Finance committee  I'm actually going to reiterate that comment. The three of us, we often have very passionate disagreements on public policy issues, but in my experience working with Merit, when it comes to workforce development, when it comes to safety, when it comes to any of these kinds of big

Finance committee  I have a couple of comments. The federal government used to actually support high school trades education in the way that I've described. Part of the reason that disappeared was that federal funding went away. That's why I put that recommendation forward. But there's no question

Finance committee  I'll just add to that. Definitely the loan and grant programs will be helpful, or are helpful. But there are other barriers, I think, to what Sean is saying here. For example, trade schools aren't very flexible right now. They offer programs that go a certain period of time. They

Finance committee  I would agree definitely.

Finance committee  First of all, SAIT, the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, actually does a little bit more than NAIT, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, in terms of R and D. It's more of a research technical institution. I think you see that at SAIT it has a different approach.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Peter Pilarski. l'm vice-president for southern Alberta with Merit Contractors Association. Merit members across the country banked over 100 million man hours last year with over 55,000 construction workers in our hour bank benefit plan and 7