HANSARD

and

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

Mr. Peter Christie (Chairman)

Mr. Ernest Fage

Mr. Gary Hines

Mr. Frank Corbett

Mr. Howard Epstein

Ms. Joan Massey

Mr. Keith Colwell

Mr. Leo Glavine

Ms. Diana Whalen

In Attendance:

Mrs. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mr. Neil Ferguson

Legislative Counsel

WITNESSES

Mainland Nova Scotia Building Trades Council

Mr. Tim Swinamer

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2006

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Peter Christie

MR. CHAIRMAN: It has come to the hour of 9:00 a.m. We shall start the business of this committee. As is the normal practice, we will introduce ourselves first, and then we will go into our business on appointments. Then we will have an opportunity to hear from Mr. Swinamer from the Mainland Nova Scotia Building Trades Council.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Committee members, you have in front of you the recommendations for today's appointments to the agencies, boards and commissions. The first one we have is for the Department of Economic Development. That particular one the committee had sent back for some additional information. We received that information for the March meeting. The committee then asked the chairman to submit and request additional information. We have done that and, at this point, I do not have a response to report to the committee. Committee members, how would you like to deal with that one.

Ms. Whalen.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we should just hold that appointment until the answers come back, the answers related to the legal fees and payments from that board. We just wanted to have a closer look. It also related to the fact that Mr. Barro is a partner in the same law firm as one of the recently-retired members of the same board. I would like to hold it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is that a motion to stand?

MS. WHALEN: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there a seconder?

MR. FRANK CORBETT: I second that motion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried. That is stood.

The next one is the Waterfront Development Corporation Limited, George Archibald, William Gates and Donald McIver. The same situation. You asked me to request some additional information from the minister regarding females who had applied. Once again, I have to report I do not have a response on that as yet. Committee members, how would you like to proceed? (Interruptions)

A motion to stand.

Would all those in favour in the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The next one is the Crop and Livestock Insurance Commission. One of the appointment names is Mr. Baillie. How would you like to proceed?

MR. GARY HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Nova Scotia Crop and Livestock Insurance Commission, I so move James Baillie as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It has been moved. Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The next one is the Eastern Mainland Housing Authority, Diane R. Hayman. How would you like to proceed?

MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Eastern Mainland Housing Authority, I so move Diane R. Hayman as a board member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The next one is the Social Workers Board of Examiners.

MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Social Workers Board of Examiners, I so move Colin J. Campbell as a board member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

Next is the Youth Advisory Council.

MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Youth Advisory Council, I so move Ms. Jiasi Chen, Colin Douglas, Georgia Metcalfe, James Mosher, Ty Walsh and Mat Whynott.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The next one is the Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Council.

MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Council, I so move Jeff Brett, Kathy Dauphney, John K. Kennedy, Cliff Murphy and Paul Midgley

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The next one is the Nova Scotia Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board.

MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board of Nova Scotia, I so move Martin Cottreau as chair/member, Edmond AuCoin as vice-chair/member, and Peter Burnie and Eric Nowe as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

Next is the Nova Scotia Legal Aid Commission.

MR. HINES: To the Legal Aid Commission of Nova Scotia, I so move Patrick J. Murray as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The next one is the Heritage Property Advisory Council.

MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Heritage Property Advisory Council, I so move Brian Cuthbertson as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Nova Scotia Museum Board of Governors, I so move J. Redmond O'Keefe and Peter Verner as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Peggy's Cove Commission, I so move Darrell Fralick and Marcy Graves as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. HINES: Mr. Chairman, to the Public Archives Board of Trustees, I so move David A. Sutherland as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion?

Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

Now I would like to welcome to the committee, Tim Swinamer. He is the Assistant Business Manager with IBEW Local 625, the Mainland Nova Scotia Building and Construction Trades Council. Our purpose today is to have an opportunity to discuss with you particularly the area of labour shortages, and our general practice is to allow you to make some opening comments and then to open the floor to the committee for questions. Is that agreeable to you?

MR. TIM SWINAMER: Sure, yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Then, Mr. Swinamer, we certainly will love to hear your opening comments.

MR. SWINAMER: What I've done is I've prepared a few papers here, in point form, so that it would make it easier if you had questions on particular issues I bring up, or areas. The last two pages are just a little bit of background on the mainland building trade, so you can see a bit of history and who is involved, that sort of thing.

I am one of the delegates to Mainland Nova Scotia Building Trades, obviously with the electricians. Steve Graves, the President, could not attend today because of prior commitments, so he asked me to come down and speak to this. So if it is okay, I will just start through the paper here and we can go through this.

I want to start off by giving some sort of an indication in terms of what construction, all areas of construction, means to the province, at least for 2006 - and looking at the Department of Finance, the construction activity report indicated about $4.1 billion for 2006. So I thought that would be an appropriate place to start.

This is going to shock you a little bit - in the second bullet: "There is not a shortage of skilled tradespeople within the construction industry." However - next bullet: "There is a shortage of skilled workers within the construction industry that will provide their services for low wages and little to no benefits that are positioned by a number of contractors in the industry."

By that, really what I'm saying is labour has become a trading commodity, like a product. It is a service now and there are still a number of contractors, in various economies of scale in industry, who resist that. They would like for things to stay the way they used to be. So I just wanted to make that point.

Trade unions, it says, can supply skilled workers to these contractors. So what I'm saying here in this bullet, the different trade unions can supply journeypersons, apprentices, to any contractor looking for a skilled tradesperson, but these contractors choose not to because that would mean they would become signatory to us. Obviously they don't want to do that, but we do have the people available.

One of the things that is frustrating that we see, some maneuvering going on, these contractors also insist that government support and permit their efforts through whatever means possible, including the use of temporary workers to escape the realities associated with increasing costs of skilled labour in the marketplace. That's only one example. I'm sure we're all aware of the Eirik Raude ,where Irving had people from the U.K., other provinces in Canada, as well.

Another issue that is developing, there are interest groups who want to amend the Apprenticeship and Trades Qualifications Act, and contained within those amendments is an attempt to offer certification for if you are taught how to put an electrical box in a wall, then you will get a paper saying you're qualified to do that. They want to break the trade down into segments. Now, the success of that, were it to pass, could be based on the automotive sector, where you have individuals who are trained to put mufflers on your car or put the brakes on your car, those sorts of things, but that's as far as they go. So if that's all they can do, they can't go beyond that, legally and competently, to then service the transmission or the motor or whatever else needs to be done, so they get stuck

in the skills plateau and the financial plateau. What do we have in place to say that the guy who is only qualified to change tires is not actually doing your brakes? I just want to draw that comparison, there are some interest groups that want to do that in construction. I think that's a very slippery slope.

Trade unions can also provide skilled workers to any number of large or mega- construction jobs in Nova Scotia by way of their travel card policy. I'll try to explain it with the following: upon reaching a point where all local members are employed and demand for more workers remains, the local trade unions then contact other locals, similar locals, located sometimes within the same province or neighbouring provinces extending throughout Canada, to obtain the number of skilled workers required by the contractors.

For example, in the electrical trade union, Local 625, of which I am the assistant business manager, represents mainland Nova Scotia. Local 1852 IBEW represents Cape Breton. So we are the two IBEW locals that encompass all of Nova Scotia. That's how our territory is divided, the jurisdiction, within the IBEW.

What would happen is, if there were a call, let's say Keltic Petrochemicals was a go, and we needed 1,200 electricians within a week, just for an example, I placed a call yesterday to the sister IBEW locals, three in New Brunswick, one in P.E.I., the other one in Nova Scotia and the one in Newfoundland and Labrador, and in 72 hours I could have those 1,200 electricians here. I'm not even counting the 900 members we have in our local.

The travel card policy by the local trade unions is very effective and it reaches coast to coast. I just used the Maritimes as an example. So then access to hundreds or even thousands of skilled workers on demand, covering all construction trades is the cornerstone of the trade union travel card policy that I just explained.

For example, today there are sectors in the construction industry that are saying they cannot find skilled tradespeople, journeypersons, apprentices, whatever. I have approximately 190 journeypersons available and 100 apprentices available. So where does the concept that there's a shortage come from?

Regarding issues that impact the number of skilled workers in the workplace, which is very important, obviously, a forum was held on July 5, 2005, sponsored by the Canadian Labour and Business Centre and presented to the Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Labour. This forum looked at the role of government, labour and business with regard to the availability of skilled workers. I was provided a binder that contained information this committee had, so I wanted to research that a little bit to see what you had so I could sort of meet some of those areas. I found that two of the main issues were out-migration of skilled workers due to low wages, and by that I'm going

back to skilled labour as a commodity in the marketplace, and the serious imbalance within the construction industry in Nova Scotia due to what was termed as a compliance gap where contractors are opting out of the regulatory system, resulting in lower costs to that contractor while disadvantaging compliance respecting contractors.

[9:15 a.m.]

This practice is having a major impact on the development of skilled tradespeople and the growth of the underground economy. The contractors in question are operating in all economies of scale within the construction industry while enforcement efforts by government to deter them from their current practices can only be described as ineffective to the point of virtually non-existent. I want to explain that. It is, to be fair to them, not their fault - and I'm talking about the apprentice division, enforcement department.

