| Environmental Scanning and Labour Market
Analysis News Despite number of medical discharges, Forces ranks expected to hit 70,000 by 2010 "We have a lot more recruiters out there, we are increasing advertising . . . and recruitment is now ahead of plan," Mr. O'Connor said after a Senate committee meeting on national defence. He said Quebeckers are particularly eager to join the military, but he did not elaborate on the specifics. Despite the inflow of new recruits, however, the military's ranks are thinned by an increasing number of medical discharges due to a policy that requires full-time members to be fit for overseas service. The nations' police forces continue to bolster their ranks in response to an increase in the number serious crimes committed in Canada, particularly in the country's major urban centres.
Government has an announced increased annual immigration target to the highest level in 25 years - between 240,000 and 265,000 newcomers in 2007-- human capital needed to fill Canada's "extraordinary" labour market requirements, Immigration Minister Monte Solberg says … "The numbers are big because we think they'll help the country." About 60 per cent of these are economic immigrants and their dependants (including skilled workers, those sponsored under provincial nominee programs and live-in caregivers), while the other 40 per cent are family members and refugees. Mr. Solberg stressed the importance of giving immigrants the help they need to succeed in Canada, and noted that $307-million was pledged in last spring's budget for language training and other settlement services, and $18-million for an agency to assess and recognize foreign credentials. "Obviously the system must be much more responsive to labour market needs than it is today. We are working on that, but not prepared to announce today." The government plans to review and address the errors made by the RCMP outlined in the Arar inquiry report. Ministers are avoiding an immediate response to questions about the fate of RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli. "We aren't acting precipitously on RCMP personnel matters at all," Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said yesterday when asked if Mr. Zaccardelli would be asked to resign. Mr. Day and Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the government accepts the report of the inquiry, including a list of recommendations about how the RCMP assesses security risks and passes intelligence to foreign governments. "Mr. Arar has been done a tremendous injustice," Mr. Harper reported to the Commons, suggesting the government will negotiate compensation in line with the recommendations of the inquiry. Attending the first day of The Police Association of Victoria’s Delegate’s Conference, Mr Bracks said the Board would facilitate professional mobility and deal with issues such as training and education, interstate police transfers and promotion within the organization. “The aim of this new Board will be to further professionalize the force, and enable mutual recognition between jurisdictions of all officers’ qualifications and training,” Mr Bracks said. “The concept is similar to other professional registration boards, such as the Victorian Institute of Teaching and the Nurses Board.” Today’s announcement follows a move by the Government and Victoria Police to establish university qualifications for new recruits. “Establishing a policing degree is also part of a broader national agenda that is beginning to recognize policing as a profession.” Victoria Police are currently undertaking a national search for a university partner to jointly deliver the new tertiary course.
The report raises concern that the province's $76-million contingency fund is not enough to meet potential cost overruns, that the projected $175-million earmarked for security will also be insufficient by 2010, and that VANOC is already falling behind schedule on designs for several key venues. Mr. van Iersel's report pegged the Games' estimated total cost to taxpayers at $2.5-billion, a more appropriate sum, he argued, than much lower figures used by government. Since their introduction four years ago, Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) have been working hard to help make you feel safer in your community. They were brought in as part of a nationwide drive towards Neighbourhood Policing, which aims to tackle crime and the fear of crime and bring the police closer to local communities. The Government has pledged to put an extra 16,000 PCSOs out into communities across England and Wales by April 2007 and is looking for recruits to perform what is one of the most rewarding, interesting and varied roles in the modern police service. PCSOs perform an essential role, which extends the range of activities the police are able to provide to our communities. It is the job of a PCSO to provide a highly visible, reassuring presence on the streets and to help tackle anti-social behaviour and minor crimes that concern people, freeing up frontline police officers to focus on solving more serious crimes. Dedicating at least 80 per cent of their time to public facing duties, PCSOs provide fresh eyes and ears for the police force in the community. Police plan to take on Home Office over merger fiasco South Wales Police Authority is preparing to fight the Home Office over the £400,000 cost of the shelved police mergers. The authority joined other forces in demanding that the cost of preparing for the aborted merger proposal that would have brought in an all-Wales force, is repaid. A spokeswoman said the £434,656.36 bill included staff time, management and meeting costs, travelling expenses including train travel to London, translation, consultation, postage and legal costs. But the Home Office said it was only prepared to make a 'contribution' to the costs. A Home Office spokeswoman said: 'We are in contact with all police forces to make it clear that we are prepared to make a contribution to the additional costs which they may have incurred in preparing for police force mergers. 