That, of course, is the question. I certainly think more can be done to leverage the networks that stakeholders have. We, as the food workers union, represent a quarter of a million members across Canada in over 600 communities, yet we have never really been engaged in trying to get the word out on the opportunities in the sector. We represent tens of thousands of folks in the meat sector in particular, and we know that there are very good jobs in that sector, still a lot of full-time jobs, these are jobs with pensions, they're union jobs.
I would suggest to you that a lot of Canadians, despite some efforts that have been taken by employers and some government work, are unaware of them. I know even with our own membership that that's the case. I think that the efforts to date probably haven't leveraged stakeholders as much as maybe they could have. One of the reasons we're keen to be here today is to really put on the record that we want to play a meaningful role in doing this.
As you may know, we used to have a forum in Canada through the sector council program that brought stakeholders together through a tripartite process to tackle challenges like this. That program, regrettably, was discontinued about a decade ago, and there is no forum that exists in Canada for us to do that, which I think is to the detriment of the sector.