local boards. Certainly, his office advised me that the CLFDB, the federal body, is looking at four basic principles, which I think you'll enjoy.
First of all, we should be very flexible in the makeup of local boards; they should represent the local community.
Second, they're looking for grass-roots, bottom-fed people; locally appointed.
Third, they feel they should have the control of the local dollars; otherwise, the board would give the money to the local group and it then would disperse it based on what its priorities are.
Fourth--I think this is interesting--as much expertise from the local boards as possible, as they exist and have been working well, ought to be used.
That's what I found out. I think I would be speaking with my colleagues here to see if those basic principles couldn't be built into the legislation so there would be no misunderstanding as to how we all feel, if in fact we agree with those principles, all of which you spoke to.
Mr Thomson: Yes, I agree they're very important. It's interesting where you say they're coming from now. This has come right out of the grass roots, as far as we ourselves are concerned; this is what the people are saying. Our Kitchener-Waterloo/Cambridge labour council has been saying the same things as our business community on these very important things.
Now, having a budget and being able to look after the training locally doesn't mean we shouldn't be accountable to the provincial one. We have to be, because you'll have to be accountable eventually for that money too.
Mrs Cunningham: I was interested in your experience. You seem to have an awfully good working model, because we've had presenters before the committee who have described the non-involvement of labour in the local boards, where they've been invited and haven't participated. That's been true of two or three of the presenters, that they specifically said that is the one partner they need. It's nice to see you've had that kind of understanding and commitment from the labour community in Waterloo. I'm wondering if you've got any secret.
Mr Thomson: No, I just happen to have been brought up in a family and a system that believes in talking to all people. One of the successes we've had in the planning and economic development of our area is that we make sure that with regard to the people who own or operate the factory and the people who are in there producing, we treat them both the same, and meet with them. It's interesting that even labour is represented on our local chamber of commerce too. There's a growing relationship, which I think is good.
Mrs Cunningham: It's certainly the goal.
Mr Thomson: The labour people have a great deal of difficulty being able to find the time to sit on committees that meet in the daytime, so we've just moved our meetings into the evening, and they have no trouble.
Mrs Cunningham: That's quite the experience. I think the government probably heard you with regard to solving the boundary problem. What constitutes a boundary is a good question. We're hearing that from others. I'm just going to finish by saying it was so refreshing to hear you talk about turf wars and what not, and underlining that it's people and their needs that we're here about. Thank you for an excellent presentation.
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Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you, Mr Thomson. I agree with Ms Cunningham that it's been a fascinating presentation. Drawing, as you do, from so much experience, it's really useful.
Especially as the local boards have come up for a lot of discussion, I was pleased to hear Ms Cunningham's reference to the Canadian Labour Force Development Board's principles, because, after all, it is also a central body and realizes that it has to work in conjunction with the local boards. Our view, as expressed in the legislation, is that the boards are going to be set up in consultation with both the Canadian Labour Force Development Board and the federal government and OTAB and the provincial government. Those principles, though, will be reflected, because as Ms Cunningham says, they represent a view we'd all hold.
I'd like to discuss a little bit more your experience with the local boards. Certainly I've picked up, as she did, on your success with working with all members of the community. It reminds me of something that one of the presenters, I think from the OFL, said, that where labour is treated as an equal, it has no problem in cooperating with the people who are around the table.
Mr Thomson: Absolutely, and we sometimes forget that.
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly. I think you said you talked to everybody. That suggested that kind of principle. I think it's sometimes forgotten when people are viewed though stereotypes, I guess is a way of putting it. The grass-roots approach, where the grass-roots are seen as equal, is an important element. I want to find out how you canvassed the grass roots. What includes the grass roots? How do you get out to it?
Mr Thomson: We of course solicited the news media to come and help us, and we have some good reporters who certainly got as much of the message as possible through the news media, both radio and television. But one of the major ones was to hold three major public meetings, well advertised, one in Waterloo, one in Cambridge and one over in Guelph. We had a tremendous turnout, even though some of the evenings had bad weather, and were well reported. The question and answer period sometimes went on for an hour and a half to two hours, with myself and another one from our committee, plus a federal and a provincial representative from the training area helping with the questions and answers. We recorded all the questions and answers, and we can send those down as well. That generated a tremendous amount of interest.
Then as far as the players are concerned, the labour council made sure it got the message out to a number of the unions. The non-union workers came to the meetings and indicated that they would like to be represented, but the biggest problem I had was trying to figure out how they would be represented. We came to the conclusion, frankly, that the people being selected from the unions from our area would certainly be looking after any worker whether he or she was in a union or not, as far as training is concerned, because that's just the attitude that's up there.
Also, if we select the businesses properly and go from the small businesses all the way through, we're certainly going to have business people who have non-union workers as well as union workers. If we're all only interested in training for people, whether they're in a union or not or whether they're black or white or whatever, we're not going to have any problem. That's how we started working. Slowly people began to believe that when they came to the meetings, and we sat around the table trying to figure out how the heck to do it.
I don't suppose we've got all the questions answered. We never will, but we keep on saying to ourselves, "As long as we keep sitting around the table and we're working towards it, fine," and don't leave the table.
Mr Gary Wilson: People and their needs, as you mentioned earlier, is the bottom line.
Mr Thomson: That's the important part.
Mr Gary Wilson: It seems to me that's another value of the central and the local boards; that is, the umbrella group, OTAB, and the local boards. It allows that kind of experience to be shared with other areas in the province.
Mr Thomson: If those meetings are generally public--there may have to be meetings that have to be closed, I suppose--and those 24 or 26 or whatever number are sitting around that table, the message is going to be carried out to the people, hopefully, of what's going on, and slowly people will become more and more aware of it. Training is going to very important in this country, and we're going to be depending a lot on how OTAB and the LTABs operate properly with the system. I think people are going to become more and more aware of it.
Mr Gary Wilson: What you're saying I think reflects a lot that's in the bill now. It's that kind of attitude that is going to carry this legislation through to what we'd like to see happening to training in the province. There's a real concern for the public interest. It isn't the narrow view that sometimes gets confused with the importance and I think the possibility of a more public-spirited approach to this issue.
Mr Thomson: In all deference to lawyers, Mr Chairman, I would think that other people should write the bills so we can all understand them better.
Mr Gary Wilson: You have to say that this one comes quite close.
Mr Thomson: Yes. It's not too bad.
The Chair: I agree with you. I have a rather Shakespearean view of lawyers myself.
Mr Thomson: I know you spoke to our Rotary Club about that.
The Chair: But then again, I ain't exactly up on politicians either. So go ahead, Mr Ramsay and Mr McGuinty.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much for your presentation, sir. I really enjoyed it. I think you made some very strong points about how we have to make sure that we allow you, at the local level, the flexibility to form the board that suits your particular area.