Prior to 1994, it was never an issue because 95 per cent to 99 per cent of the contractors in the construction industry were signatories to collective agreements with trade unions. One of the first statements in those collective agreements is that the contractors and the memberships will abide by all provincial laws and Acts. Bingo - it's taken care of. Since 1994, an issue called the Steen decision, that all was torn apart. I just don't know any other way to say it. Now you can have a construction site project where some trades might be union, some trades aren't. So what it did, it opened it up - was the term used quite often in 1994 and 1995- it opened up the industry. It certainly did. If you are a Star Wars fan, it opened up the dark side, is what it did.

Some of the practices going on, if I can just sort of give you a brief window into it, is contractors having people who are not registered in the trade, the electrical trade is an example, to work in the trade, thereby there is a skilled apprentice somewhere not working because of that, not developing to become a journeyperson because of that, and this person has never registered in the system. They are not qualified to work in the system. There's a public safety issue going on here, not just on the job site, but if the public should come in contact with the area where these people are working, that's very, very serious. If you want to go with, we need to develop more skilled trades people. I wholeheartedly support that, we are going to need more, I'm talking about now, within the next three to five years, we can certainly supply, no problem. We can't let these practices go on.

Another one that's very common is that there is a minimum ratio of one journeyman for one apprentice, you can have two journeymen and one apprentice, but you can't have two apprentices without a journeyperson, okay. That is being almost completely ignored by most contractors who are not signatory to collective agreements. We have a gentleman hired in our organization whose sole purpose is to know what is going on in the industry, and if he was here, you would need more than two hours, much

more than two hours in this committee meeting. When they start using seven, eight and nine apprentices and they have one journeyman recorded on their payroll, there is a very serious problem. We have located many of those and passed that information on to enforcement.

There are a whole host of practices, and there's not enough time for me to go into them, but I am a member of the Apprenticeship and Construction Trades Training Partnership. We meet regularly with the apprenticeship division and we look at all things training and issues of apprenticeship, skilled labour and all those sorts of things. It's in that group that we're trying to help the apprenticeship division understand how our industry works inside, not what it looks like from the outside. So we're doing the best we can to create a more level playing field.

During the forum of July 25, 2005, there was an agreement that non-compliant individuals or contractors be punished for their behaviours and practices through the corresponding regulations, and those who adhere to these regulations be rewarded.

Unfortunately, there was a case in the courts yesterday of a contractor who had been found in non-compliance and guilty three times in court, was back for a fourth time and got off on a technicality. In this case, the judge understood the ramification of this more than the prosecution, because the judge made a comment that this individual was about to walk away from this, but had this been in another Act he would not, and it was very serious. What it was, he had a labourer hired to do nothing more than drive a truck and deliver equipment to job sites, but this labourer, we established the pattern on multiple jobs with sworn affidavits, was doing electrical work.

The contractor got off on a technicality that was, basically, " I didn't know." So there was a hole there in the Act and Regulations that you could drive a truck through - and the judge was even frustrated. So there are things that we have to look at within that ACTTP group to try to make recommendations to fix some of this stuff.

"Skilled tradespeople required for all types of construction within the construction industry are here now and available for contractors" - as I've said - "provided the wages and benefits are consistent with those offered by competing markets. As well, many more Nova Scotians, indeed Maritimers in general, would return home with their skills and their families if and when contractors operating within the construction industry are prepared to respect and compete for their services."

So, basically what I've tried to explain here is a bit of what our industry does look like, how we can respond to it, and how we're trying to help the apprenticeship division, in particular, understand our industry so we can make recommendations to help keep it balanced.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Corbett.

MR. CORBETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks, Tim.

In the first round of questions, I guess I want to ask you around what I always call isolating the skills. It started here back - and I don't know how long ago now - with what I call them, cable tuggers.

MR. SWINAMER: Okay, yes.

MR. CORBETT: They were allowed to operate low voltage and so on.

MR. SWINAMER: Exactly.

MR. CORBETT: I was intrigued when you talked about that a bit - and I realize they were bullet puncher givens. I appreciate the analogy you gave us around the automotive sector, but it is not a bit, it is a whole lot more far-reaching, isn't it? I don't know if you could put it more direct in the building trades - like I can see problems in carpentry where you would have guys just putting up panels for pouring foundations and nothing else, but still have a ticket.

MR. SWINAMER: Exactly.

MR. CORBETT: How would this impact the apprenticeship programs, too?

MR. SWINAMER: It would impact greatly. What you're suggesting there is called "trade fragmentation". What would happen is a person would learn a given skill, a basic skill, and they would go out and work in the marketplace at that skill. One of the problems with it, in terms of continuing to grow into a journeyperson, is that person, economically, will become settled in that. So how can they afford to go back to school to continue on, to become a journeyperson?

The other issue is when you do that, how do you ensure that that person, if that is going to be their decision to do in their lifetime, is only doing that on the job? Like the guy installing the muffler in your car, is he doing brakes too? How do you know he's qualified to do your brakes? That's a real problem, you can create a logistical nightmare in watching what you create.

But trade fragmentation, to us it's very, very serious for not only those things, but given a period of time if that's what you were to do, as an example, you would end up with what British Columbia has actually gone to in their legislation - there is no apprenticeship there now. You can get a piece of paper that qualifies you, very similar

to the automotive, in all trades. It won't be very long before they'll be looking around for journeypersons, and where are they going to find them? They just won't exist.

MR. CORBETT: It must seem kind of frustrating, because it seems almost the opposite. If you go back to the - if there ever was a heyday, the biggest fight was cross-trades . . .

MR. SWINAMER: Exactly.

MR. CORBETT: . . . where does the boilermaker's job start and the UA guy's job start, or finish and start?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. CORBETT: But, in essence, isn't this almost a bigger extension by the employer of this, that it's dumbing down of the trades?

MR. SWINAMER: It's very much a dumbing down of the trades and it's - I don't know how much cross-trading you would get as a result, unless there was a view that you don't have to be an electrician or boilermaker to do those tasks, so we're going to let anybody do that, then the nightmare would become unreal. Again, because you're going to create something, how can you guarantee that's all that's being done by the individual?

MR. CORBETT: Tim, getting back to talking about other shortages, do you know what the average age of your membership is?

MR. SWINAMER: About 45.

MR. CORBETT: How active are your books? The books, are they mostly filled by people working within the geographic area?

MR. SWINAMER: Mainland.

MR. CORBETT: Do you have many tickets out?

MR. SWINAMER: We have members who work in Bermuda, work in the States, different locations in Canada, and they enjoy that so they tend to do that more than work at home. The money, obviously, is a factor. For the most part, people will not go to those locations to work if there's work at home. They will stay home. The construction business is cyclical, so when there's a downswing and there's an opportunity in the northern part of this country, out West, in the States or Bermuda, they'll go there to make an income while they're waiting for the cycle to come back up.

MR. CORBETT: You know, they say that the second largest city in Atlantic Canada is Fort McMurray.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, very much.

MR. CORBETT: I'm sure you have members out there. I know someone you would know well, Jim Henley.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. CORBETT: We often discuss this one. I find that it's an awful discriminatory thing that if I was an accountant and I was going out to Alberta to visit my client out there, I could use that travel as a deduction and so on. Do you find it discriminatory that you, as an electrician, a contractor, have to go out there to work - basically, the client this time is the employer out of Fort McMurray - do you feel that you should be able to, as a tradesperson, use that as a legitimate income-tax deduction?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, we've been working at that with federal politicians for a number of years now at annual meetings up there.

Here's another angle of that too. If you're a contractor up there and you're not dealing with trade unions, you can come here and advertise, have people come and have job fairs and everything like that. You can pay for their expenses out. I'm sure, if you check federal regulation, they can claim that as a business. It's very one-sided.

MR. CORBETT: Thank you. Rather than hog the time, I may come back.

MS. WHALEN: It's my turn already. We welcome you again today. I have to start by saying it's quite a surprise to see in your opening statement that we don't have a skilled trade shortage. I'm sure you are aware that that would probably be news to a few of us here.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: I think it's really important that at these committee meetings we do really explore issues and look at both sides of the picture.

We, actually, in another one of the legislative committees, just recently had Joan McArthur-Blair, who is the Principal of the Nova Scotia Community College. She was talking about the skill shortages, their programs and how they are at capacity. Again, the question of sometimes the entire class being recruited to go somewhere else. I think she referred to a welding class. I'm not sure who was here at the time. It seems to me that it was welding that she referred to that were all picked up and gone to Alberta.

So, really, the discussion at that meeting had been, yes, there is a shortage. Your view is different, so I wanted to explore it a little bit with you. Again, the newspaper and media has been supporting the idea that there is a skill shortage, or reporting upon it. We had several clippings that were here in our binder we were given today. One comes from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, in one of their news releases, saying that their members reported a shortage, principally in all sectors, but the greatest need in construction, agriculture and retail. That was just one that I saw there. Another one from April 7^th of this year is Paul Pettipas, CEO of Nova Scotia Home Builders' Association, saying, again, that they are facing a critical shortage. Could you elaborate again on why the difference of opinion?

MR. SWINAMER: I sure can. First of all, I don't recall the Mainland Nova Scotia Building Trades ever being asked to contribute to any of those surveys. I think you have to be careful when you use a brush to swat an industry, be careful that - there are just some areas where, yes, welders in Canada, a very high demand, in particular, high pressure. There is really only one reason - they want to build those refineries in the tar sands. When that's done, it's over. That's it. That's where that demand is.

