When we came away from the trip to Germany, the first thing I remarked on, both publicly and privately, was at the federal level there is far more that unites both industry and labour on the skilled trades and the labour shortage than actually divides those who are seriously engaged in the issue. It's at the provincial level where things start to fall apart, and I recognize that the federal government only has certain influence there. But the turf wars that exist at the provincial level with apprenticeship ratios, with trade certification, with new bureaucracy and red tape, is a real problem when it comes to fluid access for the young workers into this system, and the mobility of those workers. I think there definitely is a role that we would encourage the government to play in convening some harmonization at multiple layers at that level.
On April 2nd, 2014. See this statement in context.