In Squamish, Vital Signs presents an opportunity to take stock of community issues

By Tara Ramsey

“It is easy to sit up and take notice, what is difficult is getting up and taking action” – Honore de Balzac

Vital Signs is an opportunity to take stock of key community issues. This snapshot allows us to pause and evaluate how we are doing. Communities receive information that helps determine successes and gaps in services. This focuses energy on what will hopefully result in action. Recently, I took action by joining a “food bank flash mob” which resulted in donations to those in need. I hope as Vital Signs is digested more action will transpire.

Tara Ramsey, Vital Signs committee member

Squamish’s Vital Signs reveals we are doing really well in Health and Wellness. Our obesity rate is 6.2%, which is 65.7% below the national average. Not surprising since we are known for being the “Outdoor Recreation Capital of Canada.” On the downside, our Violent Crime Rates are shocking, as we were 66.2% above the national average.

Squamish is a community in transition. Although I believe “the only constant is change” (Heraclitus), Squamish has been adapting to significant changes. It has changed from being resource-based, where now nearly one-third of occupations are in sales and service. In nine years:

- 2003 Interfor sawmill curtailed operations / closed (2004) (*-185 jobs)

- 2004 BC Rail privatization / CN Rail purchase (*-300 jobs)

- 2006 Woodfibre pulp mill closed (*-323 jobs)

- Real estate market high and low

- 2008 beginning of economic downturn

- Highway improvement / 2010 Olympics – including Pre and Post – influx of people / temporary employment

*stats: http://www.thesquamishreporter.ca/index.php?id=149

Squamish Community Foundation indicated that with financial support they would write a follow-up report. In light of all of these changes, combined with 2011 census results, I believe this would be crucial to assess our improvements.

Tara Ramsey is a Vital Signs committee member with Squamish Community Foundation

Vital Signs reveals 16 per cent of Kingston residents living below poverty line

By Vikram Varma

Kingston & Area’s 2011 Vital Signs talked about the working poor, revealing that more than one in 10 of the people using food banks have a job.

The Kingston Community Roundtable on Poverty Reduction recently released a Living Wage report for Kingston, in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. A living wage is based on the principle that full-time work should provide families with a basic level of economic security, not keep them in poverty. It is the amount needed for a family of four with two parents working full-time to pay for basic necessities, support the healthy development of their children, escape financial stress and participate in their communities.

Executive Director Vikram Varma

In Kingston, the report calculated that a living wage amounts to $16.29 an hour, for each parent working full-time, year-round jobs. This is substantially higher than the Canadian minimum wage and almost 35,000 people in Kingston’s regional labour force have yearly incomes below the annualized equivalent of minimum wage.

We at the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area realize the minimum wage is not sufficient for Kingstonians to earn a liveable income and an equitable standard of living. As a result, 16% of Kingstonians subsist below the poverty line and about 13% of Kingstonians are identified as working poor.

The Roundtable hosted a discussion on the living wage last fall featuring well known economists Don Drummond and Jim Stanford as the keynote speakers. I was happy to hear Mr. Drummond mention that one initiative that had proven results in breaking the cycle of poverty was Pathways to Education, one of the programs for which we have helped raise funds.

Vikram Varma is Executive Director at the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area

Vital Signs continues to shed light, motivate action, on physician recruitment problem in Southeastern Alberta

By Jayne Halladay

Since our first Vital Signs was issued in 2007, the Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta has reported on the lack of family physicians for our community.

Since then we have gone from about 13% of our population (12 and over) without a family physician to more than 20% in 2011.

Jayne Halladay of the Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta

For the first time, in 2010, Medicine Hat was above the national rate of 15% – at about 18% – and the rate continues to climb.

As a result of the yearly increase in our population without a family doctor, the Community Foundation convened a group of community leaders, including representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, the City of Medicine Hat and an Alberta Health Services body known as the Physician Recruitment Group, to address the growing concern.

The Physician Recruitment Group is working to enhances the efforts of Alberta Health Services recruitment efforts to highlight the quality of life in our community. The focus is not only on the doctors but their families, as well as on providing a 360-degree view of a place we hope they will call home.

Jayne Halladay is Community Impact Coordinator with the Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta

Despite favourable high-school completion rates, youth unemployment still a problem in Canada

By Judith Maxwell

Canadians can rejoice that the high school completion rates for the population over 15 have soared from 62% in 1990 to 79% in 2010, as revealed in Canada’s Vital Signs.  But broad national averages tend to hide the chronic problems faced by young people in Canada in the digital age.