Pipefitting is another one. You wouldn't tend to think of pipefitting. What do you mean, pipefitting construction? Well, that's heavy industrial work, in very high demand in Alberta, and when it's over, then what? So you sort of have to try to find the balance there. Now, some of those industry segments, I heard there very well could be retail, I didn't catch all of them exactly.

[9:30 a.m.]

MS. WHALEN: That was one, yes.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, I can understand shortage in some of those. Again, is there a shortage of individuals? I mean, look at the unemployment numbers and the people looking for jobs. Is there really a shortage of the people or is the question within what's the compensation for the job itself? Are they better off to go to Alberta? It used to be Ontario at one time, right? Now, are they better off to go to Ontario to work at Pizza Hut or McDonald's, or try to start a life?

MS. WHALEN: Exactly.

MR. SWINAMER: I have 190 journey persons and 100 apprentices ready to go in mainland Nova Scotia and Mr. Pettipas, all his contractors have to do is give me a call, I would be glad to help them out. It's a matter of choices. One of the things that's increasing, and, again, it started with Irving, is this move to create a perception without checking with all the stakeholders in an industry to find out just exactly where the numbers do lie.

Do you know what I find interesting, two weeks ago in a Saturday paper, The ChronicleHerald, in an editorial at the bottom of the page, that article dealt with there isn't a shortage of skilled workers, that compensation and different jobs, and not just construction but everything in general, has to respond to the influences that are outside our borders. I mean, we're all told we're in a global economy, a national economy, a global economy, then why is it there are industries and employers in those industries that want to say that in terms of their pricing and everything, but don't want to recognize the services of the people they want to hire as being part of that system.

MS. WHALEN: I think what you point out is probably true. We're now realizing it. Obviously, our young people and our skilled are labour mobile.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: They will go where the jobs are and where the compensation is more attractive, and that's happening.

MR. SWINAMER: That will happen even within the city or the province. If there's a better opportunity in another location, people will move. That used to not be the case. People who grew up in rural Nova Scotia where I did, tended to stay there, but over time that has changed, they have gone where the work is, whether it's in the city, in the province, or outside of the province.

MS. WHALEN: I would like to ask a couple of questions. In the area that I represent, Halifax Clayton Park, there has been a lot of construction as you would be aware.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: I had been told when I was a city councillor, at the time, that there were different skills needed to build the taller buildings - if they were going above four floors I think, it's a different construction standard and code - and they were saying there were shortages of skills to work on the tall buildings. I think then they were talking more of, you know, the high-rises, 12,15 storeys?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, I can see those buildings from the parking lot of my office. Like I said, I have 190 journey persons and, no - the skills you learn as a tradesperson, I'll use an electrician as an example, the skills would apply. There are safety issues that come into play that don't exist on a two-storey, three-storey wooden structure. So we're talking brick and steel and everything in those buildings. So there are different elements of the trade that apply, but you have learned them through your apprenticeship.

MS. WHALEN: So you should still be able to work on those just as well?

MR. SWINAMER: There's no reason why you shouldn't be.

MS. WHALEN: Other skills like drywallers, they're saying they can't get enough drywallers to do the work. Do you know about that one?

MR. SWINAMER: Drywalling is an interesting trade. They tend to work in what's called piecework, so they get paid for how much they can put up in the run of a day. So it gets to be extremely competitive, for want of a better word, very unco-operative with other trades. Picture, in the wall, you need your boxes and at least your cable for the wires for terminating that electrical plug there, or your cable outlet, whatever it is, but the drywallers are in a hurry, they get paid for putting it up, they don't care if there's anything in the wall yet. So there's always the conundrum of why did you seal up both sides of the wall when there's nothing in the wall yet for the convenience of the occupant? So the way they operate, it has not been healthy for working with other trades, that's for sure.

MS. WHALEN: Whether there's a shortage of them, you're not too sure about that?

MR. SWINAMER: I don't think it's a high-profile scenario. I think people in that trade - and this is only my opinion - whether they have relatives or friends of relatives, family members, would tend to probably get into that because it's familiar and it's an easy access, but I don't think it's something that you will see the college profile or anything.

MS. WHALEN: I'd like to ask you again about the Nova Scotia Community College. Are they able to train people fully for some of the trades, or building trades, or do we still have to have the journeyman, apprenticeship, those stages there? I'm speaking as someone who is not familiar with it.

MR. SWINAMER: Financially, this province could not handle what it would require for them to really train apprentices to journeyperson status to meet all the elements of a trade, in the electrical, especially. At the different levels, you have residential, you have light commercial, commercial - which is your malls and things like that - institutional, hospitals, schools, industrial, things like that, and then you get into manufacturing plants, building those, that sort of thing. That is a lot of different equipment and environments to deal with, and the experience in that, for the most part, will come from working in the industry. You will be exposed to the necessary theory and the elements of how different pieces of equipment work and how to connect it, that sort of thing. In terms of the practice, the day-to-day work of doing it, really only industry can provide that.

MS. WHALEN: So we have to rely on this partnership between the two.

MR. SWINAMER: Absolutely.

MS. WHALEN: You mentioned earlier that there's a formula of one journeyman to one apprentice. That's an accepted standard?

MR. SWINAMER: That's in the Act, in the regulations.

MS. WHALEN: In the Act?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: What I'm wondering about here is the fact that the average age of your workers is 45, and that really does indicate, as in many professions in Nova Scotia and in Canada, there's going to be a shortage of workers in those professions and trades. Right?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: Wouldn't we want to ramp up and try to find a way so that you could train more, adequately and properly? One to one seems very limiting, and your labour force won't grow.

MR. SWINAMER: Two points to that. Number one, one to one has been found to work really well, because that individual learning is - well, it's like a classroom. It's like how many students in a classroom to a teacher. It's the same idea. This individual is going to work with a number of different journeypersons over the span of their apprenticeship, and they're going to learn not only a lot of tricks of the trade from the different individuals, but the trade itself. So when they come out, the theory is and the practice has been, actually, that they come out, normally very well-rounded. They have a lot of experience, they have a very clear understanding of what it is they're doing, and society benefits from that.

If you deviate from that and start doing two apprentices, three apprentices, whatever number you want to use, you are starting to water down the classroom. In education, how much have we seen over the last 15 years, the debate on the size of the classroom and the impact on students. We see the grades swing, like a construction curve actually, the bell curve is tremendous. I think that's playing with fire.

Another point to that, you want to be careful, and I alluded to it a little bit earlier, if you ramp up too soon, what are they going to do in the meantime, until the demand is really there for them? It really is like a poker game, you have to play your cards at the

right time. You have to develop these people at the right time. It takes about five years from zero to go, a journeyperson in electrical business. You have to be careful that in the meantime you're not creating a large pool of apprentices in any trade with nowhere to go but perhaps Alberta, because you've just spent, in your system, the money to train these people and prepare them, and now they're gone.

MS. WHALEN: Just one last quick question. You said you had 190 journeypersons ready to go. Are they working now? Are these people who you have ready to go?

MR. SWINAMER: Ready to go.

MS. WHALEN: So they're not at work today?

MR. SWINAMER: No. Ready to go.

MS. WHALEN: I'm sure there are other questions, so I'll come back afterwards.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Massey.

MS. JOAN MASSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say thank you for coming in and perhaps setting the record straight, because what I saw in this binder is opposite to what you're saying here today.

MR. SWINAMER: It is, yes, I went through it.

MS. MASSEY: It's a bit of a conundrum. So you're saying there's no shortage of skilled tradespeople . . .

MR. SWINAMER: Not tradespeople.

MS. MASSEY: . . . versus what I'm reading in here that says one of the facts is that the construction/retail industry has a shortage of 12,000 workers right now in Nova Scotia. There are numerous figures in here that point out the opposite of what you're saying. So that's disconcerting. The other is that you were not consulted in the surveys that we're reading about in this binder. I really find it interesting that what you're saying backs up, I think, what I feel is part of the problem here in this province, that indeed there are qualified, skilled people out there but they're going to other places where they're treated better, there are better wages, and there's better child care - why would they stay here?

MR. SWINAMER: Exactly. They're trying to create a life for their families.

MS. MASSEY: That's right. It's sad, as a parent, to have to see your children move to another province, because we should have everything available here for them, shouldn't we?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, and I don't think it's a question of matching other jurisdictions in terms of what the prevailing compensation is in a marketplace, I think what you've got to look at is what's competitive enough to keep them home. We don't have the economic drive Alberta has, or Ontario has, here, and that's our reality, but I think the real question in all this is what would it take or what does it take for these people to think - you know, for that little bit of difference, I'm staying put. I don't know what that number is.

MS. MASSEY: I guess then that's the question. Do we really know what the difference is? Are we really comparing apples to pears and this sort of thing, and what's happening in this province with our young people who are coming out of a facility where they've learned this trade? In fact, a couple weeks ago I ran into someone whose son was trying to get on, I think you call it a job placement?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MS. MASSEY: He was learning to become an electrician. He was supposed to start the job placement on a Monday, and I was talking to her on the Saturday prior, and he could not find - and this is a young man who, you know, his parents are trying to help him and he's trying on his own. So I sent off a few e-mails to some people I knew who are in the industry - anyway, she e-mailed me back Monday and said he did find something, but it was cutting it close, because that's part of his training, that he has to be in a job placement.

MR. SWINAMER: That's right.

