Wynne taps business, university leaders to help fix skills training

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Faced with a shortage of cash to pay for new policies, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is pressing education and business leaders for help tackling the nagging concern that Canada has a problem matching the skills of its work force with available jobs.

At relatively short notice, Ms. Wynne gathered dozens of influential people in Toronto for a "talent and skills" summit on Tuesday, from university and college presidents to business executives and non-profit leaders. The gathering included Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, TD deputy chief economist Derek Burleton, Samsung Canada president James Politeski and numerous education leaders.

Without promising new dollars, she issued a challenge: Her government needs concrete solutions it can get behind from schools and businesses, and it needs them soon.

At the summit's outset, many were still quietly uncertain why they had been summoned. The country's perceived skills gap is a source of much debate, and they were gathering the same day Statistics Canada released a report that throws the gap's existence into question, suggesting that the number of vacant jobs is shrinking.

Three hours in, after speeches from ministers and expert panels discussing ways to better link education and training to the job market, Ms. Wynne made her plea: "I'm issuing a challenge to everyone here today to join us and to commit to one new initiative on behalf of the people you work with or serve, that will contribute to skills and talent development in Ontario," she said. Then she invited them back again three months from now.

With a possible spring election looming, Ontario's own bureaucrats have warned the provincial deficit won't be reduced without dramatic spending cuts. So far, education has been relatively sheltered from austerity, and enjoyed some major investments such as substantial tuition grants for students from low and middle-income families.

Ms. Wynne's challenge can be seen as a characteristic effort to crowdsource new ideas and strategies – one of the few things a deficit-fighting government can offer – coming from a Premier who is fond of noting she gets "teased mercilessly" over her fondness for consultation.

"I hope that there would be some ideas that we could either act on as government, or that we could bring together the parties that could act on them," the Premier said in an interview. Asked if it was also an opportunity to gather good ideas ahead of a potential election campaign, she replied, "Sure, that's absolutely a possibility," adding that, "at any point in the life of a government, you have to be looking for new ideas."

What will come of her call-out is less clear. Any ideas or initiatives could eventually be compiled in a single report, though even government staff had only just learned of the plan to reconvene in three months.

"Do we have a skills gap? Probably. Is it sector-specific, geographic? Yeah, probably. Is that unusual? I don't think so," said Max Blouw, president of Wilfrid Laurier University and chair of the Council of Ontario Universities, who nevertheless welcomed the Premier's challenge.

Experts at the summit shared in his uncertainty, and some continue to disagree about how to generate the right skills for the so-called "new economy." Consultant Rick Miner noted that a shift in education "is moving toward more applied programs." Minutes later, Mr. Martin opined that "the wrong direction we're running in, in this world, is toward" making graduates' skills "narrower and narrower," instead of focusing on "meta skills" like innovation.

Mr. Burleton of TD also sounded warnings about the challenge in reacting to skills shortages, noting he sees an issue in Ontario but not a crisis, and cautioning the track record for forecasting labour market needs is "not very good."

Ms. Wynne is undeterred, however, noting the "pace of change" in the provincial economy points to a need to understand how the distribution of jobs is shifting. "We can't just throw up our hands and say well, it's hard so we can't do it," she said. "We have to keep trying to tap into the companies and organizations that know what's going on on the ground, and help them to articulate what it is they see in the coming years."

Ultimately, the skills agenda may shape the discussion amid a series of difficult education issues to be tackled in the coming months, from negotiations to have postsecondary institutions sharpen their missions through "differentiation," to labour negotiations with teachers that she knows "will be tough."

"I'm not naive about how difficult those discussions will be, but I believe in the strength of the relationship (with teachers)," she said.

James Bradshaw reports on post-secondary education from Toronto.