News Release

QUEBEC (GNB) – Provincial and territorial labour market ministers met with their federal counterpart this week to discuss the improvement of labour market information, the harmonization of apprenticeship training and the recognition of job credentials for internationally trained workers.

The discussions were part of a meeting of the Forum of Labour Market Ministers held in Quebec City and attended by Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour Minister Francine Landry.

“We discussed several topics at this week’s meeting that are crucial to moving New Brunswick forward and building our economy,” said Landry. “Our discussions demonstrated that the labour market information that we gather in New Brunswick is essential to ensure students, parents and governments have the highest quality data to inform their decisions. Accurate labour market information will also help to connect employers with job seekers and vice versa.”

Decisions made included:

• creating a Labour Market Information Council;

• accelerating the harmonization of Red Seal apprenticeship training; and

• working with regulators to establish more ambitious timelines for international qualification recognition.

The ministers agreed to work together on several important labour market issues, including the following:

Labour market information

Recognizing that timely, reliable, comprehensive and easily accessible labour market information is critical to determining and continuing to meet labour market needs, the ministers endorsed the creation of a new Labour Market Information Council and a complementary new national stakeholder advisory panel. Through this approach, governments and stakeholders will work together to ensure all Canadians, including students, businesses, workers and educators, have access to the unbiased information they need to make decisions.

Following approval of a business plan by the ministers, this initiative will complement existing labour market information activities from across the country. The new council will work to ensure that the information is comprehensive, meets recognized standards and reflects local labour market realities and needs, while also supporting the development and promotion of a new collaborative platform for disseminating labour market information.

Apprenticeship

Provincial and territorial apprenticeship systems are training the skilled tradespeople needed for the economy of today and tomorrow.

The ministers welcomed the significant progress made on harmonizing apprenticeship training in Red Seal trades and announced that a first group of 10 trades will be harmonized by September 2016 in most jurisdictions. Building on these successes, the ministers announced an ambitious new target of harmonizing a total of 30 Red Seal trades in most jurisdictions by 2020, with the exception of Quebec. As part of this plan, the provinces, territories and the federal government will work with industries to harmonize training for two-thirds of Red Seal apprentices by 2017.

The ministers agreed to adopt a collaborative approach to improve employer engagement in apprenticeship. Collaboration will focus on improving the complementarity and co-ordination of programs, leveraging resources and experiences across governments, as well as sharing information and best practices.

Qualification recognition

The federal government is committed to continue supporting the initiative to seek results for faster and fairer credential recognition to internationally trained workers. Recognizing that responses are often provided more quickly, the ministers committed to working with regulators toward more ambitious timelines and to speed up the labour market integration of newcomers through enhanced pre-decision information and pre-arrival credential assessment.

Canada Job Grant

The governments agree on the importance of engaging employers in training systems as a way to improve their labour markets. The provinces and territories have worked within the national parameters of the Canada Job Grant to design programs to address their regional and local labour market needs. With the Canada Job Grant now in its second year of implementation, the ministers took the opportunity to take stock of its progress to date.

They also confirmed their commitment to conduct a formal review of the grant following the first year of implementation, and reaffirmed their desire to have a report submitted to the forum in December that will evaluate whether it is meeting its objectives and if changes to the parameters are necessary.

The forum was established in 1983 as an intergovernmental forum aimed at strengthening co-operation on the labour market priorities of the provinces, the territories and Canada.