Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Patrick: Welcome to Premier Kathleen Wynne's first Google Hangout. Bienvenue au premier
Google Hangout de la premier ministre de l'Ontario Kathleen Wynne. The point of today's Google
Hangout is to talk about the government's Youth Job Strategy. I'm very excited to be
a part of the discussion, and I'd like to welcome the five high schools joining us today.
Up first, we have Cardinal Leger Secondary in Brampton. Say "hi", guys!
Cardinal Leger: Hi! Premier Wynne: Hi, Cardinal Leger.
Patrick: We also have St. Mary's Catholic Secondary in Cobourg. Smile guys, you're on
camera! St. Mary's: [cheering]
Patrick: We have St. Patrick's high school in Ottawa. Say "hi" guys.
St. Patrick's: Hi! Premier Wynne: Hi, St. Patrick's.
Patrick: And we have Georgian Bay Secondary. Say "hi" guys.
Georgian Bay: Hi! Patrick: And we have St. Joseph's College
in Toronto. Say "hi" guys. St. Joseph's: Hi!
Patrick: Oh, very enthusiastic. [laughter] So it's not every day that you get to ask
the Premier questions directly, so I hope you take advantage of this unique opportunity.
Now, I'd like to welcome the Premier, who's standing by live at her office in Queen's
Park. Welcome, Premier Wynne! Premier Wynne: Thank you so much Patrick,
and thank you to all of these students. Bonjour, merci beaucoup and thank you so much for joining
this conversation. I'm looking forward to your questions, I'm looking forward to hearing
your points of view. And, as Patrick said, this is my first ever Google Hangout, so,
you know, we just have to be patient with each other. I've never done this before, but
I'm looking forward to a good conversation. Yesterday we announced our Youth Jobs Strategy,
which has a number of parts to it. Some of you are involved in specialist high skills
majors, I know. And when I was Minister of Education actually we set up the specialist
high skills majors and this Youth Jobs Strategy really builds on a lot of the work that we've
done in the past, and makes connections between young people and the work force. And I think
government can have an important role to play in that, and I look forward to hearing your
specific questions and telling you some more about the program.
Patrick: Thanks a lot, Premier. We're actually going to take a question from our first school,
which is Cardinal Leger Secondary in Brampton. Cardinal Leger: Good afternoon, Premier.
Premier Wynne: Good afternoon, how are you? Cardinal Leger: I'm good, how are you?
Premier Wynne: Good. Cardinal Leger: My name is Alexandria and
my question for you is "I have been putting my specialist high skills major in hospitality
on my resume, and when I apply for jobs, no one has heard of it. How is the government
going to help create more awareness of the program?"
Premier Wynne: Well, as I said -- I think this is a great question. The question about
how do we make sure that employers know about the specialist high skills major? And when
I think about our jobs strategy for young people, I want us to have a seamless path
for young people, to the greatest extent possible, so making sure that employers are connected
to the programs that we've developed in government is very much a part of this strategy. So,
Ontario.ca/youthjobs is where we're gathering all of this information together so that young
people, guidance counsellors, parents, employers can get information about what's available.
And part of that is the specialist high skills majors. Because the hospitality high skills
major that you're a part of can lead you into employment, and that was the whole point of
it. So we're trying to gather together all this information and make it available to
people. Cardinal Leger: Okay, thank you.
Premier Wynne: You're welcome, and good for you for taking the program, and you will have
on your diploma when you graduate, you'll have information that demonstrates the skills
that you developed, so I hope that's valuable in your future.
Cardinal Leger: Thank you. Cardinal Leger student 1: Good afternoon Premier
Wynne. Premier Wynne: Good afternoon, how are you?
Cardinal Leger student 2: I'm good. My name is China. My question for you is "what can
I do to help the government help me in my culinary career?"
Premier Wynne: What can you do to help the government help you? Well, that's a great
question, and I think that one of the things that you can do is exactly what you're doing
today, which is: give us feedback. As Patrick said, it doesn't happen that frequently that
we can have a direct conversation, but you can talk to the teachers, the guidance counsellors,
the people in your community, and give them feedback about what supports you think you
need, and that information is really, really valuable to us. One of the reasons that I'm
doing things like this is to get the kind of feedback that you might be able to give
and you might be able to give that feedback and nobody else can! Because you are in your
community, you've got your particular life of experience, you know what's available to
you. So I'd like to just, let me turn it back on you and say - has the careers course, for
example, have you done the careers course yet in high school?
Cardinal Leger student 2: Yes, I have. Premier Wynne: And did you find it helpful
or not so useful? And you can perfectly honest about that!
Cardinal Leger student 2: It actually was very useful!
Premier Wynne: And what was it that was useful about it?
Cardinal Leger student 2: It let me explore the career that we possibly may want, and
also get another's feedback on everything[inaudible] help you with your finance and what things
will cost for tuition and what kind of schooling you'd need etcetera.
Premier Wynne: So did you get some financial literacy as a part of that course?
Cardinal Leger student 2: Yes m'am. Premier Wynne: Fantastic. See, that's the
kind of feedback that we need. So any time you can find a way to give feedback to your
school or to politicians, that's really, really helpful to us.
Cardinal Leger student 2: Thank you. Premier Wynne: Good to talk to you.