One problem is the chronic underemployment of university graduates and the other is the urban and rural pockets of persistently unemployed young men who did not complete high school.  Both reflect flaws in the capacity of our labour markets to generate clear pathways to a good job.

Economics consultant Judith Maxwell

The chronic underemployment of university graduates was highlighted in a report by CPRN and the OECD in 2005.  Patrice de Broucker found that one-third of 25 to 29-year-old graduates in Canada were working in low-skill occupations in 2002 – a period when the economy was strong and  employment conditions were favourable. Only Spain topped that rate at the time.  The other 22 countries in the study reported less than 20% of graduates in low-skill work, mainly because they graduated with more work-related skills.

Since the recession in 2008, graduates have faced extraordinary competition for jobs.  They count themselves lucky to get any job.  Many are serving in a bar or restaurant, working retail or manning the reception desk for a company or non-profit –not the jobs they were aiming for after university.  We told them that if they played by the rules and got a degree, they would have a ticket to a good life.  But these are not jobs that develop new skills and these are not employers who can promise a promotion to a good job.

Meanwhile, drop-outs face chronic unemployment and life at the margins of society.  These young people are highly concentrated in poor urban neighbourhoods or in rural or remote areas – it’s not unusual to see a neighbourhood population where drop-outs exceed 70%.  And the most likely victims are children of recent immigrants and aboriginal Canadians.  Dr. Paul Cappon, President of the Canadian Council on Learning, points to the dearth of apprenticeship training programs in high schools. But these young people also experience deep poverty, weak community and parental supports and racial bias – all of which erase any hope of a better life

So we too have our lost generation – young men (mostly) who are not in trades, not in school, not working and without hope.  Excellent programs – like Pathways to Education – create hope by overcoming the systemic barriers faced by these young people. And Pathways is now making a difference in 11 communities. Many more communities need to step up to the plate.

 Judith Maxwell is an economics consultant and founding President of Canadian Policy Research Networks

 

Community Foundation a catalyst for youth employment and engagement

It’s a drain that needs to be plugged.

“Vital Signs 2009 identified declining numbers in young adults living on the coast, due to lack of employment, affordable housing, child care and community amenities,” says Don Basham, Board Secretary of the Sunshine Coast Community Foundation..

The area, a 40-minute ferry ride from Metro Vancouver, had a median age of 50.4 in 2010 – much higher than the provincial median age of 40.8.

Silas White has used Sunshine Coast's Vital Signs data to engage other young people in his community. Photo by Claudia Ferris.

So the Community Foundation convened a meeting of stakeholders, who then formed a taskforce to come up with a plan for attracting, keeping and engaging young people. That group has now birthed an organization, known as VOICE on the Coast, made up of young people.

“They’ve had very good discussions with local government about economic development, and they’ve got people on board and excited,” says Basham.

One member, Silas White, a 33-year-old father of two, says the Vital Signs findings “gave the issue a voice, in a very credible and data-driven matter.”

He decided to do his Master’s thesis in Public Administration on the issue of attracting, retaining and engaging young adults in the area.

Basham says he believes many of White’s recommendations – a strategic online presence, promotion of coordinated economic development – will be implemented.

As well, the Community Foundation has added a page to its Vital Signs 2011 Report called Young Adults, focused strictly on these issues.

Supporting immigrants to get Canadian credentials – is it worth it?

By Dianne Fehr

An accountant with a Master’s degree, Abdulhameed had a very successful career before he came to Canada. He held many senior positions, including one with a significant North American oil and gas company with operations in Libya. Fleeing the volatility and war in their home country of Iraq, Abdulhameed and his family immigrated to Canada in 2005.

Abdulhameed worked hard to settle his young family in Calgary, and spent most of the family’s savings to do so. Unable to find work as an accountant because he didn’t have Canadian training or experience, he worked as a clerk at a convenience store for minimum wage.

Abdulhameed knew his best chance to escape his survival job was to get Canadian training in his field of accounting. On his minimum wage income, though, the $550 fee for each course was impossible.

Thankfully, Abdulhameed learned about the Immigrant Access Fund, a micro loan program that helps immigrants living in Alberta with the costs of obtaining the Canadian accreditation or training they need in order to work in their pre-immigration occupation. An Immigrant Access Fund micro loan made it possible for him to register for the accounting classes he needed.

