The Needs of the Labour Market, Employers & Employees Must be Reflected in Senate Committees

On November 1, 2022 Senator Omidvar spoke to Senator Bellemare’s motion that a Special Senate Committee on Human Capital and the Labour Market be appointed until the end of the current session, to which may be referred matters relating to human capital, labour markets, and employment generally. Watch her speech:

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, I rise today to support the motion by Senator Bellemare to create the special human capital committee in the Senate.

The labour market, employers and employees are the engine of our economy and the bedrock of our prosperity. In 2021, 15.4 million Canadians were employed full time. Their needs, along with the perspectives of industry, sectors and regions must be reflected in our committee structure. They need a primary place for deliberation in the committee context.

Currently in the Senate, these priorities, such as those we have debated here — gig work, the evolution of the labour market or the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on the future of work — receive, at best, a passing glance.

Recently, we have had quite a few debates on EI, and the necessity for EI reform has been made clear to many of us. We are also beset by significant labour market shortages by sector, region and season. These issues, colleagues, are not an afterthought. They are in the mainstream.

I therefore agree completely with Senator Bellemare and other members of the Rules Committee about the need to launch such an effort.

Form follows function, as we have all heard, but in the Senate’s case, we need the form, structure and arrangements to bring us to wisdom.

Colleagues, so much in the world of work has changed in the last three decades. People no longer get a job and stay in it for life. Entire labour market sectors have been washed out and replaced by others. Apparently, if you’re a social media influencer, you are in the highest demand category, while mainstays in our economy, such as manufacturing, are in steep decline, succumbing to globalization and automation. For some, it is the best of times; for others, it is the worst.

The rate and pace of change is furious, and who knows — it may change again if reshoring becomes a reality.

Nowhere else is this clearer than in the world of the gig economy. Statistics Canada has noticed this particular type of work arrangement — “gig work,” as we call it — has increased by 70% to 1.7 million workers. The average wage of a gig worker is about $4,000.

Now $4,000 is great if it’s a side gig you do on the weekends or in the evenings to supplement your income, but I think we all know what $4,000 means if that is your only source of income.

These are serious matters, colleagues, and our arrangements in the Senate must reflect evolving matters of national urgency. A committee on human capital will also necessarily intersect with immigration. We have labour market shortages that we aim to fill with immigration. We have little predictability for employers because it takes so long to get a work permit. We have variable routes for different regions and sectors and so-called high-skilled and low-skilled workers. I believe that this new committee will be well placed to give due attention to this matter, because the largest proportion of immigrants who come into the country — and, as I noted today, soon up to 500,000 a year — will be attached to the labour market. But there are remaining parts of the immigration context such as social cohesion, social inclusion, the rights of immigrants, citizenship and racism, and these should all stay with social affairs.

These are very important subjects for nation building. I point this out because I don’t want there to be any miscommunication on my part that all of immigration should be covered by the human capital committee — absolutely not.

Colleagues, I also support the creation of this committee because I believe that this would be the small first test and little step on the way to rethinking the entire committee structure.

Although we have added new committees over time, we need to rethink mandates and structures. I have been Chair of the Social Affairs, Science and Technology Committee for just a year, but I have been a member of the committee for almost four years. That committee, just to take it as an example, has a wide mandate: Social Affairs, Science and Technology. We therefore cover — or should cover — space, physics, chemistry, the health of Canadians, youth, women, LGBTQ2+ communities, the disadvantaged, the disabled, students and education, social cohesion, the labour market and multiculturalism. Senator Seidman will tell me what else I am missing from this list.

This committee also receives a significant amount of government legislation and more and more private legislation from both the Senate and the House of Commons.

I want to underscore the importance of studies from Senate committees, but in particular from the Senate Social Affairs Committee. I want us to remember the Kirby Reports on mental health, which led to the creation of the Mental Health Commission of Canada. I want us to remember the report on autism, Pay Now or Pay Later, which is finally getting its day in Bill S-203. Also remember, colleagues, the reports on poverty, housing, disability and homelessness that have led successive governments, regardless of political stripe, to implement their recommendations.

In more recent times, I remember the study on social finance, which led to the announcement of the Social Finance Fund.

These are just a few examples, but I want to underline that the power and longevity of the Senate lives and breathes in Senate studies.

I also want to address another part of the mandate of the Social Affairs Committee, which rarely gets attention, and this is science and technology. I believe this is a separate stream of knowledge and discourse and, as a general topic, should be removed from the Social Affairs Committee. Science, in its general form, including basic science, rarely gets studied at our committee. Certainly, in the past — and Senator Petitclerc will remember this — the committee has studied artificial intelligence in health care and prescription pharmaceuticals, which incorporated science, but they are related to health and are not what we would call basic science.

However, the committee has not studied general science for over a decade, colleagues.

In 2008, the committee completed a report called Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage. It was a report that looked at the federal government’s science strategy. However, given the broad range of matters that we are faced with, some things just dropped. In that context, general science has fallen victim to overload. That is a shame. Science is a very present force in our lives, and a new committee that had science more narrowly in its crosshairs would be far more appropriate and necessary.

These changes would allow the Senate Social Affairs Committee to focus on health and social affairs, including the science of health. Should these changes be followed through, the Social Affairs, Science and Technology Committee would become the social affairs and health committee.

I speak for myself as an individual senator. I am Chair of the Social Affairs, Science and Technology Committee, but please don’t misunderstand that I’m speaking on behalf of my committee — not at all. I’m speaking just for myself.

I should add that one of my other frustrations is with committee schedules. I know we have to make a choice of which committees we sit on, but because of the inflexibility of the schedules — and we have readopted the previous committee schedule — it becomes impossible, every now and then, to go to a committee that competes with the slot that you are assigned. I would appreciate some flexibility in the committee schedules as well to allow for cross-fertilization.

I know that these are longer-term projects, but they are extremely important for the future of the Senate.

I believe that starting on this one small step and creating a time-limited human capital committee is an important experiment, and I wish it well. Thank you, colleagues.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Patterson, do you have a question?

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Yes please, if I may.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Omidvar, do you wish to answer a question?

Senator Omidvar: Always.

Senator Patterson: Senator Omidvar, thank you for your speech. I have a bit of experience with special committees because Senator Watt and I managed to engineer a special committee through the Senate on the Arctic. The question then was — and I’m not at all speaking against your motion — are the resources available to add a committee? Are the support services available, and is there time in the schedule?

I just wondered if you have had a chance to explore that with the Senate.

Senator Omidvar: Thank you, Senator Patterson, for that question. That is, in fact, the million-dollar question that we may have to grapple with. But, Senator Patterson, my name is Omidvar which means “hope” in Persian. I think where there is a will, there is a way. There must be a will around this question of reform and restructure. I believe that you, too, are a reformist. I, too, have experience on a special Senate committee. I watched Senator Mercer so brilliantly engineer its creation. I don’t think we need to leave it up to political efforts by one or two senators — successful as they may have been.

Senator Bellemare has put this motion on the floor in a thoughtful way. It has been discussed; it has been hammered out at the Rules Committee. I am pretty sure that they have had conversations with the Senate administration, or they are in conversation with them. I will rest on my premise: Where there is a will, there must be a way. Thank you.