MS. MASSEY: So she was quite shocked because he had been sort of recruited by what she thought were government representatives who had gone around the province to various high schools saying the sky is falling, there's a shortage of electricians in Nova Scotia, we need you desperately, there's lots of money here, come on down - and that's what he did.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MS. MASSEY: She's saying now that if he can't even find a job placement because perhaps - you know, she's wondering are the people who would have to train him on-site, overworked or, like you said, they're going to put an investment into this youth and then is he going to stay here, because maybe we're not competitive enough for him to stay here in the end. So she's talking about these kinds of issues. She would like

to see her son stay here obviously - she has two, and she would like to see them both stay here so they can stay a close-knit family.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, sure.

MS. MASSEY: So it's sad to see that our families in Nova Scotia - maybe we're not doing the right things to value them, to keep them here.

MR. SWINAMER: One of the weaknesses of that work placement - and I've been aware of that and have spoken to that a number of times over the years - is that the construction industry is so competitive from a financial point of view that you'll find, more and more, contractors resist taking that on because the issue is to make money. It's very, very competitive at all levels.

Just to give you an example, there was a job at Saint Mary's two years ago, with the difference in the two tenders less than the price of a "two-four" of beer. So you're cutting it pretty fine when you're getting down to that - and that was about an $800,000 job. So the placement, although it's really good in theory and at times in the construction industry it can be available, but it's getting tougher and tougher for that to be a continued practice simply because of the nature of the industry. It's not a deliberate intent I can assure you, but I think you'll find that that's primarily the reason.

MS. MASSEY: So is that something then that perhaps the facility that these youths are being trained in could provide that service if they had the facilities to do that, some sort of work experience on-site, more of that kind of a thing?

[9:45 a.m.]

MR. SWINAMER: I know what you're getting at. I don't know if the current system could, unless they designed some part of the facility similar to what vocational schools used to look like years ago. I went through that, back in the early 1970s, where you had your theory in the morning and then your shop in the afternoon. It was a great system because you took the theoretical from the morning and went into a shop, a wood frame or metal frame, whatever it happened to be, and you actually did what you just talked about, hands on, you saw it, you did it, okay, I've got it, and you moved on. That would be the only other way to address not being able to have this placement system in the industry. Really what they're trying to do is give them the opportunity to put their hands on it.

MS. MASSEY: Right, and to know if that is really what they want to continue doing because you need that on-the-job experience. You can go out there and find out, no, I absolutely cannot do this.

MR. SWINAMER: That's right. You have to know if this is for you.

MS. MASSEY: Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have left?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Another couple of minutes.

MS. MASSEY: I would just like to touch on the issue that you spoke about, an example of somebody who is really only qualified to look at your muffler, or replace your muffler and he is replacing your brakes, and we all know that there are lots of people around who you can go to. We probably all know somebody who knows somebody who you can go to and get your brakes done. The issue of safety. So is it that the regulations are there but somehow they're not enforced?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, the enforcement part of the Apprenticeship and Trades Qualifications Act and the regulations is something we're working on with the apprenticeship division. Like I said, before 1994, there was no such thing, because all the contractors were basically signed to a collective agreement which said you will abide by the law and so will we, and it was over. You don't have that now. So they're really struggling to find their way in a post-1994 world in the industry, and I find even it is very frustrating when the prosecution - some prosecutors, when you say the name of the Act and the regulations, they have no idea of what you're talking about, so they can't possibly understand what it means to society and the industry that it is meant to regulate. So it is very frustrating. We're on quite a steep learning curve when it comes to that and trying to get everybody that is connected to all this to understand what it really means.

MS. MASSEY: So part of it is educating the public in knowing what their rights are and what the regulations are and that there are safety issues involved in having the right skilled tradespeople on the job working for us. I mean, there is a big push right with the government to say you know there are workplace injuries. That is a big issue in Nova Scotia. We're still seeing a lot of unnecessary injuries. I'm sure some of this happens because we don't have the right people doing the right jobs.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes. There is way too much of it, and the numbers show that anyway. Just to give you an example, Ontario recently hired 200 enforcement individuals. They're going to hire I don't how many hundreds more, but their intention is to hire more. Immediately, they were given the power to issue summary offence tickets, which we only just received recently here in this province. Simply because the construction industry, by nature, is competitive to the point that if you were going to have a set of regulations for the industry, especially that one, you have to make sure you keep the playing field level.

The only way you can do that is with real deterrent through your Act and your regulations, and the only way to deliver the deterrent is by real enforcement. You have

to be able to back up what you're saying, otherwise, I have to be honest with you, there are contractors out there who couldn't care less about enforcement or any government Act, because there really is very little enforcement going on. It is a matter of resources and people to do the job, and then an understanding when it finally does get to court, of what it really means.

MS. MASSEY: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Glavine.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Swinamer, for coming in this morning. As a former educator, I would like to go back and just kind of take a look a little bit at the education piece. I'm just wondering, do you think that the trades and the exposure to trades and so on, within our public school system, is currently adequate? Are there deficits, or are there some new approaches that you think we should be taking because, certainly, we're very skewed in terms of the number of Nova Scotians who go to university versus our community college, and does that, in fact, reflect back on what we're doing there? I would like a comment there, please.

MR. SWINAMER: I actually did my adult education at the University of Manitoba, so I can appreciate what you're talking about. We have suggested in the AC meeting that we could go in as representatives from the different trades with someone from the department, periodically, to different schools across the province very easily.

What we could do to show them that they have to be aware that their literacy skills, math skills, those sorts of skills are not just for university, we can do that by taking a set of blueprints in, and we can do that by taking an electrical tester in. There are a number of things we can bring in directly from the field, put it on the table and show them the connection between science, math, and understanding what they're reading, and then how to report what they've done in reports. We could do that very easily - and we have offered that to the AC group as way not just to present the trades, if you will, to the students, but the level of academics they really do need for the trades today. It is not what it was years ago.

The other thing it would do is it would really give the teachers of those groups, who are from a university background, a better appreciation of what is happening in the trades and what it really means academically, because I'm sure very few of them understand it.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you. That's a good background piece.

Just a couple of questions that emanated from a meeting I held recently at the Nova Scotia Community College in Middleton. In that western part of Kings County, the

Kingston-Greenwood area, there's quite a lot of growth happening right now, and there's certainly considerable building going on. I kept getting calls to my office which, of course, flies a little bit in the face of your statement that there's not a shortage of skilled tradespeople, but I have some companies, in fact some in my area who actually bid on jobs throughout the Maritimes, so I decided to call a meeting of the trades companies and I sent out letters to about 20 of the trades companies - I heard back actually from most of them, and eight came to our meeting.

One of the things that they said they would like, which is certainly not in our area now, is the creation of a basic trades construction course, where students would come in - either from high school or from adult education for example, because they do offer adult education and they can get their GEDs and work through four levels of adult education, and they could come from that program as well - and be exposed to three or four of the basic trades over a year, and go to each one of the work sites, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, as sort of the three basic ones, is that something that you're sort of in symmetry with in your thinking of at least starting on the path of a higher-skilled tradesperson?

MR. SWINAMER: It is, to a degree. If you look at what the community college delivers now - I can speak to the electrical component of it - the one-year programs, or one-semestered year, it's really set up for that. It's an opportunity for the individual to take the course - actually they don't involve just a rudimentary understanding, they'll get into some areas of a second- and third-year level of theory. Then that individual goes to the work placement, and that's the opportunity for that individual to decide this is for me or this isn't for me, and they can make their own decision.

So from the electrical standpoint, I think the community college is actually doing that now. I don't know if you would need some other level of government or whatever - I think it's a bit like reinventing the wheel - now I can't speak to the other trades, I don't know what they do.

MR. GLAVINE: When you talk about the 190 journeymen ready to go now, is this representing the dominance of one or two trades, or is it . . .

MR. SWINAMER: This is my trade, the electrical.

MR. GLAVINE: The electrical trade, which is really quite a number. The day on which I held this meeting, the eight companies there, the question that the principal, Mr. Jim Stanley, put to them was to try to see if we need for example, in that area, to bring in mobile courses to the community college - which they've actually started, as you are aware, in Shelburne, or Barrington, and up in Amherst they are doing that right now. So he asked, and of the eight companies represented there, they could have hired 15 people

then, there, that day, because for the remainder of 2006 they have a complete booking of different jobs to go to.

So is it that maybe within the province we don't have as much mobility or as much knowledge of these smaller companies that can pick up one or two of the trades? What are the factors that come into play there? I know wages and relocating and so on, but how do you see that?

MR. SWINAMER: Aside from the compensation element, it has always been tough for the college. It's a moving target in terms of where the demand for people wanting to get into these trades are coming from. You may have very little demand in the area you're speaking of there, but yet in Amherst there are 20.They try to stay ahead of it as best they can, but it's something that's always in a state of imbalance, influx all the time because of not knowing where the demand is going to come from. So they'll move the seats for different trades for these individuals around as best they can, Shelburne, for example, Yarmouth, actually ran the electrical here not too long ago, Amherst. That is how they're trying to respond to it.

In terms of adult ed., working backwards into a trade, I don't know how they look at that, I really don't. I can't speak to that, and I would have reservations. In some trades you would first have to do a prior learning assessment to look at what academic standing they currently have and how you would fit that to something they may be interested in. So I think it would be more involved in the front end before you slipped a mobile in to do that. I'm not saying it couldn't be done. You would have to be very aware that if you're working with that age element, you would have to be very careful with where they stand academically.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Corbett.

