Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you very much for being here this morning. All three were interesting presentations.
We focus a lot in this committee, at least to date, on the barriers that employers face in offering more apprenticeship positions. I find it refreshing to think about it from the other perspective, to look at barriers for potential journeymen as well. I want to focus a little on that.
I think I'll just ramble all my questions out at once and then look to you for reply, because unfortunately I only have five minutes.
I was interested in all of your comments about the under-representation of women. I didn't hear you say very much about the under-representation of first nations, among whom unemployment is particularly high. I wonder whether there's a different lens through which we should look at our recommendations for that particular population. I would appreciate some comments on that.
I'm also interested in the discrepancy between the number of apprentices and the number of completions. I think both Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Coe spoke to that. Often we focus on tax credits for employers as the solution to all of these things, but it strikes me that there's a whole menu of things that, although we need to stay within federal jurisdiction, we might want to give some thought to. I'm going to list a few and would appreciate your comments, in terms of what you think might be effective and in particular what might be most effective.
It seems to me that changes to the EI system, for example, have become a disincentive, because the processing times are so long that people now don't get their EI money during their apprenticeship program, while they're not in the workplace anymore.
You mentioned basic skills training in your presentations as something on which we need to do much more work to get people ready for apprenticeships.
I would mention support for travel and accommodation for apprentices who, particularly in the building and construction trades, often have to travel a significant distance to the job site.
Employment stability is something I think you mentioned, Mr. Coe. It strikes me, when we have just gone through a period of having large infrastructure spending, that those were very limited timeframe investments. Some of those building projects had to be completed within 24 months, while the apprenticeship program is much longer than that. What happens to apprentices when the government support for infrastructure is constrained by time in that way?
Another thing I'm interested in is accurate labour market information to predict where the labour market shortages will actually be, not just currently, but a few years down the road. Sectoral committees used to play a really important role in that regard, and yet the government has cancelled its support for such committees. I wonder whether you have thoughts about what we need to do to get accurate labour market information.
I think that might be enough as a start. Thanks.