I was actually very pleased to hear that you've worked out, in a sense, the labour representative problem in your area. When we're dealing with the Ontario board, we're engaged in a lot of debate here about how that worker representation and the business representation should be made so that everybody out there involved on the management side and on the workers' side feel they're being represented. Locally, in a sense, it really doesn't become a problem, because whatever fits, then that's going to be fine.
I guess what's happening on the Ontario side is that the legislation imposes for the OTAB that there have to be, on the workers' side, eight reps from organized labour. That's a difficulty a lot of us are having. We'd like to see some more flexibility there, but as far as I'm concerned, I would go along with how you've organized it: Whatever works in your municipality, in your region, is fine. I like what you said too, that the linkages have to be strong in the community, so it has to be a community of interest.
You brought up the concern about borders. It's not for us here at Queen's Park or for some federal officials from Ottawa to impose what your region should look like. You know what your region looks like. I support you in that. I want to make sure that we're hearing different ideas about how the local boards are going to be structured. But I'd like to see something in the legislation that talks about these principles you've enunciated here today, that you will be allowed to form your own groupings and allowed the flexibility. So if it's all unionized people in your area, then that's fine. If that's what working, then that's great; let's have it. But allow the local groups and areas to have that flexibility to make it work, because we're all here trying to make it work, and that's great. I don't know what we can do about the boundaries.
Unfortunately, when you look at the bill, we're only looking at a little bit of a skeleton of this thing, and much is to come afterwards. I hope that, through amendments, we can get some of these concerns you've brought forward so we have some certainty that the work you've done already will be protected and allowed to flourish in the future. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Well, Mr Thomson, obviously you've generated some interest in what you've had to tell us, both in terms of your views about the legislation itself as well as the activities of your local TAB. We're appreciative of you and your LTAB for expressing that interest and for participating in this hearing. We congratulate you. I think I speak for everybody on the committee in the functioning of your LTAB, certainly unique, as everyone is, but one of which I believe you and the community can be very proud.
We thank you for coming to Toronto. We trust you'll be following the legislation, and we hope you'll be touch with any one of us about things as they progress if you have further comments to make. Thank you kindly, sir. Have a safe trip back home.
Mr Thomson: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
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CANADIAN AUTO WORKERS, LOCAL 1459
The Chair: The next participant is the Canadian Auto Workers, Local 1459. Please, sir, have a seat. Tell us who you are, your status or title, if any, within the local, and proceed with your comments.
Mr Michael McCue: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I apologize for my lack of any printed statement. We just lack the facilities; it's a small local union.
The Chair: Go right ahead, sir. We've got some of your written material. That'll be made an exhibit. We're interested and eager to hear what you have to say. No need to apologize.
Mr McCue: If you could bear with me for this brief verbal presentation. My name is Michael McCue. I represent Local 1459 of the CAW, from the Chrysler casting plant located in Etobicoke. I must thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to express my concerns about Bill 96.
On October 26, 1992, the membership were informed that due to competitive and economic reasons, the company would be outsourcing a portion of our die cast facilities, resulting in the loss of 106 to 179 jobs commencing some time in April 1993. These competitors, we understand, are primarily located in the USA, where tax incentives are commonplace and therefore attractive to businesses that are motivated to increase their profitability and survivability, which we feel is a basic flaw in the present bill, OTAB. We feel it's like closing the door when the horse has bolted.
You'll notice that I had attempted quite some time ago, based on the information we got there, to secure some financial assistance, back in 1986 when the Peterson government announced, I might say with great fanfare, the creation of a $1-billion fund. My limited information about this bill does nothing to convince me that this bill is not just a rehash of the Peterson government's attempts to keep jobs in Ontario. I might say that the Peterson government's attempts failed miserably, as you can see by some of the other things I took from the 1987 paper.
At the same time that they were introducing this bill, there were good, high-paying, high-tech jobs leaving the province. In our Etobicoke area we've seen this. Goodyear, Sunbeam and Chrysler itself were affected. They're moving south, but they're moving anywhere, for that matter. They don't just necessarily go to the Americans.
OTAB seems to be devoting--from the little information we've got about it, at least--all of its attention and its resources to training and nothing to strengthening the existing businesses such as ours through research and development. You might say that the company itself should be putting some money in, but it has some competitive pressures too. Our local union had contacted the IRDI--that's the Industrial Research and Development Institute--up in Midland. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but on the surface it's nothing more than a façade. You know, there is nothing there. It might be taking time to get going.
We felt this Midland operation was a good idea inasmuch as there could be some knowledgeable people up there who might be able to assist our businesses. We're into moulds and dyes. They could, through a bit more knowledge, introduce that knowledge into our plant and make it a bit more competitive. That was the idea behind it. Unfortunately, it never did get off the ground. We feel they really lacked cost-saving innovations. They were more interested in production and moving the jobs to a lower-priced source, whereas we felt this could make us a bit more competitive.
This is where we believe this money should be spent. That would be in the strengthening of existing businesses such as ours, and others of course, through research and development and introducing new, innovative techniques, new procedures; not in the training for some non-existent jobs. There are none. You know, there are no jobs right now. So we feel that the money would be better spent in existing businesses which are there right now. Put the money in, build it up, make us more creative, and then that way we'd be far better off to hire, rather than, I might suggest, create some enormously expensive bureaucratic system. This is where this $1 billion went last time. It did absolutely nothing.
The only people who seemed to benefit from this system were the administrators and the other people involved. It does nothing for the workers of Ontario at all. I think it's just a matter of time before you see businesses like ours--Chrysler's a big multinational automobile corporation--move wherever it's cheaper. I think we're losing something. These are good, high-paying jobs; it's a high-tech business. We've got all kinds of training. It comes out that we're training die-casters at the same time they're laying them off. The chances of some die-caster moving into some other die-casting facility in Ontario is very slim. So it's not money well spent. Chrysler might say, "I've got some money from the government to train die-casters," and at the same threaten us with layoffs. I think the money could be far better off if it was reinvested back into research and development to strengthen the existing businesses.
I thank you for this opportunity and I'm open to any questions.
The Chair: Thank you for leaving time, because I've got a feeling there are going to be some questions and comments, starting with Mr Wilson, please.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks a lot, Mr McCue, for your presentation. I guess in one sense it can be seen why you'd like to see money invested in your particular plant. But I do want to say about the OTAB, in fact it's going to be an umbrella operation that's pulling together various training programs that are now spread among programs in different ministries. So in that sense there won't be any new money devoted to it; it's just pulling together programs that money is already being spent on, and we expect it to be spent in a more productive way.