MR. CORBETT: Just to go a little bit further with what Mr. Glavine was talking about, these groups were signatories to part of your collective agreement?

MR. SWINAMER: Trade union agreements, yes.

MR. CORBETT: Certainly then they would have access just to call the hall, right?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, that's what they do.

MR. CORBETT: They would call the hall?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. CORBETT: Do they also have the ability to do what's commonly referred to as name hires?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. CORBETT: How does that work, Tim?

MR. SWINAMER: To give you an example of how our local was set up, if it would help, we are divided into five construction units. Now, we base everything on counties, because it's much simpler that way. So unit one is Halifax County. Unit two is the five eastern counties. Unit three, you would have Hants, Kings and Annapolis. Unit four is Queens and Lunenburg, and then you would have unit five down in Yarmouth-Digby. So we're divided geographically that way, and the members are located in all those areas, obviously.

Now, the bulk of the contractors, the vast majority of them, are based here in Halifax for obvious reasons, but when they secure jobs in those other units, the people from those units go to work first. When the demand reaches greater than the number of people in that area, then we go to the other units and distribute it to those individuals. So that's basically how we work.

Name hire. What is meant by that is, in our local, the contractor can call me. Tim, I want you to start work Monday, here's our job, and be over there at seven o'clock. So I call the hall, say I've gotten a call, you know, I'm going to come in and pick up my referral slip that has all my information on it and everything and take it with me. The contractor might have also at the same time called the hall and said I need an apprenticeship to work with Tim on that job so can you send me a second-year apprentice?

So, basically, that's what name hire means. You have name hire where the contractor can call or an individual member can leave a resumé with the different contractors and try to meet with them and say, look, I really want to work, this is what I've done, you know, if you have any opportunities, don't forget me kind of thing - marketing themselves, basically. You have that type of hiring. List hire, where everybody is always on a list no matter what, because it keeps a tracking order that attempts to provide fairness of order, although you could still name or I could still solicit your own work. So there are those two elements involved in the hiring practice of trade unions, typically.

MR. CORBETT: So then you do not restrict employers just solely by what I would call seniority or number list?

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. SWINAMER: Oh, no, no, there's no seniority.

MR. CORBETT: They can go to the hall, they can kind of point the finger and say I want Tim Swinamer?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR CORBETT: It's a ratio, right?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, you always respect the apprentice ratio - and, no, there is no seniority, based on how long you've been in the trade, for the journeypersons.

MR. CORBETT: Some of the talk around the table this morning had a lot to do with skills training. Some people would assert that there's a shortage. The average age of you folks, you say, is 45 and there's going to be, someday - if it comes out one it has to come in the other.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, we're very aware of that.

MR. CORBETT: The fact is the government, in its program of licensing and so on, isn't that cost tracked through the roof on you folks?

MR. SWINAMER: The cost for apprenticeship, writing the exams and everything, has gone up. The intent was to have that money available to apprenticeships to help that part of the budget. I know from the apprenticeship point of view, and the Department of Education, that component in their budget is usually somewhere less than 1 per cent normally. I don't know what it is now, I really don't.

Obviously for groups like mine - I could probably speak for all of them on this one - we would like to see more money put into apprenticeship, not just in facilities or those sorts of things, but in keeping the level playing field out there in the industry so that when they come out they do have a fair chance of going to work, not some guy who drives a truck for a living, but his buddy works for an electrical contractor who needs a hand for a couple of weeks, so he goes over and helps him.

MR. CORBETT: This money you've put into training and all that, can you folks track that and say, yes, that money is going right back into training, or is it just going in the black hole known as general revenue?

MR. SWINAMER: That part is an area where I have very little information. On our part, though, we spend, typically, $200,000 to $300,000 a year in supplemental training in our local.

MR. CORBETT: We have the operating engineers . . .

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, they have quite a facility.

MR. CORBETT: . . . a facility down in Falmouth, isn't it? Another question - we all want to keep as many workers in Nova Scotia as possible but, as you say, the business is cyclical, it will peak and it will valley.

MR. SWINAMER: That's the reality.

MR. CORBETT: The reality of it is, I know in Cape Breton there are more people whose names are on the books who are probably in Fort McMurray, or we'll say west of Montreal, and for this reason a lot of them have to go and make sure they have the red seal, the interprovincial ticket.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. CORBETT: If I get a complaint about that, it's not so much that they have a problem that they need the red seal, the interprovincial ticket, it's how do you get it. Let's say the average age, as you said, is 45. These are folks who have been out of the school system, the curriculum, for quite some time, but yet the only way that these folks can get their red seal is to go back into a classroom setting. Now these are workers who have worked in that industry - say, if they're 45, they've probably worked in the industry for 25 years or so, and yet they're asked to go in and take a really strict classroom regime that was probably meant more for 18- and 19-year olds.

Their question often is, why can't I just be doing this in a more practical way? I'm a welder by trade and I've welded all through, but to go out to Fort McMurray I also need to be a fitter, but I don't have my ticket as a fitter. So they have to take this course and it costs them a lot of money. Yet, they feel they can do the job, but the classroom is inappropriate for them at their age. Has the Department of Education ever sat down with the building trades and said that they appreciate this, we know that you're - for the want of a better phrase - migratory workers across the country and we know you need your red seal, how can we best accommodate you older workers? Have they ever sat down and, if they did, what did they say or, if they didn't, did they have a reason why they wouldn't?

MR. SWINAMER: I don't know. One of the responses we had to those amendments to the Act was the fact that to overcome that very issue you're speaking to,

in all trades, where the age of the person, if you look at their educational background and when they went through high school and everything, and they got a ticket in their trade - and at that time it was perhaps at a provincial licensing level, even though the IP was there, they got their provincial - they saw no need to worry about it, because you could go across Canada then.

All of a sudden, now, you need the IP. They're looking back 25 or 30 years later at a career and going, oh, my God! The anxiety that they go through just thinking about going into a classroom is overwhelming for them.

One thing we've done in our local for those individuals, or for a group of them anyway, is we've worked very closely with Marjorie Davison in the apprenticeship division. We've custom designed a program to prepare them to write the IP. It is about a 60- to 80-hour course, depending on the age group we're dealing with, and the time for those individuals to write the exam, instead of being three hours, you suggested 19-, 20-year olds who are fresh out of apprenticeship, right into the exam, they zing through that, they get their ticket and away they go. These people are 45-, 50-, 55-years old, they're not going to do that. They need more time. Ninety seconds a question on an exam for those people is impossible. What we've done is we've custom tailored a preparation course for them and the only people in that class are their peers. So you don't have some whipper-snappers in there with all the answers making these guys feel bad, and they won't ask questions in that environment if that's the case.

In the time of the exam, instead of being three hours, Marjorie has said, give them as much time as they need because this group is falling through the cracks and we have to find a place for them. Well, what I said was, I don't think we have to give them infinity because after four hours their brain will be mush anyway. So if they had an hour or so, just to know that they had the time, takes the pressure off how they're responding to the exam. Then we give them probably 12 to 14 hours within that course on how to actually write an exam; prepare them for that part of it, as well.

That has been a tremendous help and we're having great success with it, but there is always a group beyond that where that is not enough, they just can't, and it is their age. It is their demographic. For those people, we responded to the amendments by saying, return to the provincial licensing. I asked Marjorie last year - she was going to a meeting of the directors, a national meeting - if she would approach some of the other provincial directors and put on the table a discussion on recognizing each other's provincial tickets in those cases. Some provinces still do, some provinces don't.

Here is what's odd about it. Two things. If you do commercial work or industrial work in Nova Scotia, it is the same as it is in any other province. It is the same piece of steel. It is the same box. It is the same everything. That is number one. Number two, you could go to Alberta, work on a crew where your foreman has only an Alberta provincial

ticket. Where is the logic in bringing in temporary foreign workers to Alberta when you have workers, thousands, all across Canada with provincial tickets and they can't go because they don't have an IP, but they've done the test for 25 and 30 years of their life. It defies logic.

So Marjorie was going to position that for me and see if she could move that forward with the other directors. That is why, perhaps you've noticed, perhaps you haven't, so many people get their back up when they hear, temporary foreign workers, because there are so many people in all the province who have the skills. They just don't have one that has the red stamp on it, but they've been doing it for so many years. That's how you accommodate them.

MR. CORBETT: The reason I brought that up is because I know one constituent of mine who is a UA member who, I think, is 57, coming down to the end of the prime earning years, which means huge consequences on his pension.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, very much.

MR. CORBETT: So with the low here, he can't wait around and pick at jobs and work eight months and six months and go on, and that is the frustration. He had said that he had to leave the New Waterford area, drive to Port Hawkesbury twice a week during the Winter to get to do the program, and then I think about three weeks ago, on a Saturday, went in and - glad to hear you say that they put people in there who were more appropriate to one another, but clearly that class that day was a clear mixture of people anywhere from 60 down to 18 . So here was the guy, this poster child for what you're saying, who could do the job, clearly worked as a supervisor on jobs from here, across and down into the United States, but because he didn't have that little stamp, and had all the qualifications as actual on the job, did the work, was shunned because a UK worker could have knocked him off the job at any point.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that this is a worker, and if we injure his ability to travel interprovincially, that has a huge impact, economically, to him. That industry, first of all, wears people out because of the rigours of the job. Previously we could say that the pension plans weren't as good as they could have been back in the early stages when he entered the trade, but it's a little better now. So he's in his prime years to ramp up his pension, yet we're almost oblivious to the fact of what we're going to do to that worker if we don't get in there and help them make sure they can get that red seal, and we're as accommodating as possible, with the understanding of the OH&S implications - we don't want an unsafe worker in there or an unskilled worker.