'We are now in discussion with police forces and police authorities to consider what might be the best way to bring about improvements in protective services.' Graeme Pearson, head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), has called for a national police service, and academics and officers agree. They suggest that instead of the SCDEA existing alongside such a force, the SCDEA be integrated, with an assistant commissioner in charge and answerable to a commissioner. This would solve many of the problems in relation to control and accountability of multi-level policing he suggests. The police who patrol the Lower Mainland's transit system are in fewer fights than they were before they became an official police force in December 2005. Insp. Dan Dureau of the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority Police Service said it isn't because his officers won the right to carry guns. "The moment we put 'police' on our uniforms, our fights just dropped off," said Dureau, a former Vancouver police inspector who was in charge of the special investigations unit. "I can't say it's zero, but it's really close to zero." The majority of transit police officers are former RCMP and city police officers, with an average of 18 years policing experience. Transit police have full powers under the Police Act, including the ability to arrest people for outstanding warrants, enforce drug laws and enforce the Criminal Code off and on transit property. A survey by the company found that salaries in Calgary are growing at an all-time-high pace of 5.3 per cent this year and are projected to climb 5.2 per cent in 2007. Those figures are well above the national average of 3.6 per cent this year and 3.7 per cent in 2007. The findings are notable because they show a much wider margin between national wage figures and those for Alberta. "There aren't many employers that can even begin to compete with the salary increases being offered in Calgary," said Keri Humber, senior compensation consultant at Hewitt. The challenge for those companies, he said, will be finding alternative means of compensating their workers. The biggest increase in federal police numbers in the force's 27-year history comes just a day after Howard announced Australia would increase its number of army infantry battalions to the highest level since the Vietnam War. Howard said the extra police were needed for international deployments, citing Australia's role in controlling flare-ups.
The North American security industry may indeed still be dominated by thousands of small outfits headed by retired big-city detectives, but Stéphan Crétier is rewriting the scene in a series of rapid-fire acquisitions. Crétier, the chief executive officer and largest shareholder (with 25%) of Montreal-based Garda World Security Corp., aims to make his company one of the globe's top three security firms within the next decade. Crétier predicts that Garda (fiscal 2006 revenues of $260 million) will soon be as synonymous with security as global titans Securitas AB ($8.3 billion [U.S.] in sales in 2005), Group 4 Securicor PLC (£4.1 billion) and Brink's Co. ($2.5 billion [U.S.]). And you'd want to put stock in Garda's sales, which will more than double this year to $650 million, while its payroll tops 19,000. You'd also consider that Garda has made more than 10 acquisitions in the past 18 months alone, becoming the leading security player in Canada overnight. And, Garda has just raised more than $100 million in new equity, has little debt and enjoys the ability to borrow in excess of $200 million. It's hard to think of any industry with better prospects for growth than private security. If Canadians still seem more blasé than most about their safety, the rest of the world is on chronic orange alert. Since 9/11, the security business has been growing by double digits annually. In the U.S., it's now unthinkable that a senior executive of a major corporation, much less the CEO, would travel without a private security detail--and that's only after an advance team checks out hotels, restaurants and routes from the airport. Securing office towers also presents an obvious business opportunity for Garda, given that Canada is well behind international trends. Companies know how to shed mature workers through early retirement programs. Many have been doing that, almost instinctively, during the past 15 years, whenever they hit a bump in the road. But they will have to learn the opposite instinct, how to persuade older workers to stay on the job, if they want to avoid a coming work force crisis. That's the argument of three consultants -- Ken Dychtwald, Tamara Erickson and Robert Morison -- who say that a shift in the age distribution of the general population means we'll soon run out of sufficient workers. From 2000 to 2020, the normal working age population of 20- to 64-year-olds in Canada will grow by only 16 per cent, less than 1 per cent a year, and, in the following 30 years, the expectation is that it will stay essentially stable. Although companies are exporting some jobs