Are you aware of the structure of the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board and how it is expected to--
Mr McCue: As I mentioned earlier, I have very limited knowledge of it. The information is very scarce to come by. I've been trying desperately to get some.
Mr Gary Wilson: We can certainly provide you with that. The Ministry of Skills Development has come up with an excellent package of information that will give you the outline and the reasons for the OTAB. But briefly, I can say it involves the labour market partners. Business and labour will take the lead and then groups representing people who would like to be working will also be there. So again, the overall people driving it will be people who need training.
I'd like you to draw on your experience in the union movement to say what you expect the source of cooperation between business and labour, from your experience--what we can expect.
Mr McCue: Chrysler is devoting a great deal of time to quality programs, and most of the training revolves around that. They feel that quality is of vital importance nowadays, since the consumer is very sensitive to quality problems. So they have devoted lots and lots of time and energy to improving the quality of the product. The unions have wholeheartedly endorsed that. We have numerous programs in Etobicoke that further quality improvement programs, which results in regular training schedules on that. But it still does not prevent the loss of the jobs because of the economic and competitive pressures that are there, the prices.
Mr Gary Wilson: Of course, our government sees OTAB as being very important to the economic renewal of the province. It can't do everything, but certainly training is an important element of our economy, as we've heard through these presentations. But certainly there's the perceived need to improve the training that is available. We think that OTAB will do that with the kind of model that we're promoting here. It's important, I think, since it's arisen fairly often, that there is some question about the ability of labour and management to cooperate, but you suggest that where the goals are agreed on, there appear to be the grounds for cooperation.
Mr McCue: As you notice in that reference material, back in 1986 we prided ourselves on being very cooperative with management, because we realized that's where the jobs were. We, at that time, had devoted lots of time to joint programs, jointness. We have no disagreement when it comes to that.
Mr Gary Wilson: We've also heard presenters who have said that where people are treated equally, where people are listened to, then there is no problem with cooperation.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Wiseman, please leave time for Mr Martin and Mr Huget.
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Mr Wiseman: This program, the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, is designed to fulfil a need within the manufacturing sector and in the delivery of goods and services in our economy, to train people who are currently losing their jobs so that they can be retrained and refitted into the economy. It's not designed to do what you've asked it to do. Programs like the manufacturing recovery program, which was given a fund of $57 million this year and has used it, are designed to do that, and the industrial research program, which was $20 million, is also designed to do that. The technical personnel programs, the Ontario Development Corp and Innovation Ontario are all designed to do the kinds of things that you've said, and they have been funded. I know that they've been well used, because I've been very active in my community talking to the manufacturers who've been using them. So that's on that side.
But one of the things that the businesses in my community have been saying to me is that they need to have people who have good skills, good thinking skills, good application skills, that they can then use to expand their product base and to export. I just thought I'd set that out for you to let you know that the side of the equation that you're talking about certainly is being funded. Why the Liberals in 1986 couldn't find any more than $22 million to invest is beyond me, because we can do that in my riding with no problem.
Mr McCue: I might add, though, that the local management, at least those trying to set up the training programs, have always insisted that the complexities involved in getting a program set up are not worth the effort, and the money involved is just not there. So we have got some training programs in the plant, and I'm sure they're funded partially by the government, but they've always insisted that the reason they don't want to get more is because it's too difficult to obtain the moneys.
Mr Wiseman: One of the companies in my riding spent $180,000 of its own money plus other funds to not just train one person but to train the entire plant, right from the owner down to the person who worked on the loading dock in the back. The reason they did that was because they were able to move their wastage, in terms of mistakes, from 17% of their production capacity to less than 0.3%. That's a heck of a lot of money that's being saved, and they were funded both from the Ontario and the federal government as well as a huge amount of money of their own. So that's the kind of thing that can happen, and that's the kind of productivity changes that can be made when everybody gets together and goes through the program. So I think that the potential for this is not yet written, in terms of savings and in terms of producing more jobs in the future.
The Chair: Who wanted to go next?
Mr Martin: I just wanted to build on, perhaps, what Mr Wiseman has said and say to you that there are some other things happening out there. Perhaps you could give a comment on whether it is in fact what you're proposing here.
In the city that I represent, Sault Ste Marie, steel is under attack at the moment. As a matter of fact, just today there was an announcement by the Americans that they were going to put further levies against our ability to ship steel into the States. The question is: What is the Ontario government going to do? We've been working with our company in Sault Ste Marie to restructure, actually leading the way in a very innovative restructuring initiative, I think, that includes the union and the management working together.
Our government, in cooperation with the federal government, invested $12 million this year in training for people already in the plant so that they might rehone their skills and develop an ability to work with new technology as that plant restructures. In this instance, through the strategic planning exercise that we went through in the city, we recognized that we couldn't turn our backs on what's already there. What's already there is a good foundation upon which to build some new opportunity to move into the North American and global markets.
So of the $12 million that was announced by the Minister of Skills Development about two or three weeks ago for the steel industry, hopefully about $4 million of it to come to Sault Ste Marie is in fact to retrain the people already working there in the new technologies that will be required. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about?
Mr McCue: Exactly, yes.
Mr Martin: We're hoping that this will also be able to be folded into this OTAB structure so that there's some direction and also some ability for other sectors to take advantage of that kind of innovative approach.
Mr Huget: Thank you for your presentation. I'm certainly aware, as I think most committee members in this room are, of the tremendous pressure that the auto industry and its suppliers are facing these days, and consequently the workforces employed in those industries. I certainly would agree that there has to be some attention paid to that whole sector of the economy. It's extremely critical that we start to make some moves to try to address some of the problems the whole industry is facing.
I'm interested in your letter that refers to a $1-billion high technology development fund, and the fact that you, I guess, had indicated some interest in proceeding with that on behalf of the die-casting industry. If I understand your correspondence right, I guess that didn't happen and what I would like to know from you is, what happened to that fund? Are you aware of that fund ever being used for anything, or for what?
Mr McCue: I have no idea. It just seemed to die on the vine, I suppose.
Mr Huget: Well, that's unfortunate, and I hope through the initiatives that are under way--at least, parts are under way under this legislation--we can make some gains in that. I would ask legislative research if it could provide the committee and myself with a policy paper that's referred to, the 1986 high technology development fund, and I would also like to know how it was applied and used.
The Chair: Okay, and perhaps ministry staff could assist the research staff. Thank you kindly.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much, Mr McCue, for your presentation. I particularly liked--and this was unique in your presentation from all that we've heard--where you've combined the need for the introduction of high technology and training, because that's right. You expressed, I felt, the frustration that it's almost a chicken and egg situation, because you said it's all very well to be talking about and concentrating our efforts on training, but then you said, training for what? What jobs are there? As you said, which is fact, there aren't many jobs around today, and it is a difficult problem.