I think there has to be a larger allotment of thought given to that older worker who is getting close to the end of their work life here, and we accommodate them as best we can. I'm glad that you were relating the stories, because I see it more on the other end,

where these older workers are just so frustrated that they're walking away saying, look, I'm going to hang around Nova Scotia and pick up whatever I can until I can get a pension.

MR. SWINAMER: The other way, you mentioned, too, is that it really hurts all of society in Nova Scotia when another province uses temporary workers, even when we do, for that matter. The money exits, the money doesn't stay. If this individual goes to work in Alberta because there's a recognition of provincial licensing, like there used to be, that individual goes and probably makes - a welder, a pipefitter - in 10 months, 10 and a half months, $150,000. That money is coming home, it's coming back here. So you have all that money coming back into the local economy and economy, in general, in Nova Scotia, but when that happens with temporary workers, that money doesn't stay here, that money is gone.

Another issue with one of your comments that I thought was interesting was that you hear great debate and great discussion these days on how to bring people who have exited or are about to exit a profession or a trade back in as mentors, include them back in the system somehow, to help us with what we will face in time - there's no question, in terms of playing poker, of how to bring the people in at the right time. Do you really think those individuals like that, who do have the greatest experience, are going to be interested in that? Do you know what they're going to be doing, they're going to be working some job somewhere, that their body will allow them to do, to supplement whatever pension they've been able to accumulate to survive. That's what they're going to do.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hines.

MR. HINES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Tim, one of the things that comes up in every discussion that we have regarding this issue is that the exodus of workers from our province, and the Maritime Provinces in general, to the West, that's not a new phenomenon. That "Go West, young man" theory has always been out there. I was one of those guys who fell into that mode and went West. I'm just going to relate a little bit of my experience, and then move back to a question.

When I went West, I went on speculation and found a job and went to work as an equipment operator at a non-union site. I moved in three years from equipment operator to supervisor. Then our company unionized, and because we unionized I got bumped back two wage scales and back to being an operator. Then they stuck rigidly by the union agreement. One morning I was seven miles from camp and we had a sudden change in temperature, it dropped from about five below to 45 below. I sat in a machine that I wasn't allowed to start because of the union agreement, and damn near froze to death. So I came home with not a great love for unions. It's still hard today to get me to adopt to union philosophy. However, I agree that unions have come a long way, and I

think they've made safer workplaces and done a lot of good things, but I still don't think they're perfect in that respect.

So I go to an area that I know something about. I know you've done a great job of portraying your industry, which is the plumbing industry. I'm going to go to the Union of Operating Engineers, which is part of your association. I just recently talked to Dexter's people and they are now in England trying to recruit equipment operators. They've also built into their employee, the Dexter Institute, which allows them to try to retain their people. They put them in the program and they have a retention method in the agreement. It works well for them, but they're not able to get the people they need, so, perhaps in the plumbing industry, it's not the shortage. I'm not disagreeing with you there.

[10:15 a.m.]

I do know, as Diana brought up, in the drywall industry, I have friends who work in that industry, it's an aging industry, it's hard to find anybody in drywall who is under 55. They are having trouble finding employees in that industry, but also in the heavy equipment, and operators of heavy equipment, our major companies - in particular Dexter, which is one of the biggest employers in the Province of Nova Scotia - they do have a real shortage of operators.

One of the things they pointed out is that there are operators and then there are those who just get on the machine, and that's where they have the problem. They try to retain operators who are professional, who are safe operators, who can produce and get large productivity. The problem they have by being restricted by unions is that they're required to retain employees who are not doing the job, getting the same pay as those who are doing the job. That has always been one of the problems I had, is if you excel at what you do, there's no opportunity to advance, or you're restricted in your opportunity to advance. I just wondered what you think about that statement, that something has to be done to allow those who excel to advance in their field of endeavours.

MR. SWINAMER: Look at it this way - I'll use myself as an example - as an electrician, I went through the apprenticeship in a vocational school setting and went out and went to work and became a journeyperson, worked on a variety of jobs, got experience. I was then hired by different contractors over a number of years to be the supervision, to look after those jobs. We went into a very low cycle in the 1980s and that's when I decided to get into education. I went into that area, moved a bit sideways within the union, provided the training in a lot of the safety courses as well as the technical courses in the electrical field - communication and cable being one of them. Now I'm the assistant business manager and a delegate to the building trades where I'm dealing with issues like this and so on.

I think to be direct to what you just said, I disagree, and not everybody's the same, there's absolutely no doubt about that, but if you were a rising star in your trade, whatever that trade is, there are companies that will recognize that and you will not have a problem being employed as long as there's work to do. I don't care if you're union or non-union. That's a business principle.

MR. HINES: That's one side of the equation, the other side of the equation is that if you have someone in your workforce who is not productive, you can't fire them because they're not productive.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes, we can. Here's how it works.

MR. HINES: The unions will go to bat for them and it will become arbitration.

MR. SWINAMER: That's because of the due diligence. We have to. That's a legal technicality, we have to. Within our organizations, what we have is "three strikes, you're out." Basically, there is a verbal warning to that employee. There is a written warning, at the written warning there is a one-week suspension. If the issue at hand continues, that person can be let go and the employer has the right to not have to accept that individual anymore.

MR. HINES: I could cite you examples that that hasn't happened. One in particular is on a construction site, basically it was somewhat orchestrated, the example I'm going to give you. This individual carried the same - he was a labourer who was carrying material for the carpenters. He carried the same piece of two-by-four all day and got his rate. He never put it down at anybody's site, he didn't look to find something constructive to do and didn't take direction, he just walked around with that piece of two-by-four, and he did it for one solid week and they fired him. They had to hire him back because it went to arbitration and they had to hire him back because he was actually doing something, but he wasn't contributing.

There are numerous incidences in that respect that I could cite to you. I think there is something wrong. You say it's a legal requirement, but there's something wrong with the mechanism, because it's very difficult to prove that guy was not doing something constructive. Even if you had a camera on him, he was doing something constructive.

MR. SWINAMER: No, I understand. I do, I really do. There was something wrong yesterday in the courtroom where a judge realized the prosecution didn't understand how to handle the case and, because the owner said "I didn't know", he got off. The issue is more one of what is the responsibility of a representative. You're all representatives - what is the responsibility? It's due diligence, and we're no different.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other questions?

Mr. Corbett for another couple of minutes.

MR. CORBETT: Just to pick up on what Mr. Hines said a minute ago, in a little different direction.

The fact that within the Trade Union Act there is expedited arbitration that deals solely with the construction trades union aspect of it, so it's expedited anyway . . .

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. CORBETT: . . . so as far as I know, the employer still has the right to hire and fire.

MR. SWINAMER: Absolutely.

MR. CORBETT: That's not abrogated by the trade union, their collective agreement.

MR. SWINAMER: That's right, because there are things outside of a productivity issue for instance, like you were saying. There are issues outside of that that are automatic and those are written into collective agreements. If somebody shows up and they've been drinking, those sorts of issues, those things are automatic - they're not up for debate. Collective agreements don't have any jurisdiction over those and the person is gone. That's it; it's that simple. Of course, there is due diligence on the employer if you're looking at maybe the person has a drinking problem - now you have a duty to accommodate and you have to put them in a program and so on and so on.

MR. CORBETT: But that's well without the scope of the trade union . . .

MR. SWINAMER: But that's beyond the scope of the trade union, yes.

MR. CORBETT: It's the interaction between the employer and the employee.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes. I can't speak to every single trade union, although I know these gentlemen well, but I'm not privy to their internal philosophies to any great degree - like I can generalize, to be fair, but I can tell you in the one that I represent we take it extremely serious, in no uncertain terms.

MR. CORBETT: I think it's important for us to say that not all workers are great workers . . .

MR. SWINAMER: No.

MR. CORBETT: . . . and not all employers are bad employers.

MR. SWINAMER: Sure.

MR. CORBETT: I mean, we live in a world of imperfections, and we realize that, but I think that the idea, I would think the collective agreement certainly sets out a parameter of rules . . .

MR. SWINAMER: A structure.

MR. CORBETT: . . . and we live within those rules if we can.

MR. SWINAMER: A structure, that's right.

MR. CORBETT: And that's why there's arbitration, because things aren't, as you say - maybe we'll call an electrical company, Linair, or something like that, and say that they're not following the code as it relates to apprentices and so on and that's why we go through that and I take what Mr. Hines says, I think everyone understands that, but I think there is a levelling out of it, that the collective agreement sets out a parameter of rules.

MR. SWINAMER: It attempts to, yes. There's a common denominator in this room, for everybody sitting here. We're all in the people business from one aspect or another and, with people, everybody is different. So you have to recognize and respect that and try to put something in place that, to the best of your ability, recognizes and respects everybody's viewpoint and how they're all going to fit into whatever it is we're talking about.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Colwell.

MR. KEITH COLWELL: I just want to ask you a couple of questions. In your second statement you said there's no shortage of skilled tradespeople within the construction industry, and you're only talking about the unionized construction people.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. COLWELL: How many people in the electrical trade are in the union and how many qualified people - and I mean people who hold certificates from the Province of Nova Scotia who are electricians - are outside the union?