Abdulhameed completed only two accounting classes before being hired by a Calgary energy company. His starting wage was $40 an hour.

When he earned minimum wage, Abdulhameed paid neither federal nor provincial income tax because he didn’t earn more than the basic personal exemption amount.

Earning $40 an hour, he would pay about $12,000 in income tax in his first year alone. Abdulhameed eventually obtained a Canadian accounting designation. As a young professional with an income that is sure to grow, Abdulhameed’s contribution to Canada’s prosperity during his working life will be significant.

This week, Community Foundations of Canada released its Canada’s Vital Signs 2010 report, which highlights the fact that immigrants with university degrees are much more likely to be unemployed than their Canadian-born counterparts. Clearly, Canada is not optimizing the economic potential of these highly educated workers.

As a taxpayer, I would like every immigrant like Abdulhameed to have employment commensurate with his or her skills and experience. I want them to pay tax, be active consumers, and contribute to their communities. The Immigrant Access Fund and hundreds of other organizations across Canada – including the immigrant employment councils that are springing up in many communities – are coming up with innovative ways to help skilled immigrants become job-ready, supporting employers as they adopt inclusive hiring practices and diverse workplaces, and encouraging regulatory bodies to be open and accepting of their internationally educated/trained colleagues.

Given the tremendous rate of return Canada realizes when people move from minimum wage to full employment, it only makes sense to ensure that this happens. Under very conservative estimates, the rate of return on the public funds that help support the Immigrant Access Fund’s work is 33% (more for high-earning occupations). I expect that any program that results in immigrants working at their potential would see a similar return.

Fully integrating Canada’s immigrants into our workforce is not an impossible dream; Immigrant Access Fund is doing it one micro loan at a time. I know from dealing with recipients of Immigrant Access Fund loans that skilled immigrants are highly motivated to succeed and willing to do what it takes. They sometimes need a bit of help, and it is in everyone’s best interest that we support them when they do.

Dianne Fehr is Executive Director of the Immigrant Access Fund Society of Alberta.

Mentoring: An Important Strategy to Open the Canadian Labour Market to New Immigrants

By Peter Paul

While recent immigrants to Canada are more highly educated than previous cohorts and the Canadian-born, they earn lower wages and have more difficulties entering the labour market. At a time when we are competing in a global economy, Canada has clearly not leveraged this talent into innovation and productivity.

As we saw with the release of Canada’s Vital Signs 2010 earlier this week, recent immigrants with a university education had an unemployment rate that was 4.1 times higher (13.9%) that that of Canadian-born workers with a university degree (3.4%), according to 2009 data.

There is no doubt immigrants to Canada are unemployed and underemployed. About 65% who arrived in the 1990s experienced a low-income period, and about one-fifth had chronic low incomes. In the most recent recession, immigrants were disproportionally affected.  Many of the newly unemployed were immigrants who had taken jobs in the manufacturing sector because their skills and experience were not recognized in Canada. They now find themselves even further from their original career goals.

One of the main factors that explains the gap between employment rates for recent skilled immigrants and their Canadian-born counterparts is the lack of social and professional networks that new immigrants have in their new home.

Now that the economy is hopefully improving, this means that they have no access to the hidden job market, including job openings that are not advertised. Depending on where they worked and how long they’ve been in the country, recent immigrants may also lack an understanding of the Canadian workplace culture and find it hard to have their international qualifications recognized.

However, more and more community organizations and employers offer programs to overcome these deficits. In particular, mentoring has shown itself to be a proven strategy as it connects a skilled immigrant with an established Canadian professional in the same or related occupation.

It’s not just the mentee who benefits – it’s a two-way street. Mentees benefit by the expert advice and connections that mentors provide – it is their bridge to becoming Canadian professionals. Mentor benefit by developing their leadership and coaching skills in addition to enhancing their ability to lead diverse teams.

The success of mentoring is demonstrable. In a study of The Mentoring Partnership in Toronto, you can see the difference that mentoring made to the individuals who participated:

o Almost 80% of mentees found work;
o There was a 67% increase in income for the mentee; and
o 95% of all mentors said they would hire a skilled immigrant.

A mentoring program is also advantageous to the participating employers. Among other benefits, it:

o Helps identify hidden talent by bringing employers in touch with qualified candidates;
o Provides a learning opportunity for staff ; and
o Recognizes volunteerism and helps gain greater visibility in the community.

