Human Resources committee  I think the statistics belie this idea that there are not enough positions there. In 2008, as I mentioned, there were 100,000 new registrations in apprentices, so there are lots of positions. Employers need to produce more and then they'll hire workers, and they could, as part of those workers, hire an apprentice.

Human Resources committee  Right.

Human Resources committee  Right.

Human Resources committee  Again, remember it's not the completion rate; it's the ratio of completions to total registration. That's not the same thing. The completion rates may be up to 50%. It's taking the total stock, as was said, taking the number of 430,000 people and comparing it with the number of completions every year, 36,000 in 2010.

Human Resources committee  This was a very important issue for the government about eight years ago. They actually allocated a lot of money, around $15 million, to a national apprenticeship survey that was run in 2007-08. There had been past apprenticeship surveys, but they took this very seriously. After that they commissioned a number of studies exactly on this issue.

Human Resources committee  I think the federal government has done quite a bit in recent years on apprenticeships. It created the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, which you will probably be having a representative from. They were under the sector council program, so I'm not quite sure of their future. Of course, the Red Seal program is very important, and that's for mobility across provinces.

Human Resources committee  In terms of Alberta, you're right. Alberta is a model in many ways, and that's because of a number of factors. One is that there's a great demand for apprentices there. So the government is taking it seriously. I think the government programs are very effective in that area. Also, business and labour are working together, because for trades you want the labour market partners to work together, and they've been working effectively in Alberta, compared to other provinces.

Human Resources committee  There were quite a few points raised. Regarding the first nations, you're absolutely right. I don't have any up-to-date data on registrations by first nations. I don't think they code for that, at least not at the level that's publicly available. There's a great fit there, because often first nations are in resource-based areas where there's demand for apprenticeship trades.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here today. I've been a student of the apprenticeship system for about 25 years, on and off. Certainly it's not my major area of research, but we've done quite a bit of work in that area, so I'm very pleased to give you my comments today.

Human Resources committee  I don't think there would be any change in the overall trends if we came up with another measure. You need different measures for different purposes. Some people like to focus on inequality in our society. If you want to focus on inequality, then what is called the low-income measure, the international measure of percentage of the population at less than one-half median income, is the way to go.

Human Resources committee  I don't have specific estimates of the cost. Obviously, it would depend on how much you want to spend. It's very sensitive to how much you want to spend. I think you have to focus also, more importantly, on the benefits of reducing poverty, not just the short-term benefits but the long-term benefits.

Human Resources committee  I would concur with that. I don't think it does. My key point, though, is that if you transfer resources to the underprivileged, all measures of poverty will show the decline in poverty in Canada. In that sense, the measures are all very robust through a transfer of resources. In that sense, a lot of the debate about poverty I think is really counterproductive, because really, the key debate should be on the policies to transfer resources to the underprivileged and to help them develop themselves.

Human Resources committee  I agree with you, obviously, that there was an inequity in the budget, in the sense that people at the top, or certain groups, did receive more than those at the bottom. In that sense, it was not a progressive budget. However, there were a number of measures in the budget that were progressive from the point of view of people at the bottom of the income distribution.

Human Resources committee  Right.

Human Resources committee  It is stimulative because some of those savings in taxes will be spent by the person; it's just less stimulative than it would be if you gave it to someone with low income, who would probably spend 100% of it. So it's certainly stimulative, but just not quite as stimulative. I guess you can't have a budget that focuses exclusively on one set of Canadians.