I think we're going to have to work on both. I am, in our caucus, the critic for both skills and technology and research. We felt that these things should be combined, that these are things that really need to be studied together and need to be coordinated together, as you have said. I guess the frustration, a little bit, is that for companies to introduce technology, you've also got to bring management and labour, the whole workforce, up to speed to be able to manage and run that equipment. So it has to come together.
We might have been a little ahead. The private sector in this country has been a little behind in the introduction of new technology and a little negligent as far as skills training is concerned, with its employees. As I've said to many people, where the skills training has been employed in business, it's been more to the white collar rather than the blue collar worker, and that's got to change. We've got to make sure that business becomes a full partner and pays its share in the upgrading of employees in Ontario. I'm hoping OTAB will do that and I appreciate your comments about how the introduction of technology is important too.
Mr McCue: Thank you.
The Chair: If you want to respond, feel free.
Mr McCue: The company's always talking about coming to the party: We have done that. You'll notice at Chrysler that there's been a remarkable change in its attitudes and the quality levels, and it has cornered a bigger part of the market share. The unfortunate thing for us is that everybody seems to be doing the same thing, so the levels of competence are the same. It still becomes a matter of economics, and if it's cheaper to manufacture the parts in the southern United States or elsewhere, then that's what they do.
Now, I'm saying that the government--and there seems to be lots of money available--rather than devoting all the moneys to training, I would like to see try to keep the established businesses alive by introducing some grants, possibly, for research and development. I'm sure there's still lots of room for improvement in the Etobicoke casting plant.
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Mr Ramsay: There is money still there for that. There is an innovation fund. I think the research will find that's still there, under this government, and is being used.
You're right. We have to move into new technology. I think what we're going to find, and this is the hard part of it, is that some of this work that can maybe be done, unfortunately, in other jurisdictions means that we will probably have to do other types of work and it will have to be even more highly skilled work. All of us are going to have to get more up to speed and we'll maybe be producing other things. The most modern appliances and convenience items in our homes haven't been made in this country. They're basically made overseas, and usually in the Orient.
We need to be getting into making those things that the Asian countries are making and that we love to have. Whether it's personal stereos and VCRs and microwaves, all that stuff comes from Japan, Korea and the other engines of growth over there in the Pacific, and what we have to do is move ourselves up to that and produce goods of higher sophistication.
It's going to be tough. I think we're not going to see too many windshield wiper plants left. Those are going south, unfortunately. It's going to be a tremendous transition and it's going to be tough on all of us, but we're going to have to work together.
Mrs Cunningham: Are you still employed at the Etobicoke casting plant for Chrysler?
Mr McCue: Yes, I am.
Mrs Cunningham: I appreciate your coming here today. I have a couple of questions. I'm assuming you were disappointed that the government couldn't find money in 1987 with regard to your request to the Premier of the day.
Mr McCue: Yes, extremely disappointed. I thought the money was there. As I say, with great fanfare they announced this $1-billion fund, and the way I read it, it was to help businesses like ours strengthen up, and then I read later in 1987 that it was disbanded because there were not enough applicants, apparently. I left a copy of that.
Mrs Cunningham: I appreciate it. My assumption now is that there have been some interesting joint ventures, just because of the work that you do, with auto parts people and the government with regard to research and development and training. I can't be specific on them, but if you want to get in touch with me, it was announced probably in about November or December--early December--in the House, so you might be interested in that.
Mr McCue: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: I'd be interested too to see how well it's working in the area of training. But my question is this: Are you involved to any extent right now in this casting plant in training, either by your own employer or employee involvement or government support in any way?
Mr McCue: Yes. We have an apprenticeship program. We have two members populating that program at the present time. We are involved, as I mentioned before, on a regular basis in joint programs and quality programs. There are regular updating systems in place all the time. Companies are tightening up. Stuff that might have been acceptable in the past is no longer acceptable. So we have to continually update our present systems, and we do that and we do it jointly. It's a joint program. We have a union facilitator who more or less quarterbacks the whole system. So we're eager. We thirst for this information.
Mrs Cunningham: Good.
Mr McCue: We feel it's where our future is.
Mrs Cunningham: Yesterday we had a presentation from a similar kind of person. I'll be specific here. At least, I thought I would. The Mechanical Contractors Association of Ontario, Local 46, a Jack Cooney, was presenting. He had a very interesting concept in his plant. He had a skills development or a training fund. Actually, it was a training fund. Do you have a training fund, or basically who provides the time for the workers or who provides the training for the workers in your plant now?
Mr McCue: Local management does that.
Mrs Cunningham: The management does it?
Mr McCue: Yes, they do.
Mrs Cunningham: So, really, Chrysler does put some money into training and upgrading.
Mr McCue: Yes, they do.
Mrs Cunningham: Okay, because there have been some accusations that it doesn't happen, but it does happen; I and you would probably both agree not enough, at least across the province.
Mr McCue: My argument is that we're being trained in what I would think are some obsolete systems. I think there's more modern equipment available and the company refuses to install that, and there's really not much we can do about it. Their argument is that for competitive and economic reasons, they can't afford it. Consequently, somebody else does it and the jobs move.
Mrs Cunningham: That's a good point, and that's perhaps where the government could step in.
Mr McCue: I envisioned that if there was money available, I thought there would be enough money possibly to create a six-man research and development team in Etobicoke. I'm looking just after my own plant. What they would do is that they would just look at the operation and come up with some method of improvements. That Industrial Research and Development Institute in Midland seems like a tremendous idea. They're going to have a brains trust of people up there and you can draw upon it. There's a membership fee, apparently, that companies have to pay into. The thing doesn't work right now. Maybe it will work eventually, but that type of thing, I thought, was beneficial to operations like ours.
Mrs Cunningham: It's not just the training here; it's the actual fact that within your operation there is probably better equipment and a better way to do things?
Mr McCue: Absolutely.
Mrs Cunningham: I think you said earlier that you felt the training dollars should go directly to the employer, and in this case it would be Chrysler.
Mr McCue: Yes.
Mrs Cunninghan: Have you looked at the structure of this board and how it would work?
Mr McCue: No. I'm sorry; I'm trying to get some information on that. I've been trying desperately, but as I had mentioned earlier, it was kind of scant. From the information I get from the newspapers, I don't think this OTAB would suit our purpose.
Mrs Cunningham: I think that in the way you presented it, it may not, but I think it's extremely important for the board to consider what you have said, because what's the point of providing training? You, as a worker, may put a good case before your local board. You seem like the kind of person who could even sit on the board and direct out to other parts of the community because of your interest, yet if we're putting money into that plan--I'm now talking about public money or maybe a combination--without the equipment that you're describing, that's a problem too. We don't want to just say, "Your workers aren't worth upgrading or retraining," but there's a combination of things and I think it's important for the government to look at that as part of the responsibilities of OTAB.