MR. SWINAMER: That's what we're trying to access now through freedom of information from the department.

MR. COLWELL: But you guess that the number is probably three to four times as many as in your union?

MR. SWINAMER: No, no. Right now, the last two years, we've had a real upsurge in membership. I would say - it's really hard to tell because so many have left and now they're coming back. In the non-union sector, the reason why they're having issues is they've all gone out West or up to the mines in the North. Are they coming back? I don't know. If you want to look at holding the ticket from this province, okay, it's probably right now about a 60/40 split and we're growing at a little more than 12 or 13 per cent a year in membership.

MR. COLWELL: Yes, which is good, but again I want to clarify your statement. So the statement is unionized . . .

MR. SWINAMER: That's who I'm representing.

MR. COLWELL: Yes. So, in fact, your statement really only represents unionized workers.

MR. SWINAMER: Exactly.

MR. COLWELL: Yes. So there could be a shortage of workers outside the union in the trades that you wouldn't be aware of.

MR. SWINAMER: Oh, no. We were discussing the Valley here a little while ago, and the reason why the Valley here a little while ago, and the reason why the Valley is having some problems with some trade areas, mine being one of them, is because they've gone out West and up North. When the recruiters came from CNRL and some others . . .

MR. COLWELL: That's not what I asked. The question whether they've gone North or not is immaterial.

MR. SWINAMER: Okay.

MR. COLWELL: It's immaterial. The question is, are there enough skilled people in Nova Scotia? With the age demographic - I'm a tradesperson, by the way, so I know what I'm talking about, as well, and in my trade, there's definitely a shortage, there has been a shortage for 50 years.

MR. SWINAMER: What trade is that?

MR. COLWELL: A machinist. If you look at who has gone away, you have to dismiss that, because people move back and forth for whatever reason. Now it's because of money, and I don't blame them, quite frankly. It's unfortunate we lose highly-skilled people from the province. It does hurt; long term helps the province.

MR. SWINAMER: Everybody, yes.

MR. COLWELL: So I don't totally agree with your no shortage of skilled people. I didn't want anyone to leave here today to think that is the case. What will happen is, all of a sudden it will be in the media that there is no shortage of skilled people in Nova Scotia, and then the province, somebody in the Education Department - which I agree with you - may not be really qualified to say what the trade should do. I think the unions do a great job of training , and I have gone through all that process and have seen some of your training facilities, and I commend you for doing that. You really shouldn't have to do as much as you do if the province was doing its job a little bit better, and I agree with that as well. I don't want anyone to go away from here today and say okay, we better stop training electricians because we have lots of them. That could happen, that could very easily happen. The demographics of the age of the people - and you say it takes five years to train a person from the day they enter the school until they actually could be productive in the workplace as a journeyman. Not that they're not productive when they're apprentices. That means in five years, when your workforce is around 55, or 45 . . .

MR. SWINAMER: At 45.

MR. COLWELL: So those guys would be around 50, probably by that time some of them will have gone to other provinces to work, so your shortage could change quite quickly.

MR. SWINAMER: Depending on the cycles.

MR. COLWELL: It could change quite quickly, and I wouldn't want anyone to go from here today to think that's the case, and for the training to slow down, or not have enough people come into the situation with a very moving dynamic as it is.

MR. SWINAMER: It's interesting, if you were to position compensation for the individuals - and I will generalize this because I think it's fair to - for areas like the Valley who lost a lot of their workers to out West and up North, if those contractors were paying more than the range of $12 to $16 an hour for journeypeople, those people might still be here and they wouldn't have their shortage.

I guess in the broader sense, beyond what I'm addressing from a trade union aspect, the folks who are gone who weren't members of trade unions, they left because

the pay sucked, basically. So they are gone. The shortage was created by the industry itself within the area, so I'm going to come back to my original statement - there is no shortage given the fact if you want to compete in a national marketplace for their services, you will get them. That's all I mean.

MR. COLWELL: The problem here is the Nova Scotian economy just can't support it. In reality, if you start paying someone the same as you're paying in the tar sands, to work in Nova Scotia, you'll build nothing.

MR. SWINAMER: I didn't suggest that, though.

MR. COLWELL: Well, that's what you're saying.

MR. SWINAMER: No, no. Maybe you weren't here in the beginning, I'm not sure. What I said was, perhaps what we're looking for is the water mark that isn't what Alberta or up North is offering for compensation, but where is the line where they would stay home? I don't know. Maybe that's what we're trying to find, I really don't know. I think that's really the question.

I don't see a shortage when Fort McMurray is mainly Maritimers. I don't see a shortage where two diamond mines I'm aware of up North are mostly Maritimers. They're there because they can't get that money here. So we don't have the shortage of them in terms of how we create them or that they exist, they're just not here. That's the way I see it.

MR. COLWELL: You could probably be right, but, again, the concern I have with this whole thing is, when you make a statement like that it could have long-reaching effects on the economy here and even on your ability to supply skilled people. If for some reason the 100-plus electricians you have, which is not enough to do every job in Nova Scotia, tomorrow, if everything was unionized, you would not have enough workers if the other people decided not to join the union and decided to go out West or whatever the case may be to do all the work.

[10:30 a.m.]

MR. SWINAMER: Okay, I gave an example of Keltic Petrochemicals. We have been involved in that process as a building trades now for about four years with Kevin Dunn. We are well aware of the numbers and what's involved and everything. We've met with the folks from Stone and Webster. We've done the due diligence and all that stuff, and we'll have no trouble supplying to that job or the rest of the construction that's going on in Nova Scotia.

I think the point I'm trying to get across, as you generate new tradespeople, like through the apprenticeship, to give you an example in the electrical field - I think it's the highest sought after seat in the community college, and has been for a number of years - but this year, that one-year program I talked about, I think is graduating 200. That means how many more journeymen do you need for those apprentices to be able to go to work. It kind of works backwards.

Everybody is thinking of the flow through from the bottom up, but you have to have in place what's up here before you can bring them through here. I will go back to what I said before, those people out West and up North, whether they're union or not union, it doesn't matter, they're there because they can make more money. They can build their bank accounts. They can provide for their families. They came from here. We have them. We just don't have them here right now. So my worry is the playing of the poker hand - what are these 200 individuals going to do?

MR. COLWELL: That's a good point.

MR. SWINAMER: That's what I'm worried about. Honestly, that's what I'm really worried about. Look, we have to bring them through the system. We've got to give them opportunities to work. Do you know what's key in all that to making that happen? We have to keep them here. Somehow, we have to keep them here.

MR. COLWELL: I know quite a few guys who are in your union. In an average year, in Nova Scotia, how many months a year do your guys work on average?

MR. SWINAMER: You get the bell curve thing with the cyclical nature. Averaging out to the peaks and the valleys, I would say seven months would be fair.

MR. COLWELL: Seven months of the year?

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. COLWELL: I thought it would be about that, after talking to a lot of the guys in the trades. The guys who are non-union, and the other jobs, for whatever reason, that is your job to try to get them in and whatever. Most of those guys - I know a lot of those guys too, and they typically work 12 months of the year and probably make the same amount of money in 12 months as your guys make in seven months, but they work year-round, most of the guys, if they're good tradespeople, if they're qualified and they're hard workers and do all the rest of the stuff.

That's a problem. One problem that I've always seen, and I've talked to many of your members over the years, is if there was some way that the guys who are qualified -

and the union guys usually are highly qualified, except for some of the exceptions, the guys that don't want to work . . .

MR. SWINAMER: Right, yes, that's true.

MR. COLWELL: . . . they are everywhere - those guys could make a little bit less money. When I say a little bit, not $10 an hour less, but a little bit less and work 12 months of the year. When I have that discussion with every one of your members, they all agree. Every one of them says they have a permanent job, and go through.

What I'm really getting at, we're into a global economy. I know I can buy machines now that I used to buy when I was in business at half the price and as good a quality as I could 25 years ago, and it's scary. They're made in India, China, and all these places that pay $2 a week, some of these places for people to work - in our currency - and that's going to become a really serious problem for us as Nova Scotians and Canadians as our lifestyle improves and improves and improves. I don't know what the solution is, we have to get more productive.

When I ran my business, I went to computerization and really, really reduced the number of people I had working for me. They had higher and higher skills and I paid them very well, paid them actually above the union rates, although we weren't a union shop, but we did work 12 months of the year and we did things. We have to look at that. What has the union done to think about that situation, because I tell you, it's real. Someday what's going to happen, I can see it happening, when you start building these big buildings, the container ships are going to show up here with prefabricated stuff for big buildings that are just going to be assembled, and I hope it never comes, but that will happen - made out of steel that we ship back over scrap and they bring it back to us as finished products. So what has the union done to think about that, because you're an integral part of that process.

MR. SWINAMER: When we go through our negotiation period, usually every three to five years, one of the things we look at is what kind of marketplace are we in, what kind of marketplace were we in through that period of that agreement, and what does it look like, very much like a government does, what does it look like ahead of us, to be realistic so that we can stay competitive in a marketplace?

The differences in, when you're looking at someone working seven months a year, 40 hours a week typically, versus somebody working the full year and, depending on the industry, seven days a week - because that occurs quite a bit, especially in construction - what you're really looking at is the choices by the individuals doing the work and the business practices of the contractors who are involved.

