Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present to you Employment and Social Development Canada's contribution to the economic situation of official language minority communities.

ESDC's mission is to build a stronger and more competitive Canada, to support Canadians in making choices that help them live productive and rewarding lives and to improve Canadians' quality of life. To do this, our department helps Canadians through all stages of their lives, including families with children, youth, working-aged adults and seniors.

ESDC plays an important role in supporting economic development of Canadian communities, including official language minority communities, through its efforts to support a skilled and adaptable labour force and an efficient, well-functioning labour market.

The department achieves this through many well-known programs that, among other things, encourage savings for post-secondary education through the Canada education savings program; reduce financial barriers through Canada student loans and grants; provide support for a variety of training programs both by means of direct delivery and by working with provinces and territories.

Many of the department's recent efforts have been focused on strengthening the linkages between the training and employment supports provided by governments and the needs of local businesses and employers. And, in particular, more directly directing these training efforts to high-demand fields that have a strong likelihood of leading to current and future jobs.

Recent federal budgets have reiterated the intent to refocus existing labour market transfers to the provinces and territories in order to encourage a greater degree of involvement of employers. These programs include the next generation of labour market agreements, labour market development agreements, and the labour market agreements for persons with disabilities, as well as the introduction of new measures such as the Canada job grant.

An area of particular focus has been the skilled trades. ESDC recognizes that the skilled trades are critical to Canada's economic growth and long-term prosperity. A number of ESDC measures support apprentices in their training and encourage employers to hire apprentices.

The department is working to implement the Canada apprentice loan that was announced in budget 2014 to provide apprentices registered in Red Seal trades with access to over $100 million in interest-free loans each year.

In order to improve the apprenticeship system, budget 2014 announced plans to introduce the flexibility and innovation in apprenticeship technical training pilot project aimed at reducing non-financial barriers and allowing apprentices to complete training and obtain certification.

Helping youth make the transition to the workforce is also an important departmental objective. Although Canada has high levels of post-secondary achievement, the transition to a first job can be challenging. Young graduates often lack opportunities to gain the workplace experience and skills necessary to find and retain jobs.

ESDC is improving the youth employment strategy by aligning it with the evolving realities of the job market and by ensuring that federal investments in youth employment provide young Canadians with real-life work experience in high-demand fields such as science, technology, engineering, mathematics and the skilled trades.

Older workers can face specific challenges in smaller communities across the country. ESDC is expanding the targeted initiative for older workers program. The program is a federal-provincial/territorial cost-shared initiative that assists unemployed older workers in communities affected by ongoing high unemployment, significant downsizing and business closures.

Information also plays an important role in a well-functioning labour market. ESDC will be launching an enhanced job matching service to ensure that Canadians have access to information on available jobs according to skills and location. Registered job seekers and employers will be automatically matched on the basis of skills, knowledge and experience.

Literacy and essential skills can pose a barrier to initial entry or to mobility within the labour market. While provinces and territories have primary responsibility for basic education, the department has an Office of Literacy and Essential Skills that acts as a national centre of expertise with a focus on working with partners and stakeholders to influence systemic change that will lead to better labour market participation and more productive workplaces.

The Office of Literacy and Essential Skills delivers approximately $26 million per year in grants and contributions to a range of funding recipients. Part of this funding is targeted specifically to official language minority communities. In 2013-14, the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills supported six organizations working with OLMCs.

Now I would like to take a few moments to speak to you about a specific departmental initiative that plays an important role across the Government of Canada in community, economic, and human resource development.

The enabling fund for official language minority communities is ESDC's main contribution under the road map for official languages and an important part of the government-wide strategy for official languages and linguistic duality. Launched in 2005, the enabling fund and its predecessor, the support fund, represent a sustained effort to enable community-wide economic development and to grow the economic advantages of linguistic duality.

The current initiative is an investment of $69 million over the course of the road map to support the operations and activities of the pan-Canadian network of 14 professional organizations, with 135 employees working at 50 different locations across the country. Recipient organizations support and operate under the direction of boards of directors composed of volunteers and business and community leaders. This allows for strong public-private partnership approaches and an ability to tailor solutions to the needs of communities. Some of these organizations have recently appeared before this committee, as you're aware.

Serving Canada's francophones and official language minority communities are the

Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité Canada,

which is the national coordinating body, and 12 provincial and territorial RDÉE network organizations serving francophone and Acadian minority communities across Canada. Serving Quebec's English-speaking population is the Community Economic Development and Employability Corporation.

The role of the enabling fund and of the recipient organizations stems from their ability to provide expertise for the development of local and community-owned strategies to use and help develop economic potential in official language minority communities, to forge partnerships at all levels, and to consolidate resources.

These organizations leverage about $2 for every $1 invested through the enabling fund program. They also provide an infrastructure to deliver programming, services, and initiatives in OLMCs. Communities with strong economies attract and retain investment, provide stable employment opportunities, bring in new residents, and retain their youth. The enabling fund is built on the principle that opportunities for development exist in OLMCs. The program provides these communities with local capacity and leadership so that the communities can realize their growth potential from within.

Organizations offer a range of economic development and employability activities and services for job seekers, employers, and entrepreneurs. They also develop and broker partnerships with a range of organizations to design and deliver responsive initiatives. The funding provided ensures the financial stability of the economic development networks and allows linguistic minority communities to make long-term plans. Activities conducted by the enabling fund organizations are diverse and the program design provides communities with the flexibility to tailor their actions to meet the specific needs of the communities they serve. Priorities and types of interventions also vary from community to community given the variety of circumstances, which you can appreciate.

The enabling fund organizations hold regular engagement sessions where community members share their views. Participation is at the heart of what the program is about, since community members have significant knowledge about the assets and needs of the community.

The enabling fund recipient organizations also get direction on priorities from their respective boards of directors. This is a unique approach that supports strong community and private sector partnerships.

The road map reiterated the importance of the enabling fund and set out a direction to strengthen the focus on identifying targets and measuring progress and on increasing the proportion of resources leveraged from the private sector.

The importance of the enabling fund for official language minority communities is consistently raised in discussions with community members and representative organizations.

I would like to thank you again for this opportunity, and my colleague and I would be pleased to respond to questions.

Thank you.

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