While some people don't mind just calling someone out of the blue, for others it takes a while to gain the confidence. But once you've done it a few times, you'll find it's easy. You do that all the time. Some employment books are also good sources of information on companies. For example, The Canadian Student Employment Guide, which is published each year, lists which companies across Canada hire students and tells you what they look for.
Business directories are big books that list businesses by location, product, or service.
You can find them in your local Human Resources Centre of Canada, employment resource centre or library. The Internet is a great source of company information. A company's Web site will give you a phone number, and will often give you the name of the person in charge of human resources, or of the sector of the company you are interested in learning about. Do a search. The newspaper is an often-overlooked resource.