To learn more about mentoring, visit http://www.alliescanada.ca/how-we-can-help/mentoring/.

Peter Paul is the project leader of ALLIES, a project jointly funded by Maytree and The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. ALLIES (Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies) supports local efforts in Canadian cities to successfully adapt and implement programs that further the suitable employment of skilled immigrants. For more information, visit the website at http://www.alliescanada.ca.

Unemployment four times higher among university-educated newcomers, says national report card

OTTAWA (Oct. 5, 2010) – Despite the fact that Canada will soon rely on immigration to replenish its shrinking labour force, newcomers with professional credentials are suffering unacceptably high unemployment rates, in comparison to non-immigrants with the same level of education, says Canada’s Vital Signs 2010, the annual report card on quality of life from Community Foundations of Canada.

In 2009, recent immigrants (lived in Canada for five years and less) with a university education had an unemployment rate that was 4.1 times higher (13.9%) than that of Canadian-born workers with a university degree (3.4%).

“It’s disheartening to see such a significant gap among well-educated newcomers; their experience in our labour market is dramatically different than that of non-immigrants with a comparable education level,” said Monica Patten, President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada.

“Integrating newcomers into our workplaces is a necessity, not an option – our country is going to rely on immigrants for all of our net labour force growth as early as next year. We need to act now,” said Dianne Fehr, Executive Director of the Immigrant Access Fund Society of Alberta.

The Immigrant Access Fund offers micro-loans to immigrants to assist them in their quest to obtain the Canadian accreditation or training they need to become gainfully employed in the career field established in their countries of origin. The fund was supported by The Calgary Foundation, one of the more than 170 community foundations in Canada.

“The majority of loan applicants are working in jobs well below their capabilities, simply in order to survive,” said Fehr.

Other issues raised in Canada’s Vital Signs 2010, a snapshot of how Canadian communities are faring in 10 key areas:

• Canadians who moved from renting to home ownership due to low interest rates are now carrying a great deal of debt and may find themselves struggling with only a small increase in mortgage rates. In 2008, the average price of a house in Canada was $303,607 and the median family income was $73,500, giving a housing price-to-income ratio of 4.13. That’s compared to a national ratio of 3.20 just a decade ago.
• The supply of doctors is rising, and more are women. The physician supply rate (number of physicians per 1,000 persons) has increased 6.5% since 1997.
• Since the early 1990s, greenhouse gas emissions from personal vehicles have risen by almost onethird. Transportation currently produces a quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Fifteen Local Reports Released Today
Vital Signs is part of a growing nation-wide initiative by Canadian community foundations to measure quality of life and take action to improve it. Today, 15 local Vital Signs report cards are being released by community foundations across Canada. A full list of this year’s participants and their local reports can be found at www.vitalsignscanada.ca.

Watch for the release of the Vital Signs 2010 National Public Opinion Survey, commissioned by Community Foundations of Canada and conducted by the Environics Research Group, on Mon, Oct. 18.

About Community Foundations
Canada’s 170 community foundations are local charitable foundations that help Canadians invest in building strong and resilient places to live, work, and play. They are one of the largest supporters of Canadian charities, providing $140 million to local organizations in 2009. Find out more at www.cfc-fcc.ca.

Teachers use Vital Signs to connect classrooms with communities

This fall, the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF) will be launching a project called Imagineaction that supports student-driven social action movements.

As part of this project, CTF will be producing teacher resources for all grade levels that provide ideas for using Vital Signs reports from Community Foundations of Canada to determine a starting point for social action projects.

Vital Signs reports are useful starting points for social action projects. They encourage educators to think about our communities in relation to national findings. These reports present facts regarding 10 key issues: work, gap between rich and poor, getting started, health, learning, housing, belonging and leadership, safety, environment, and arts and culture.

Teachers can identify which of the 10 key issues are most relevant to their curriculum or, alternatively, teachers can use all 10 key issues to help students explore their own community.

What I like about CTF’s resource is that it acknowledges that social action projects are most successful when students are highly involved in making decisions about the project, including the initial scope and direction.

It has been my experience that students are deeply interested in their communities, as well as other communities in Canada. Last year, my Grade 12 students in rural Nova Scotia explored issues in our local community and then visited a contrasting community in northern Alberta.