If that's what we're going to run into--and I can tell you that's what we're going to run into in some of our school systems and our colleges when it comes to their ability, because of their equipment--that's why we have to work so carefully with the private sector. But here's a private sector person, you, who's telling us, "We can't even do what we know we have to do in our own plant." It's been a very interesting presentation. I thank you.
The Acting Chair (Ms Sharon Murdock): You have about two minutes left.
Mrs Cunningham: I'm going to be very gracious and say I won't use it--
The Acting Chair: Or for the presenter's response.
Mrs Cunningham: --except that we do have a lot of information. I think I've got everything I need, and I'll get you the package so you can share it with your employers.
Mr McCue: Thanks very much. I'd appreciate it.
The Acting Chair: I want to thank you very much for taking the time to come in and see us. We appreciate when we get individuals who have obviously spent a number of years on this issue.
WHITBY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The Acting Chair: Our next presenter is the Whitby Chamber of Commerce, Mr Bergin and Mr Kealey. Did I pronounce the names correctly?
Mr Ian Bergin: Close.
The Acting Chair: Would you identify yourself for the record, and you have half an hour.
Mr Bergin: We're pleased yet again to have this opportunity to be before this committee to express the views of the Whitby chamber. I'll begin by introducing myself. My name is Ian Bergin. I'm a chartered accountant and chairman of the government relations committee for the Whitby chamber. Presenting with me today is Mr Marc Kealey, a private consultant and a member of our government relations committee, and we have in attendance with us today Miss Debra Filip, who is the general manager of the Whitby chamber and also a member of our government relations committee.
Our chamber represents some 500 members with well over 10,000 employees working in large-scale manufacturing down to small business. We are vibrant and very active chamber and we take a great deal of pride in that fact.
The Whitby Chamber of Commerce has been studying the OTAB initiative for some time. In fact, our chamber can take pride in the efforts we put forward on OTAB. Whitby was one of the original 23 sites selected by the travelling committee back in May 1992. At that time, we expressed our concern about a top-down process that seemed apparent in OTAB. In our opinion, that same top-down process exists in Bill 96.
We also impressed upon the committee the need to give a great deal of thought to the role of the local training and adjustment boards. Our message at that time was, and continues to be, that OTAB provide a consultative role but that the thrust for providing specific educational training and retraining come from the LTABs, which represent the various communities across the province.
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Bill 96 represents an important step to reforming workplace development in Ontario. As a chamber, we believe Ontario's workforce must change to meet the demands of a changing global marketplace. We can compete if the proper training programs are in place. In some respects this is achieved in Bill 96, but in other areas we're not so sure. In today's presentation, we'd like to address three specific areas of Bill 96: the purpose of the act, minister's directives and the role of the local training adjustment boards.
Section 1 of the act sets out in very broad terms the purposes of Bill 96. In our opinion, the overall objective of OTAB in Bill 96 must be a working partnership of the labour market partners whose mandate is to identify, prioritize, structure and deliver the training needed by the workforce in Ontario, with the aim of reducing unemployment by providing education to assist workers with the retraining necessary for re-entry into the workforce, and of sending a message out to the rest of the world that the workers in this province have the training and the skills necessary to provide immediate returns to those individuals and companies willing to invest in this province.
In clause 1(a), the act expresses the goal of bringing together the labour market partners who are to play a significant role in the design and delivery of labour force development programs and services. We feel that this section should be modified ever so slightly to reflect the delivery of appropriate labour force development programs and services. The distinction is important if OTAB is going to deal with identifying and prioritizing workforce training requirements.
Clause 1(d) of the act requires that OTAB develop programs within the framework that are consistent with the economic and social policies, including labour market policies, of the government of Ontario. The purpose of OTAB is to deal with the training needs of the workforce of Ontario. This implies, in our view, that a government's particular agenda might impact on the training of Ontario workers. We would hope that any government would use the resources of the LTABs to drive the focus of the OTAB.
The establishment of OTAB itself indicates that this government recognizes that the labour market partners identified in this act are better suited to identify the training needs of the workers in Ontario than the government itself. We commend this government for recognizing that fact. Therefore we recommend that clause 1(d) of the purpose clause be removed so as to narrow the focus of OTAB so that it functions as the government intended, a vehicle for retraining Ontario workers.
Continuing with this same line of reasoning, we wish to address section 5 of the act, which permits the minister to issue written directives to OTAB that relate to its objects and that are, in the minister's opinion, of significant public interest. As we just mentioned with regard to clause 1(d) of the purpose clause, the objective of OTAB is to deal with the training needs of the workforce of Ontario. In section 9 of the act, Bill 96 gives the directors of OTAB a three-year mandate to carry out this objective. The directors must be allowed to carry out their mandate without any outside influence from the minister or their designates.
Since the government is funding OTAB, it has a vested interest in the success of OTAB. OTAB must be fully accountable to the government, and ultimately the taxpayers of this province, for the funds it expends and the quality of the services that it provides. Sections 26, 27 and 28 of the act mandate this accountability of OTAB to the minister. If OTAB fails to function effectively, the minister has the option of reducing funding to OTAB or effectively firing the directors by not reappointing them after they've served their term. However, the OTAB directors cannot carry out their duties effectively if anyone, including the minister, has the ability to effectively override their decisions.
Mr Marc Kealey: Last May, as Ian has said earlier on in our presentation, our chamber spoke with the travelling committee when it visited Whitby on the OTAB initiative, and at that time we expressed some grave concerns about a top-down approach. We felt that there was a need for community involvement in the whole process, and not only a community involvement but that the community initiative was actually the thrust of the whole OTAB.
I have a copy of the local board's Local Boards: A Partnership for Training, penned by Employment and Immigration Canada, the Canadian Labour Force Development Board and of course OTAB, or the proposed OTAB at the time. In that, it's interesting that they pointed out that the local level was the critical point for the identification of these points. I want to read them to you so that it's put on record here as to the notion of the importance of the local communities.
It says major improvements were needed for (1) effective mechanisms for local-level participation in provincial and national labour policy development; (2) comprehensive labour market information assessing community needs; (3) information on and referral to services for individuals and firms; (4) planning and coordination of programs to meet the priorities of the various communities across Ontario.
In our presentation, if these aren't to be the major improvements needed to make OTAB and ultimately the LTABs successful, then the answer for us is pretty clear. We want to see the creation of local boards with authority, autonomy and flexibility in identifying some of the needs at the local levels. That's not to say that LTAB would operate independently of OTAB; it's just the reverse. As a matter of fact, we'd want it to work within the whole framework of the provincial and national objectives, as outlined in this tripartite document.
