We are pleased to submit our final report, Putting the Pieces Together: Toward a Coherent Transition System for Canada's Labour Force, to the Canadian Labour Force Development Board. The CLFDB established the Task Force on Transition into Employment in February 1992. We met for the first time in July 1992 and held 14 more meetings in the following months. This report is thus the result of a long and intensive process and reflects the consensus of all members of the Task Force.
Our mandate was quite broad:
To deal with the substantive policy and program issues surrounding the transition of people who are unemployed or not in the workforce into paid employment and make firm recommendations to the Committee on Training and Labour Adjustment for transmittal to the Board. This will include both young people making the transition from school to work, and adults who may be re-entering or entering the workforce for the first time.
Our composition was similar to that of the CLFDB with representatives from business, labour, the education and training community, and the four designated employment equity groups -- women, aboriginal peoples, people with disabilities, and members of visible minorities.
We found that although many studies and reports addressed transition into employment issues, none addressed the entire range of issues nor did any propose a model for a coherent Canadian system.
Rather than taking as a starting point the existing Canadian situation and finding ways to improve on it, we decided to start from an empty slate for two reasons. First, it was beyond our capacity, in a limited period of time, to make an exhaustive inventory of the Canadian situation in all areas and jurisdictions. Second, we did not want to feel constrained by any existing policies and programs. We did, however, examine the current situation of transitions in Canada and developed our analysis and recommendations based on those realities.