You're right, there has been some positive impact with regard to the KIP funding, but one of the things KIP didn't include was capital equipment. We're renovating the facilities, but we don't have the resources to buy some of the lab equipment, so that's a bit of a shortage.
With regard to the $500 million, that is a national figure. I just presented to you the number of students on wait lists in Atlantic Canada. I don't have the national number at my fingertips, but we realize that this is an anomaly right now across the country. I know, for instance, that we're going to be adding another 350 students with the recent infrastructure increase, but we still have significant wait lists.
The other thing we're concerned about is those people who are currently employed, and I realize that the federal government does now provide funding through the labour management agreement for persons who are employed. But once again, to keep pace with the changing technologies and what's happening in the workforce, many of these companies, in order to stay competitive, are going to have to upscale.
When you look at the numbers--getting back to Mr. Easter's comment about how we are stacking up--in China alone, just on a population base, if you take the top 20% of their brightest and youngest, their potential would rival our total Canadian population. So in this country we can't afford not to have everyone with a post-secondary credential;we just can't, because if we don't, they will become dependent on the system and withdraw funds as opposed to providing something back.
We do face labour force shortages. It's not just having the skills, but will we have a workforce large enough to compete? I know we're doing things like bringing newcomers to help offset that, but we have a large percentage of individuals right now who are underemployed, and with the proper support and training.... And that's the nice thing about a college experience; it could be nine months, it could be up to two years, but many of them are going out into construction jobs where there's a need and a shortage, and in some of the other sectors that have been identified. Health care is another good example. Just in this province, we're adding another cohort of paramedics because there's a shortage of health care individuals.
We'll increase the numbers based on revenues that we have, and that's just basically how we do it. So the LMDA, and the LMA recently, in the federal government's commitment to add funding for skills, have been very helpful. I can think of five programs we've added this year that we wouldn't have added without that funding, but there's still more demand, and especially in rural areas where people can't afford to travel and they have home care challenges. I mentioned some of the underrepresented. These folks want to get educated. They do want to work.
Those are some of my thoughts.