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Thank you for that kind introduction.
Special guests, board Members, ladies and gentlemen, I have the distinct pleasure this morning of welcoming you as we launch an extraordinary enterprise.
It is an undertaking in which we all have a stake. It is something that will call for all of our respective organizations, whether private sector or public, to play a major role to address workplace skills and labour market issues. We have to take to heart that technological innovation, demographic shifts, global communication, and increasing global competition, are having a profound impact on the Canada’s economic and labour force needs. This mean that we have to find new and different ways to manage change, we have to use different tools, and we have to increase levels of workplace training and education.
The challenges that we face require a co-operative approach. They require an approach that brings together the business, labour, government and education communities. And they require an approach that will increase awareness of the benefits of investing in the skills’ needs of workers and employers.
I am very pleased to be here today, to help launch the Workplace Partners Panel (WPP) – an organization to be jointly chaired by the business and labour communities whose primary objective will be to develop strategies and solutions in response to Canada’s workplace skills and labour market needs. The national co-chairs of the Workplace Partners Panel will be Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters President and CEO Perrin Beatty, and Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti.
I would like to take a moment to thank you Minister Stronach for the confidence shown by the federal government in the Canadian Business and Labour Centre as the launching pad for the Workplace Partners Panel, and for being selected as the organization that will govern and manage this initiative. It is a task we undertake with eagerness and anticipation.
Interest or concern in issues related to training and workplace skills is not a recent phenomenon.
As far back as ancient Greece, Aristotle is quoted as saying that “Excellence is an art won by training and education.”
An old Chinese proverb states that, “Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.”
And American journalist and author Russell Baker said that “In today’s highly complex society it takes years of training to qualify for the good jobs with the really big payoffs.” And he said this in 1968.
Today, society is even more complex than that of 1968. And in order to retain the “good jobs”, and ensure that Canadian workers have the necessary skills to get these jobs in a increasingly competitive global economy, the WPP will act as a mechanism to bring business and labour together in a manner that will focus attention on the skills challenges facing Canada, and develop collaborative solutions to these challenges.
The CLBC is uniquely positioned when it comes to labour market and skills issues. As most of you know, our organization was established at the request of business and labour, and with federal funding in 1984 as a centre for dialogue and consensus building between business and labour. Since then we have developed a distinct national forum for the exchange of ideas and research on Canadian labour market and skills issues. In addition to our business and labour partners, the CLBC has also benefited from active participation on its Board of Directors by representatives of the federal, provincial and territorial governments, and from universities and colleges.
This diversity of stakeholders has allowed us to develop a balanced and constructive approach to dealing with labour market and skills issues. Consequently, we not only understand the importance of the work to be undertaken by the WPP, but we are also uniquely positioned to offer our expertise in support of its work.
Similar to the CLBC, the Workplace Partners Panel will engage business, labour, the federal government, provincial and territorial governments, sector councils, and community groups in a constructive discourse on labour market and skills issues.
However, since issues and concerns are likely to vary in each region of the country, the WPP’s method of operation will be to establish regionally structured task forces co-chaired by senior business and labour leaders. This approach will ensure that ideas and viewpoints reflect local and regional economic and demographic realities. For example, it is understood that the skills and labour market challenges facing the Atlantic Provinces are very different from those facing other parts of the country, such as Alberta, labour market strategies must be responsive and tailored to regional priorities.
This regional structure will also allow each task force to draw upon a wealth of experience from the diversity of business, labour, government, education, and community representatives within each region. The work of each regional group will, in turn, be co-ordinated through the WPP at the pan-Canadian.
The efforts of the Workplace Partners Panel will foster increased awareness around the skills agenda. This will build a sense of ownership with respect to workplace skills issues, and it will enable the WPP to leverage additional commitments to skills development and training by industry partners and from all levels of government. We are very fortunate at CLBC, not only to be establishing the WPP but also being the lead organization for the Canadian Council on Learning’s Knowledge Centre on Work and Learning. Together these initiatives can make a very big difference across the country.
The topic of the first WPP regional task forces will be the impact of the aging workforce on skill needs and skill shortages and on workers.
For as long as anyone in this room can remember, the Canadian economy has been fuelled by a steadily growing workforce. It has come to be viewed as a natural state – every year the number of available workers increases. Well, that natural state is now in transition. For the next fifteen years or so the rate of workforce growth will slow – and soon it will be closer to zero than 1% growth. Not much beyond 2020, the evidence suggests Canada will be entering a new natural state- with actual declines in the size of Canada’s workforce. By 2011, immigration will account for 100% of net workforce growth. Already we are seeing skill shortages in certain key occupations, in some sectors of the economy and in some regions.
The Workplace Partners Panel is likely to deal with critical issues such as workplace training, immigration, aboriginals in the workforce, the transition from school to work for young people, and retirement issues. The emphasis on these issues will differ from region to region.
As the Workplace Partners Panel begins its work, we have to keep in mind that the skills agenda needs to be a Pan-Canadian priority. We cannot afford to pay lip service to it and then place it on a back burner.
What Canada is potentially facing in the coming decade and beyond is not just a labour skills shortage, but a shortage of workers. We have to ask ourselves, what are we prepared to do to ensure that the workers of today and those of tomorrow have the proper skills and training to maintain Canada’s economic competitiveness, and sustain a high quality of life for its citizens?
To paraphrase a metaphor, the hall is rented, the music is playing, it’s time for us to dance or learn how to very quickly.
Thank you.
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