They published a book called 21st Century Communities: A Youth Inquiry Project and produced a documentary called Questions to Learn: A Youth Inquiry Project. This project was initiated by my students and was a response to their desire to think about their roles in current and future communities.  I am excited to bring additional resources about communities to my classroom, knowing how information about our communities, such as Vital Signs reports, might be used in classrooms and to help young people think about social action.

Social action can take different forms in our schools. It might be as focused as an awareness activity with a small group of students in one class, to as broad as an extra-curricular club that accomplishes year-long projects. It is important to note that one social-action activity can lead to another, that it can foster projects that include a wider community involvement, or that it can produce multiple initiatives to support a community.

Regardless of the scope of the initial interest, CTF’s Imagineaction resource will offer ideas to help teachers and students use Vital Signs reports to determine a starting point for social action.

Steven Van Zoost, PhD, teaches at Avon View High School in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Find out more at http://www.stevenvanzoost.com

Young workers highly vulnerable in our unsettled economy

Throughout the month of October the Vital Signs Canada blog will feature guest bloggers who are experts on various aspects of community vitality. Today’s contributor is Dr. Sharon Manson Singer, President and CEO of Canadian Policy Research Networks.

Collaboration between public and private sectors the key to enhancing youth employment

The recent Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) Vital Signs report on youth unemployment highlights that young workers (ages 15-24) are particularly vulnerable when economic times get tough.  According to the report, the youth unemployment rate stands at 16.3% — a staggering figure which is expected to grow faster than unemployment in the general population.  For those youth lucky enough to be employed, the average work hours per week (a meager 23.4) are the lowest in more than 30 years. 

Youth have always been some of the most vulnerable workers in our society and often get left behind in policies and programs designed to enhance job skills, training and employment.  Last year, Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN) published a series of research papers entitled, Pathways for Youth to the Labour Market  which examines how young people in Canada navigate from school to the labour market, and the outcomes associated with taking different paths.  Our research found that Canadian youth often take a non-linear route to the labour market, taking time off from their studies or switching educational programs – a reality our government and school training and employment-readiness programs do not always accommodate. 

CPRN research confirms that graduates of post-secondary education (university, college and trades programs) are more likely to be employed and earn more than those who only have a high school diploma, high school dropouts, and even those who temporarily take a break from high school (but later graduate).  This means that the link between education and employment is critical, and that career development programs and services that can increase educational attainment for Canadian youth, and help ready young people for the jobs that match their interests and skills, are paramount. 

Unfortunately we found that career development services for youth in Canada are (with some notable exceptions) largely fragmented, inconsistently funded, piecemeal and difficult for young Canadians to access.  We also found that much more needs to be done to encourage an emphasis on a vocational curriculum in high schools, and to enable partnerships between schools (secondary and post-secondary) and employers, and to strengthen co-operative and apprenticeship programs in the public and private sectors.

Our research series highlights opportunities for schools and governments to expand and coordinate resources between regions to enhance learning pathways for Canadian youth, and highlights the need for a national career development strategy for youth or national standards for service quality and provision.  But governments are not the only players. 

CPRN research also highlights the important place of business and the labour movement in career training and guidance.  In our Youth Dialogue on learning and work, more than 140 youth from across Canada told us that they feel they did not have the appropriate information about the array of careers open to them.  They called for more, and better, information on both employment and educational opportunities, including entrepreneurial paths and the trades.  Canada falls well below other developed countries on employer investment in workplace learning – so there is an opportunity here. The private sector in partnership with schools and governments could work together to help accommodate this need and better prepare Canadian youth for the labour market. 

Canada will soon experience a significant inter-generational transfer of employees with a large outflow of baby boomers from the labour force; at the same time, Canada will require a highly skilled labour force to compete in today’s global markets.  Increasing resources and attention to targeted youth education, training and employment programs will have lasting benefits for the Canadian economy as a whole.  If we are to increase our productivity as a country we cannot afford to let this generation drift off.  This is not just about their future, but our future as well. 

Dr. Sharon Manson Singer is the President of Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN), a leading non-partisan think tank providing socio-economic policy research and engagement to Canadian leaders.  Follow CPRN on http://twitter.com/CanadianPolicy. 

www.jobquality.ca

To assist youth, and others, to navigate through the labour market, CPRN runs the website  JobQuality.ca which is sponsored by governments, labour and the private sector alike, and provides information on the quality of jobs in Canada.  Site information includes news articles and reports, interviews and online surveys, as well as job quality indicators on such issues as work-life balance, job security, job design, pay