We're disappointed with the Bill 96 structuring for the local training and adjustment boards. In section 18 of the act, and I'm kind of confused and curious as to the word "perhaps", it says in here, "OTAB may designate local training and adjustment boards that have been established in accordance with the regulations under the act." Yes, and the point we're trying to make is that they use the word "may," and I think that causes us a little bit of concern.
If we're talking about a bottom-up approach, as we've been advocating right from the start, it's necessary that the local boards be the thrust in this whole presentation. At the outset, we wanted to make sure that this in fact was paramount in this legislation. We recommend, therefore, when this committee is in its deliberations, that it look very closely at taking out some of the objectives as found in section 4 of this act and moving them directly to section 18 of this act to ensure that autonomy, flexibility and authority are given at the local level.
I'm sure that when we get to answering your questions, it'll be very clear that local communities have a vested interest in the growth and the training of their workforce. I just want to make sure that you're very clear on the point we're trying to make here, that local boards be the thrust of this whole thing, and if in fact you want to be successful in this, that you're asking the local communities for their input very succinctly.
Mr Bergin: It's a critical time in the development of new and innovative ideas that allow us to compete in this global marketplace. People are looking more and more to government for leadership on these and other important issues. It would really be a panacea to see some community-based initiatives that impact on a provincial body. Perhaps the people in Ontario would be surprised that the government would look to them for answers, and perhaps you may even get them.
Thank you, Mr Chairman, for giving us the opportunity to express our views here today. We wish you well in your deliberations and we welcome your comments and questions at this time.
The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen. Mr Ramsay, please.
Mr Ramsay: Gentlemen, thank you very much for your presentation. It's very helpful and very consistent with what many people are saying about this whole restructuring for skills training in Ontario.
I share your concern also that what the government is proposing here is really a top-down operation. In fact, as you've pointed out in the later half of your presentation, there really isn't much that's spelled out here in regard to the LTABs, those local boards. In fact, as Mr Kealey has said, under the regulations it says the Lieutenant Governor in Council "may," and I'm very concerned about that, because as far as I'm concerned, you really hardly need a big umbrella structure.
What I think, and what other people from all the communities across the province who have come to us in the last few days have said, is that where they're finding it most effective is in the organizations they have on the ground today. Yet, from this legislation, we may not ever see that. We just don't know.
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I will be proposing and bringing forward amendments that will strengthen that and make it mandatory that these local boards get established, and also put in there a lot of the provisions you've mentioned. There's got to be flexibility there, I would think.
I would be interested to know if you have any sort of local organization at the moment that looks at training and adjustment issues in the Whitby-Oshawa area, or what your experience might be on that.
Mr Kealey: We have a number of initiatives that we've started in Durham region. Mr Wiseman, who is in the riding just adjacent to us, knows full well that we've created what we call a Focus on the Future. As everyone here well knows, GM is in dire straits. Not only is it in dire straits, it's giving the worker in Durham region a serious problem. There's absenteeism. There are a number of issues that are really involved in the fact there may not be a GM in five or 10 years from now.
We're looking at ways to diversify the economy in Durham region and how we diversify economy. We've looked at the model of what happened with IBM. In the early part of the 1980s, when IBM rationalized a ton of jobs down in the United States--I can be more specific: 10,000 jobs--there were in effect from those 10,000 jobs 30,000 jobs created because people at the time understood that high technology was the wave of the future.
We can't in Durham region sit back and rest on the fact that GM is always going to be there. What we're saying is, let's have a community-based retraining structure put in place so that organizations, not only like our chamber but like this Focus on the Future, which bring in business interests, bring in labour interests, bring in education interests, are talking about ways that we can make sure our economy and specifically the communities that are well served by Durham region have a stake in the action. I guess that's what we're really asking for.
Mr Ramsay: I agree with you and I think there's got to be that flexibility for communities and regions to find their own equilibrium, to find their own groupings and make sure that, as you've done in Durham, a community of interest comes together, because you certainly have your concerns.
I also agree with changing the purpose clause. I think there's a lot of sort of wishy-washy items that got into there trying to appease a lot of different groups. I think we sort of lost the sharp focus that should be there, that this particular bill is to create an organism that is to produce the most highly skilled workers in the world. I think that's got to be the number one goal of this piece of legislation and I think we've got to sharpen that up a little bit. We welcome your advice for that.
Mr McGuinty: Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation. I'm in agreement with the great bulk of it. I think the concern I have, though, relates to minister's directives. You make a sound argument to the effect that you have to ensure at the end that the public interest reigns supreme and that there's accountability, but the way I look at the bill, the only vestige of real accountability, the taxpayers, is through those minister's directives.
Without the minister's directives--if I'm 65 years old, I've retired, I'm continuing to pay taxes, I have no direct or vested interest in training in a direct sense. I have a concern socially and I feel responsible and I want to see these programs take place, but as a taxpayer, who do I hold accountable if I don't feel these training programs are working properly, if I can't at least go to the government of the day and say, "At the very least, Mr Minister, you can issue directives." How do you respond to that?
Mr Bergin: The minister himself would still be accountable for it. What the minister has done is recognize that it's time to go out more to the grass roots, go out to the people and see what they need in terms of training. Some of the programs in place now have essentially been run by the government; now you're putting it under one umbrella organization. The minister is putting together 22 people who represent a cross-section of the labour-market partners, and sort of saying to them, "You're the management." You're putting a management team in there to carry out a specific objective to deal with the training of workers here in Ontario. The minister, having put those people in place, will rely on them to do the job necessary. If they don't, he can remove them.
What we're concerned about is that everyone sitting at that table hopefully comes in with the idea of working together with the aim of improving training of the workers, and that there isn't any other reason or ulterior motive. What we're concerned about is that each person there, regardless, is going to represent some special interest group.
What would happen if the 22 people sitting around the table decide that there's a certain action that OTAB should take and 21 agree and one doesn't? What we're concerned about is if that one person could go out and effectively lobby the minister, who could then issue a written directive and override the decision of 21 other people. If you're going to put a management team in there to do the job, let them do it.
Mr McGuinty: I wonder, if I might on that, what do you think of this business of a double majority or a triple majority, as some people have suggested?
By a double majority, I mean not only would there have to be a majority when you're making a decision in terms of actual numbers, but that it had to be a majority from the business group and the labour group. What do you think of that idea, just to ensure that both groups are satisfied?
Mr Kealey: If I may, that's a very good point. I think that we recognize that, but I guess the problem is when we're looking from the point of view of the act in terms of the minister's directives, the minister can in effect override any decision made by the board. That's the way we read it in this act.
