We could work together on promoting the hiring of apprentices with our contractors. At the end of the day, these folks need a job to get into an apprentice program. If there's one thing we can do to work together, it would be to promote to the contractors and employers in Canada the value of hiring an apprentice. When I pitch the value of an apprentice to a particular contractor, or say I'm meeting with an owner, I always talk about it like this: “An apprentice costs you $20 an hour and you can charge that apprentice out at $55 an hour. A journeyperson costs $50 to $60, and you can only charge them out at $70 an hour.”
If there's something we could work on, it would be the value of an apprentice program with contractors across Canada. I say hire an apprentice and develop some sort of program that rewards and recognizes contractors who do.