By CCU President Gregory Ball
In September 2024, the Confederation of Canadian Unions was invited to attend the Workforce Summit event, taking place in Montreal on October 16.
It was the first time in twelve years the federal government brought together stakeholders from across the country to discuss the challenges facing our economy. The idea was to gather senior leadership from across various sectors to assemble diverse views on how to foster a modern and inclusive labour force.
Since 2015, the government has taken generational steps to retool our nation’s social programs. This includes the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), which currently has a funding ratio of 6 to 1 (six working taxpayers for each beneficiary) but will soon be down to 3 to 1.
Many thought governments across Canada would cooperate to better the lives of Canadians, but that has been far from the case. A shared commitment and collaboration are the only way forward for our economy, yet at the time of the event, 1.2 million Canadians were officially out of work, with only 500,000 jobs available to be filled. There are fewer people in career jobs and more working in the short-term, temporary, and precarious gig economy.
It will take both the federal and provincial governments to build a workforce that is prepared for the 21st century. When the planning started to restore Parliament buildings in Ottawa, for example, organizers quickly realized that Canada didn’t have enough stone masons to do the job. Their first task was finding and training enough people to complete the project.
We need an efficient Employment Insurance (EI) system that reacts to economic shocks. Fifty percent of the workforce are now Gen Z or Millennials. The federal government’s training initiative will upscale sustainable jobs, but Canada must do better in raising productivity to secure a better future. Both speakers and delegates alike agreed Canada must be bold and innovative. Personally speaking, I can’t wait to see what happens when we do this together.
The opening speaker of the event was Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages.
The event then moved to Plenary Session 1, which focused on Canada’s labour market and how it relates to the rest of the world. The US Inflation Reduction Act, the Sustainable Jobs Act and the Clean Energy Transition Act all addressed how workers can develop better skills while on the job, and therefore, being more productive.
A major problem in Canada is that governments wait until people are laid off and downsized until they finally receive any kind of assistance. Instead, we need companies and government to take preventative measures to ensure our workers are prepared and have the skills available for the modern economy of the mid-21st century. American labour policy, for example, changed rapidly when Artificial Intelligence (AI) began evolving over the last few years.
Where Canada does lead, however, is gender equity. Workforce demographics have changed in Canada, and we know that underrepresented workers continue to face barriers in the workplace. We especially need young people to graduate, improve their skills, and move into fulfilling careers. Many people with disabilities, especially those with visual impairments, are forced to prove they are disabled. Workplace culture must change, as two-thirds of people living with a disability do not disclose their disability, in fear of reprisal.
The first speaker during the afternoon session was Steven MacKinnon, Minister of Labour and Seniors. He stated that the fundamentals of our recovery are strong. Canada has its flaws, but that’s democracy. Our elected officials have difficult relationships across the provinces but are working on improving them.
Canada is leading the G7 in its recovery from the COVID recession. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says Canada will have the fastest-growing economy in 2025, and will outperform the world’s expectations. Inflation is down and wages are finally increasing in real terms.
MacKinnon admitted Canada has a productivity challenge, and we will have to overcome this. Canada must also encourage investment in the green economy of the future and ensure the jobs that are created are higher, unionized wages so they can support families. The Minister also stated that investors are looking for a more streamlined, efficient regulatory process, and recruitment and retention are also very large issues.
Although MacKinnon said he was looking forward to the outcome of this summit, I was very disappointed that he left immediately without answering any questions.
Later in the afternoon, I attended a session on immigration. Speakers and delegates agreed that our governments should promote more collaboration on education. One of the biggest challenges Canada faces is recognizing credentials from other countries, which dramatically affects all sectors of the economy.
That doesn’t mean we can’t provide our own training for workers here, whether Canadian-born or not. A full one percent of Quebec’s total provincial budget, for example, goes specifically into training.
As the event ended, I approached Minister Boissonault to voice our displeasure with his government’s continued interference with the collective bargaining process. What incentive does any company have in resolving a deal when they can simply ask the government to legislate their employees back to work? I reminded him that the right to free association and collective bargaining is featured in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and I requested he pass that message on to his counterparts in the federal government.