I think from the point of view that Mr Bergin is coming from, in the way special interests work in this province now, if special interests were in effect, regardless of the double majority or triple majority, because the minister has an overriding clause, as per the act, then if there were an effective lobby then the minister would issue a directive that could in effect wipe out the triple or double majority that you suggest.
Mr McGuinty: I understand your concern now.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you for that last explanation. Welcome to the committee and thank you both, Mr Bergin and Mr Kealey. Good for you, working on your local chamber.
I'm interested in some of your suggestions, and I'm interested that you quoted from Local Boards: A Partnership for Training. I'll be specific. Do you think the objectives or the principles that you describe to us--I guess it's in here, isn't it--
Mr Kealey: Yes, it is.
Mrs Cunningham: --on the bottom of page 3, would fit best under section 18? Should we be putting that right in the act itself? Because it in fact does talk about what has to happen. Do we want that spelled out? Is that your suggestion?
Mr Kealey: It certainly is. I think there are objectives in section 4 of the act too that we could put in, but when I read this, I was really delighted because I thought that government for the first time was saying how necessary and vital community involvement was. I thought, "If they're going to put that into the act, you've got our 100% support." Then we see this act and it's not there.
Mrs Cunningham: It's not there.
Mr Kealey: So there's a little bit of concern. Maybe the committee didn't get a copy of this report. Excuse me for being flippant.
Mrs Cunningham: We basically had it. Most of us who are involved in this have looked at that for a long time.
The other question I have then, you mentioned parts of section 4 that should be also in section 18. Are you saying, leave those particular parts--I'm going to ask you to do some work for us--under section 4? Are you saying there are some that would be better under section 18 for local boards as opposed to the governing body? Could you explain that?
Mr Kealey: We rolled up our sleeves and went through this whole thing. Ian has gone through this six ways to Sunday, but section 4 really does lay out some objectives--
Mrs Cunningham: I agree.
Mr Kealey: --that are vital to OTAB as what we would call a distribution centre. If you looked at section 4, I guess we could go through certain parts of the 18 objectives. For example, paragraph 5 is a good number to put in to local boards, because who better to know about what the changes are to skills levels, productivity, quality and innovation than the local levels?
Mrs Cunningham: I agree.
Mr Kealey: Secondly, in paragraph 6, "common standards in occupational training, so as to enhance labour force mobility," there's some concern there because I don't think you could take a worker from Thunder Bay and transport that person with a different skillset into Whitby, for example. To our mind, it's better served at the local level. Then, of course, paragraph 10, paragraphs 14, 15, all the way down to 18.
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Mrs Cunningham: Could I ask you perhaps to give this some further thought, and if any of it ought to be in both sections, then we'll do it. My guess is that you're going to say it should be in section 18 alone. I'd like to give you some more information. The principles that the local board should operate under are missing also in the act.
Mr Kealey: Absolutely.
Mrs Cunningham: I just want you to know, because there was some discussion about that, I did phone up to the minister's office of Employment and Immigration Canada to see what directions had in fact been given to the federal committee--which is an advisory committee, by the way; it has no more power than that. It was stated in this committee that it does, but it doesn't, as of yesterday, anyway. There's no intent by the government of Canada to put that into legislation. So I want you to know that.
But the basic principles are interesting. They're exactly what you talked about, that the federal government is not wed in any way to the model. The makeup of the local committee should be just that: (1) The appointees should be made by the local board; (2) flexibility around the makeup; (3) grass-roots, bottom-up-fed, which is great; and that the local committee should have responsibility for the budget, which I found interesting.
I've asked the federal government to put those principles in writing to us, because I'm sure the government would want them in writing, and then I think that it perhaps will consider putting them into the bill itself as opposed to the regulations. But I thought it was interesting that this is where the direction is coming from as well. It's nice to see us working together in that regard.
You've explained the concern, as I saw it, with regard to powers of the minister, and that's fine with regard to sections 26, 27 and 28, the accountability part. I'm satisfied with that. I'd like to think more about it, though. At the very end, I guess it's section 18, you want that to be a "shall," right? Section 18 shall designate local training boards?
Mr Kealey: Are you talking about under LTABs or under the minister's directives?
Mrs Cunningham: Section 18 under LTABs.
Mr Kealey: Yes, we are saying that.
Mrs Cunningham: Under OTAB, "shall designate local training and adjustment."
Mr Kealey: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: Back to the very beginning of your paper, then--I'm sort of going around. I agree with you on the purpose clause. It's interesting to note that as a chamber you're not talking about the biggest issue that we're facing here, and that is the eight representatives of labour all representing the organized workforce as opposed to an attempt to get unorganized workers as well. It's been quite an issue at the committee, and I'm wondering why you didn't mention it.
Mr Kealey: Can I answer that?
Mrs Cunningham: Yes.
Mr Kealey: Ms Cunningham, in our original presentation to the travelling committee on OTAB, we made that point very clear. I think the numbers were 30% organized labour, and therefore they had 100% of the seats at the table. But to us, that's a non-issue. I'll tell you why. We have come here as a group which obviously represents business interests, but we want to work together with the government. I suggest that if labour were represented at the table, the same concerns about retraining workers, whether you were non-unionized or unionized, would be there. I think that's the commitment we're bringing as a labour group--excuse me; boy, did I say that?--business group to the table. Jeepers.
The Chair: I trust Hansard will highlight that comment.
Mrs Cunningham: It's unusual to hear the chamber say that.
Mr Kealey: It is.
Mrs Cunningham: That's not been the position, but that's great, because we had a former presenter--
Mr Kealey: I'll tell you, again, without being flippant, that's why bottom-up approaches like we have in our chamber movement work.
Mrs Cunningham: Which makes me think that it's more people who matter than anything else in all of the work that we do.
Mr Kealey: Absolutely.
Mrs Cunningham: It was amazing to hear the gentleman from Waterloo say today how his board worked, and I think we agree that just listening to him present you could see why things would work. He had that kind of a personality. He wanted things to work so badly.
I'm assuming that you're suggesting to your business people that we have small business and large business represented.
Mr Kealey: Very much so.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you very much for a very informative presentation.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Cunningham. Okay, Mr Martin, and leave time for Ms Murdock. Ms Murdock, please leave time for Mr Wilson. Mr Wilson, please leave time for Mr Wiseman. Look at it this way, Mr Wiseman: I guarantee you'll at least be able to start your question.
Mr Martin: I wanted to follow up, actually, on the discussion that you've been having on this issue of bottom up, top down. It seems to me that whether it's bottom up or top down, you still have a situation where somebody is making most of the decisions. In this instance and in this initiative, as you say it in here--and I'm really impressed with your presentation--the importance of this piece of legislation, the importance of this initiative is that we all be working together, top and bottom, and that we work cooperatively as well, provincial and federal government, because there are resources coming from everywhere. All of us have a stake in it and a responsibility.
