Finance committee  The support of the federal government for post-secondary education projects was noted with great thanks. Thank you for being involved in post-secondary education, but keep looking to that and challenge us to partner with industry.

Finance committee  If I may, I'll just add that access to post-secondary education is key. Anything we can do to support that to allow families to do long-term planning would I think be of great assistance.

Finance committee  Yes, in Saskatchewan it's a three-way partnership for our apprenticeship training. We would see an apprentice, depending on the program, between eight and twelve weeks of the year. They are supervised by the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission. The other key partner, of course, is the industry, the business leader.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. Right now, perhaps Saskatchewan is in a unique situation across the country. Our students are not having any difficulty getting employment. Our graduate employment rate is in the middle 90% within six months of graduation. We recently did a survey. Two years after graduation, 97% of our graduates were employed.

Finance committee  Yes, thank you, Mr. Mai. Our system, for years, has always been to have aboriginal support at each of our campuses, but we're finding that we must be more strategic. This plan is a longer-term plan. It involves making sure that we handle the transition for aboriginal students into post-secondary, and then the success in the program, but also the transition out of the learning environment into the work environment.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thanks to everyone on the panel for the opportunity. It's just wonderful to have you in the great city of Saskatoon in the great province of Saskatchewan. It's a two-block walk from my office to here, so it's a delight. As the previous speakers have done, please allow me to set the context of my remarks and our recommendations in our brief.

Industry committee  Thank you. That's the challenge we face within our organizations as applications come in. As I've indicated several times, I think what we need to look for is that broad base. Don't narrow the opportunities, but stretch the opportunities so that more people can get access. I think that's what we're tying to do with our institution, give opportunities across the piece, to the NRT folks, the natural resources technology folks who want to look at GPS, right through to the....

Industry committee  I need to go on record here. I worked for 25 years in the university sector, so quite frankly I love the system. But I do believe there's been a bias across the country. There has been a pressure of not forcing people, but encouraging them, to look to university as a first choice.

Industry committee  Well, that's my point. Even when we talk about big science I hope that all of us are aware that to make big science work there are these key folks in the background who are doing the legwork. My research was in osteoporosis. Quite frankly, I could have dreamed of all sorts of great things, but if it wasn't for the technician measuring bone density, my work didn't go anywhere.

Industry committee  Mr. Stanton, again, I don't want to overplay this. I mean, this is new for colleges to be getting into this. From our institutional perspective, we just applied for NSERC eligibility, and we're delighted that the doors are starting to open up. We're working on a CFI proposal and we have a number of partners from the province, including the Saskatchewan Research Council, a couple of people from university, and other partners like the Canadian Home Builders' Association.

Industry committee  Thank you very much for the question. We have to be reminded that, particularly for our northern folks, coming to Prince Albert is a big move; I hope everybody is familiar with that. If we were to ask people to come from a northern reserve to Saskatoon, it probably would be comparable to any of us moving to New York.

Industry committee  The organization that we belong with is the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. There's a different nomenclature. There's an interesting discussion occurring across the country. Within the terminology now, the terms “polytechnic”, etc. are being used. We're a part of that family, with the CEGEPs, the community colleges, and so on.

Industry committee  We have 160 programs, so we do the full array from trades to technologists. We do a lot of work in health care: X-ray technologists, laboratory technologists, right through to degree nursing, in partnership with the University of Saskatchewan.

Industry committee  We're being pressed significantly. The expectation, for example, moving in 2008-09, is for a 20% increase in trades training. That's the kind of demand we're looking at, and we're trying to make sure we meet that demand. We're renting space all over Saskatoon. We're now in six different facilities across the city.

Industry committee  Yes, and frankly, we haven't been able to keep up with Manitoba on that front. They're working on that, I understand. Obviously that's way beyond my purview, but we've been engaged in discussions around that. We have an interesting project that was funded by HRSDC, through which we're working in the Ukraine.