The electricity industry has significant apprenticeship programs across Canada. One of the interesting things that came out of the period of belt tightening in the 1990s was that many corporations saw apprenticeship programs as an extra. About 30% of our businesses as of 2004 did not have apprenticeship programs.
One of the things that I would say we are doing, and this is with the help of the Government of Canada, is just getting some solid data as to why you need to have them, why there is an opportunity to have them. Our businesses have to go before the regulators and defend their investment in training programs. Things like the sector study that the Government of Canada assisted us with helped them in demonstrating why there is a need. We have businesses that have said to us that they have gone before the regulator, and the regulator has said “why should we invest, why don't you just take from the jurisdiction next door”--hardly smart business planning.
On understanding the return of investment in apprenticeship, there was a study funded recently by the Government of Canada with the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum with a certain community of trades that was extremely helpful for our businesses to be able to say here's the return on actually putting a buck in for an apprenticeship program: the return is $1.38 for every dollar invested. That type of bottom-line impact is how you achieve program development with key influencers, whether they be senior leadership in a business or senior leadership in the policy environment.