The reason that the word "may" was left in the legislation was, I believe, in order to in fact allow for that flexibility, so that one group wasn't all of sudden saying, "Okay, this is what we're going to do," but there was room for some further development of that cooperative spirit. Does that make sense to you in any way?
Mr Kealey: It does. But I still think you could have used a better word than "may." I just think, when I look at even the Employment Equity Act, federally and provincially, there seems to be an overlap of services. I think that frustrates people. I agree with what your point is, but by the same token I think that if the federal government is saying, "Yes, we're going to give funding to retrain workers," and the government of Ontario is saying the same thing, well, let's not forget about where the thrust is coming from. What we're saying is, let it come from the local level.
Mr Martin: Thank you.
Ms Murdock: Just on that point, and it's good, because I don't think we're disagreeing, actually.
Mr Kealey: That's a change.
Ms Murdock: Now, now.
Mr Kealey: Now, now.
Ms Murdock: Just because we've met on the OLRA doesn't mean a thing here. I think the whole thrust of this is that local training for local needs is the key, but because of that very thing, that the concept of the individual needs of the individual community are so vastly different in different areas, you have to have the OTAB before you can have the LTAB. I think that's basically the concept, but it's certainly not because of a divergence of the view of the need for local autonomy.
Actually, my main point was on the accountability, but I know that Gary's going to speak to that. Schedule 3 agencies, for example, and I'm talking schedule 3 here, are perfect examples of wondrous management skills: the Workers' Compensation Board, Ontario Hydro; enough said right there. Hence, it's really important that this one, which is a schedule 4 agency, allows the minister to give directives to the agency.
I'm somewhat surprised, because chambers across the province have made their views known on workers' compensation, for instance, of how the fact that we use that arm's-length argument that the minister can't direct the Workers' Compensation Board to do anything--that he can make suggestions, but he can't direct them to do this--and that under this bill, being a schedule 4 agency, the minister will be able to direct if need be. I'm wondering why you would want it any other way.
Mr Bergin: I think it goes back to what I said earlier. The minister has a very important role in picking the right people when he appoints the 22 to the board. It's one time, when all the representatives they selected or outlined whom they want to put together to comprise that board, when they have to leave the--like, don't draw any lines in the sand any more.
The goal here is to deal with training with workers, and what you need are people who are very passionate about what this OTAB initiative is there to do. I think the minister has a very big responsibility in ensuring that he picks the right people and that they are going in there to work as a team, not as adversaries. I hope the minister will look to the various groups, get feedback and make sure that the people whom he does put in there are as passionate about it as we feel about it. If he does that, I think they should be allowed to carry out their mandate, because we are concerned with that ability that one person could go around the group and effectively override those decisions.
Ms Murdock: Particularly, I think, on that very issue.
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly, and I'll just continue on with that, because you mentioned the passionate outlook that you'd like to see the people bring to their work on OTAB, and while we expect that, we also expect a deliberative and maybe dispassionate outlook in some regard, but a dedication that goes beyond their particular groups to the public interest.
But I think the overriding point is the people. There is a consultative sharing of responsibility between the government and the labour market partners that I think will be reflected in the operation, that there won't be any draconian steps taken by anybody, that there will be this cooperative approach, guided by the necessity to make sure that training is reached.
To go back to the purpose statement as well, what might be thought of as being unfocused is actually, I think, the reflection of the views of the labour market partners. I think this is one thing that we might have forgotten in the past, or overlooked: that people who have been left out just haven't had their views reflected in things like purpose statements, and I think this is what is being attempted here. Again, to take that cooperative approach means that everyone has to be heard. I think you people have said that it works at the community level; we want it to work at the provincial level and that the interaction exists between them.
I know Jim wants to make a statement, so unless you have anything to respond to that, then--
The Chair: Do you want to respond to Mr Wilson?
Mr Kealey: You're right. Again, we're just here to say, "Let's not bring agendas to the table."
Mr Wiseman: Nice to see you, Marc. One of the things that has always struck me as being an interesting dynamic is when you put everybody in the room--and I'm not sure; I can't recall if either of you were in the room when this first thing happened, when Gary Polansky brought everybody together at Durham College, I guess it's a year and a half ago. This was one of the early projects. Were either of you there?
Mr Kealey: No.
Mr Wiseman: I was there, and I spent the whole day because I thought it would be an interesting exercise. It started out as being a rather, you know, dysfunctional, disjointed group, but by the end of the day, by 4 or 5 o'clock, the ideas were coming from all over the place. The consultant who was doing the facilitating was having a hard time keeping up with everything that was coming, and it produced a really interesting document.
In terms of the board, I think you see some of that reflected in terms of who has been suggested to be on the board, because I remember the agreements at the end of the day about equity and about fairness and about distribution and so on being the consensus suggestions. So I think that what you see here, while it may not come together exactly the way you want to see it, is already part of a dynamic that's going like this and will continue to go like this: up and down, backwards and forwards.
I think that's what I see when I look at this bill. I remember that day rather vividly, so I have a great deal of enthusiasm and optimism in how this is going to work out. But it's based on the fact that when you put good people in the room together with the same objective, that's what's going to happen.
Mr Kealey: Let's hope so.
Mr Wiseman: If it doesn't, we're in deep trouble.
Mr Kealey: Yes, because we've only got one chance at this and if we blow it, we're really in a lot of trouble.
Mr Bergin: It's a vital piece of legislation, I think, to the future for all of us. It really is.
The Chair: Thank you, of course, to the Whitby Chamber of Commerce and to you, Mr Bergin and Mr Kealey. I do want to tell you that your presentation is a well-drafted one which is concise and precise, and the committee is grateful for that type of approach at these committee hearings. You've obviously provoked some interest on the part of the committee members of all three caucuses. That's demonstrated by the types of exchanges that took place.
Please express to the membership of your chamber our gratitude for their interest, for their participation at the local level and for their enthusiasm about the prospects that OTAB holds for the future. We're grateful to you, we thank you for being here, and we trust you'll keep in touch as the bill goes through committee. We're doing clause-by-clause beginning February 22, and of course you or other members of the public are entitled to participate by attending. We'll be televised the week of February 15 and we'll be in this room the week of February 22. We trust you'll keep in touch, and if there's any other information you can provide, we welcome it. Thank you, people. Have a safe trip back home on the 401. Maybe your next submission will be to a Ministry of Transportation proposal.
Mr Kealey: We've got some comments about that, too.
The Chair: Thank you kindly.
Thank you once again to Mr Huget and Ms Murdock for helping me chair today's committee. Thank you to the staff, who have been patient with all of us, and thank you to the committee members for their cooperation. We are adjourned until 10 am tomorrow morning. Good night.
The committee adjourned at 1805.