In Newfoundland and Labrador, we're looking at the lowest level of training in Canada. We're looking at people in the workplace who couldn't take advantage of training even if it were there. So we have this very awkward situation.
The Workplace Education Committee is trying to increase the disposition of small and medium-sized businesses to conduct education. We're talking education. We use the words “education” and “learning” versus “training”, because we know that the employer does some on-the-job training. We're talking about developing the citizen of Canada to be a better person. As you can see from Kim's statistics, a lot of these people need that development.
If employees are developed to a certain level, workplace learning operates as an investment in a company and in Canada. When we look at barriers, one of the things we find is this: those who have tend to get. Those who have, get. That's unfortunate, because those in the workplace who don't have don't get the necessary education and learning. In a professional setting, man, if you have your doctorate and you work at a university, you can spend your time travelling to different conferences and so on. However, we can't seem to instill a similar understanding into the workplace.
Many people need the basic skills. We're trying to develop a model for addressing the requirements for successful workplace training. There are certain essential skills, and many people don't have them. We have to develop them. Thus there is a natural marriage between the Literacy Newfoundland and Labrador and the Workplace Education Committee.