through outsourcing, we can expect to have too few work force entrants to replace the labour, skills and talent of the baby boomers set to retire in coming years. The number of workers nearing retirement is staggering: Employers should be planning for a doubling of the proportion of workers 55 and older in coming years, and their imminent retirement unless prevailing practices change. The Earth Institute at Columbia University has just released a map that projects where people will be living in the year 2025. The map is unique because statistics so far have only documented population trends for entire countries. The forecasts for population changes worldwide are presented on the map, with significantly fewer people living in parts of Eastern Europe and Japan but considerable gains elsewhere. Overall, already densely populated developing countries are expected to grow, while populations in developed countries will decrease. The map can be found on line at http://www.ccsr.columbia.edu/population/map. Alberta's red-hot economy may be the envy of every other jurisdiction in the country, but the trouble with growth -- lack of workers and infrastructure -- was on the front burner yesterday at a "historic" meeting between provincial and federal politicians. While Premier Ralph Klein and members of his Tory caucus met with Alberta Conservative MPs -- the first time such a formal discussion has taken place -- the result was more of a mutual understanding of Alberta's needs than a decision about concrete solutions. "This is a work in progress, but I think it was a validation of the concerns that Albertans have, that Canadians have, as well as what the Alberta government has been doing and the federal government is doing," Alberta Environment Minister Guy Boutilier told reporters after the three-hour meeting, which came about as a kickoff for those in Calgary for the annual Stampede. There will be positive outcomes and potentially negative trends to be countered. The demand for skilled labour is rising, making salaries increase and any stigmas disappear. However new shortages are also resulting in an increase in the high school dropout rate – youth are leaving school to make good salaries in basic jobs. This is why policy analysts are trying to figure out how to retool the education system to meet the rising demand for skilled labour of all kinds, bolster the immigrant intake to match job shortages, and improve incentives for native Canadians on and off reserves to train for the jobs that are waiting for them. Government policies need to be carefully constructed. The migrations under way in this country -- from East to West, from rural to urban, from the developing world to here -- are inexorable. The job for politicians and public servants is to manage those migrations, to get workers to the jobs that are waiting for them. Canada is not alone, police departments in the US are facing recruit shortages as well, most notably in big cities. Police officials estimate more than 80 percent of the US's 17,000 law enforcement agencies have vacancies that many can't fill. In Texas, San Antonio needs 500, Dallas needs 800, Houston needs 1,200 and all are struggling to fill their ranks. There are many challenges to the problem of hiring more officers: youth not interested in policing, departments are required to do more, population of cities is growing, city budgets are constrained, and demographics (small youth cohort, baby-boomer retirements). For some departments, it's so bad they've resorted to advertising on highway billboards. U.S. Census Bureau estimates the national average of three officers for every 1,000 people. Back Up The federal government is preparing to roll out a series of multibillion-dollar military spending announcements, including money for planes, ships, trucks and the helicopters the military said this week would save lives in Afghanistan. The Conservatives will unveil a massive $15-billion procurement package at four separate announcements in four Canadian cities next week, sources told The Globe and Mail. The money represents one of the largest defence equipment purchases in Canadian history, and is bigger than most analysts had predicted. The new equipment will replace old vehicles and vessels, many of which need inordinate amounts of repair and others that are about to reach the date where they must be taken out of service. Back Up Governments and employers made a mistake in the 1990s when they introduced early retirement schemes to push out older employees, according to new research by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It was thought at the time was that buyouts and early retirement would reduce the persistently high unemployment rates for younger workers in industrialized countries. But here's the wrinkle: “Many older workers were induced to leave by very generous early retirement schemes, but relatively few young people were subsequently hired in their places,” John Martin, the OECD's director of employment, labour and social affairs, said at a forum in Toronto Thursday. The early retirement trend has gained in popularity as life expectancies have increased — with women now living an average of 23 years after retirement and men living an average of 18 years. Governments are now considering ways to slow the expected exodus of baby boomers into retirement. Diane Finley, Canada's Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, said Thursday her government will conduct a review to “ensure that pensions don't serve as a disincentive to older workers remaining in the work force.” |