Cardinal Leger student 2: Thank you. Patrick: Thanks, Cardinal Leger. We're now
going to take questions from the next school, which is St. Mary's Catholic Secondary in
Cobourg. St. Mary Student 1: My name is ... and I'm
involved with the Specialist High Skills Major in dual credit programs. And my question to
the Premier is according to Statistics Canada According to statistics Canada, women make
up only 5% of skilled trades people and that number has steadily declined from 17% in 1992.
Women make up only 3% of the apprentices in training and only 1.7% of those complete the
process. How will the government of Ontario work with young women and trades people to
ensure internships and opportunities are made available.
Premier Wynne: It's one of the things that concerns me when I go into shops or I go into
work places or when I was minister of Transportation, when I would go onto job sites, there's a
real gender inequity so you're absolutely right. There's a Women in Trades program that
we have put in place. If you got to Ontario dot ca slash youth jobs you can get more information
about that program. I'm really interested in what's going on in high schools that we
could do better in terms of curriculum, in terms of encouraging young women and it's great that you're asking that question
because it means that you're thinking about this issues. So we'll continue to develop
the women in trades programs, we'll continue to try and put in place Specialist High Skills
Majors that get young people thinking about different options earlier. I think that we
need to start young people being exposed to the idea of a whole range of options probably
in elementary, middle schools before they get into high schools. So those are some of
the things we're thinking about.
Patrick: So we have a second person asking a question from that school as well. There
seems to be some technical difficulty which is fine because I actually have a question
for you Premier in regards to this. We are talking about youth jobs in Ontario and my
question for you is why is youth jobs so important to you. What kind of impact does it have on
Ontario as a whole? Premier Wynne: Well I think that having a
society where young people can get experiences as they decide what they want to do in their
lives is critical, making sure that as government and as society, we provide opportunities.
Because this isn't just about the government, it's about the private sector, its about businesses
and other organizations providing opportunities for young people. We want to have a highly
skilled workforce, we want to have people who are able to transfer their skills, able
to have fulfilling lives, find employment that allows them to live into their adulthood
and look after their families. So allowing young people to get experiences early on for
2 reasons. So they may continue that path and go into a particular area of work or so
they can determine early in their lives that that's not what they want to do and they can
look for other options. So there are really strong reasons that we need to make sure that
our young people have opportunities to work. If we're going to be competitive globally
we need to have our young people very well educated but also highly skilled and also
a full range of experiences. Patrick: We're going to jump to our next school
which is St. Patrick's high school in Ottawa. Premier Wynne: Did we lose St. Mary's?
Premier Wynne: I think they're back on. They said they're back on.
Patrick: They're back on, so we'll take the next question.
St. Mary Student 2: Hello Premier, my name is ...
and I'm involved with the Specialist High Skills Major in dual credit programs. And
my question to the Premier is recently we have heard quite a bit about the shortage
of skilled trades people within Ontario as well as the stark reality of high unemployment
rates for First Nations people. Is there a plan for having an increased focus on engaging
students...with emphasis on Ontario's First Nations populations...into the trades at the
high school level? Does part of that plan aim to educate students about the opportunities
and pathways to pursuing a career in the skilled trades?
Premier Wynne: So Alex your question is about First Nation involvement as well. Yeah. So
let me just say that the purpose of our strategy and our Youth Jobs Program is to engage all
students. And so from my perspective, Ontario is a richly diverse place and we want to make
sure that every young person, no matter what their background, no matter where they live,
no matter what their socioeconomic level, no matter what their parents background is
that they will have the opportunity to fully partake in the economy. Speaking specifically
to the First Nations issue, there are 3 programs that are geared specifically to First Nations
youth and they can be found at Ontario.ca/youthjobs. They are Aboriginal Summer Law Program for
law students, Aboriginal Youth Work Exchange Program for Aboriginal communities and then
there's a First Nations Natural Resources Program which is a 2 year placement in Northern
Ontario for Aboriginal youth. So we do have some specifically targeted programs and we
want to make sure that our programs offer an opportunity for all young people.
St. Mary Student 2: Thank you! Patrick: Thanks a lot St. Mary. Next we have
St. Patricks High School in Ottawa. St. Patrick Student 1: Hello Premier Wynne.
My name is... and I have a question for you. My question is thousands of people in Canada
have a bachelor's degree and are working minimum wage jobs or working for free to get relevant
experience. What can be done to ensure they get meaningful paid work in their field of
study? Premier Wynne: Sorry what was the last question.
How can we ensure that people get meaningful work in their field of study? Yeah. So part
of our new strategy is a program called Youth Skills connection and what that part does
is it creates partnerships in communities that will then be funded if the partnership
comes together and it allows young people to develop skills for the jobs that are available.
So you're asking the reverse question how do we make sure young people get their jobs
in their fields of studies. So part of it can be the Youth Connections Program where
skills gaps are identified and young people can be funded to develop those skills or the
Youth Employment Fund and that's the biggest part the strategy and what that does is it
allows employers to get a subsidy of up to $6800 to hire a young person to work in their
business. So that provides a whole range of opportunities in
a whole range of sectors. So there are 2 things
we're
trying
to do
to advance that.