If you were to look at the wages, at least from my organization, because I'm not familiar with the others, we're one of the lowest in Canada already in terms of what the union wage is - very much. So I don't know any other way to position it other than we look at our market, we are very aware of being competitive, and we must be doing something right with the growth we're experiencing now and the fact that we've got probably over 50 contractors - and not all located in this province - signatory to our agreement and active on a routine basis.

So I think it's more of a business decision on the owner and individuals who work for them. It's not an "us and them" mentality as far as we're concerned, it really isn't. It probably looks that way from the outside, but it's about choices, people's choices, and that's all it is, plain and simple. People who join trade unions, they look at the compensation difference right off the bat obviously, but they look at other things too. The training - what advancement do I have to get ahead, what training is out there if I don't go union?

The other issue is - it's a big one and it was mentioned here - pension. The local that I represent has always been very, very focused on a pension plan that gives the individual, at the exit point, something they can live on - and medical is another one; that's another big one too. So it's really about choices. Does somebody want to look at that and what goes hand in hand with that seven months, or the travel ability, because it's automatic within trade unions, the travel part policy. It's real easy.

The other option, as best I can describe it, is a medical that comes out of your pay as well as the employer's, because it's cost-shared usually, and pensions, I put more in my personal RRSP than a lot of these plans have and, again, it's cost shared with the employee and employer. So it's decisions on the part of the worker and the way the employer sets up his business. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying they've obviously agreed, one to the other, that they're going to do that, and that's fine.

MR. COLWELL: I agree with the training and the pension issue. Training for a business that is non-unionized, that doesn't have the facilities and maybe is not a large business, is really a problem.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. COLWELL: I think that's one place where the Province of Nova Scotia has failed miserably. They don't understand the trades; they don't understand how important the training is for individuals, to keep them upgraded on technology and also to improve the person's ability to make an income - and some things are pretty simple, you know sometimes if you go to a two-day training course you drastically improve your marketability and the ability to make an income with your present employer.

MR. SWINAMER: Sure.

MR. COLWELL: But the only trouble is the employer doesn't have the time to fool around with the course and he doesn't have the expertise. He's interested in making money and moving forward with his employees, and it is a co-operative venture no matter how you do it - and if you don't work like that, you're not in business very long if you're a business person, or you're not working very long if you're an employee.

MR. SWINAMER: Exactly.

MR. COLWELL: Which is the way that our society works - and pensions, I think, too, that the structure that the federal and provincial government has of pensions isn't the way it should be. It should be more mobile with the individual, so if you come to work with me and you've got a pension plan, I should have to contribute to your pension plan and when you go the pension goes with you.

MR. SWINAMER: Yes.

MR. COLWELL: It's mobile and I think if that was set up it would save us thousands and thousands of dollars down the road when people don't have enough pension and the system has to kick in to help them - and I don't think that has ever been done.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Colwell, I am going to move on to the next speaker if I may. We have a couple of speakers and perhaps we can come back if you have any further questions. Is that agreeable?

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Massey.

MS. MASSEY: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to talk about education in the trades, and maybe not even specifically in the trades, but you may be able to comment. There were some disturbing numbers last night on a Web site that I was checking out as far as the number of dropouts that we have right now in our high schools. I think in 2002-03 it could be as high as 20 per cent of the kids who entered Grade 9 did not graduate from Grade 12. I'm not really sure where those figures are today, those are older figures.

We have a loss of youth there, not entering into some of the jobs that might be available in the trades. More recent figures, 67 per cent of students are citing university as the number one post-secondary choice, yet 50 per cent of those students are either quitting university or graduating and having trouble finding a job.

Recently, at a Nova Scotia Community College session that I was at, they were saying 49 per cent of their students actually come in with a previous post-secondary experience. So I think you can see a connection there somewhere, the numbers, they are moving from one place to another, we have kids dropping out in high school, we have a low literacy rate in Nova Scotia right now. I think all these things, I will be as bold as to say, affect women.

MR. SWINAMER: Absolutely.

MS. MASSEY: That may be even a higher percentage. We have a lot of single moms, and single dads too, out there who are looking to maybe improve on their education, improve their lot in life. I know at the community college, in fact, Akerley, in my riding, they have child-care facilities in the building. If that was bigger it would be filled. It's full now and it could be bigger. Child care in this province and in Canada is a huge issue, especially for women, but it's becoming more of an issue for men also.

With those comments, I'm wondering if you can make some suggestions on what you think government should be doing to move us in a direction where we're not leaving our youth behind, we're finding things for them to do; people who want to upgrade themselves, making it possible for them to do that.

MR. SWINAMER: Okay, that's why I got into adult education a number of years ago. It really intrigued me that so many people have gone so far down life's path and, all of a sudden, there weren't any options. What are they going to do? That's what got me into it.

From the single dad point of view, I have single dads in our membership, and daycare does become an issue to be able to get to work on time. A lot of these jobs start at 7:00 a.m., so they're trying to find a place where they can leave the child before that. So I understand what you're talking about.

I think it will be interesting to see going forward in this province, a comment Rodney MacDonald made about looking at putting back in high school a bit of the shop training that used to be there years ago where you went in and did metal work, you did a little bit of woodworking, there was cooking and all that other stuff - obviously gender segregated then, but we'll see now.

Anyway, it was an interesting comment because perhaps that's the right entry point to create the awareness for people who are still in school and maybe they wouldn't drop out if, in tandem with that, you had groups in the trades and other groups coming in to show these students just what academic standing they will need to do something that they've probably taken for granted, like their parents have. What do you have to do to be a plumber or electrician? What's the big deal about that? Well, let me bring in some

of the reports we have to write, some of the blueprints we have to decipher and some of the meters and equipment we have to use and what we actually hook up to make everything work that you don't see and you'll have a better appreciation of why you should pay attention in school - even for that level. In the electrical construction apprenticeship, your math is the first year and a half of electrical engineering.

Given that, one of the biggest problems I'm sure they're facing at the community college, I know we face in our organization, is trying to increase the ability of the apprentices who come to us so they can actually read, write and do the math. It's the academic deficit that they're coming out with out of high school. I'm not going to get into tearing down that system or anything, because that would be out of place for me. I'm just saying in what I do, I have to deal with the result of that, that's all I'm saying. We spend a lot of time and effort trying to give these individuals a chance to move on in the trade and make a life for themselves. It's very clear their academic standing isn't appropriate for what they're trying to do.

[10:45 a.m.]

MS. MASSEY: I think there are people out there who have low literacy levels but they can probably rip a car apart and put things back together faster than a lot of people who have the appropriate documentation for the trade. I don't think there are a lot of resources out there for people who want to go back. You were involved in adult education. There is not enough in that area for adults who realize, for whatever reason or whatever happened, they didn't reach that level of education and they need it now and to put them in an institution where they're around their own peers and they're comfortable, is very important and you've touched on that.

MR. SWINAMER: I would say probably the demographics in the province, it is just kind of like a feeling or an opinion, if you will, that given our demographics, our age is probably quite a bit higher than a lot of the other provinces, the Maritimes in general. I would say there is probably quite an opportunity in adult education to give people a second chance. Again, once we do a prior learning assessment, if they want to do this but the assessment says, no, they should be considering this, then we can make them aware of that and see if that is a direction that they would want to go in, so that we have more people contributing to the system. There is probably a great opportunity there.

MR. CHAIRMAN: More questions? Mr. Colwell, do you want to go back and pursue that line of questioning?

MR. COLWELL: No, that's fine.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other questions or comments people have for Mr. Swinamer? Hearing none, Mr. Swinamer, do you want to make any closing comments?

You've kind of covered a whole lot of subjects today and covered a wide range of things, but if you would like to take a couple of minutes to just capsulize what you said, then certainly the floor is yours.

MR. SWINAMER: Okay. I know I've represented the trade union side of things, but I think in general terms, the Maritimes in general have lost so many skilled tradespeople, and professionals and graduates of universities, to other locations across Canada, the States, all over the world for that matter. There is a shortage because of the way we're conducting business in the province. The way we're looking at these skills or services these people can provide and although everybody seems to be onboard with the fact that we're an international/global economy, we're not treating those services as such. These people have come to realize, because of the opportunities that have opened up, that they are a commodity, and they have become essentially a trader of their own commodity. So they're going to go where they can get the highest compensation for their services or their commodity. All indications are, in the Maritimes for sure, that is exactly what is happening.

The exit point of that scenario is, when that stops or slows down in those locations and those individuals return, what mindset will they be in? That is a topic for great debate. The work and practices and the compensation levels that exist now in the non-union sector, I can guarantee you, will not prevail in the future. They just simply won't. These people will not tolerate it. They will have established a lifestyle that cannot be supported by the compensation packages in this province, at least in the non-union environment. I have people going out there and making over $100,000 a year, complaining about the paycheque they get here when they come back and work a union. So I'm sure everybody is the same that way.

I guess the main point is - and I kind of went all over the map on that - but the main point is, we have the people. It is just that in some areas, at some points in time, we don't have them here and perhaps it is our fault.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for your informative comments and answering the questions. I think everybody had an opportunity to share a little bit of that information and go away a little wiser than when we came in. So I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

MR. SWINAMER: I thank you for the opportunity. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Committee, the next meeting is May 30^th, at 9:00 a.m., the Department of Education and Student Learning Assessments will be in. So that being said, we're open for a motion to adjourn.

MR. CORBETT: So moved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We stand adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 10:50 a.m.]