I must clarify what I said, Ms. Savoie. I said that when the legislation was implemented in Quebec, the incentive was of a financial nature, meaning that the purpose was to increase investment in training. The way to go about this was to create the Fonds national de formation de la main-d'oeuvre [The Quebec Labour Force Training Fund]. An employer who could not demonstrate that he had invested 1 per cent of his payroll in labour force training automatically had to send a cheque for the corresponding amount to the Ministry of Revenue, which then sent on the money to the Labour Force Training Fund. We have always said that was not the appropriate approach.
Let us be clear here: the CFIB is in favour of labour force training development. In fact, quite recently, a parliamentary commission examined the five-year report dealing with this legislation. We are certainly not asking that it be abolished. Quite the contrary: following the raising of the payroll ceiling to $1 million or more, we accepted an invitation from the Minister of Employment at the time to sit on the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail [Labour Force Partners' Commission] in order to make Bill 90 more effective, that is the Act to promote the development of manpower training.
We also contributed to developing the General Framework for Skills Development and Recognition, which is a much more appropriate approach for small business leaders, as it takes into account their reality. We want more mechanisms and flexibility, because there is a lot of informal training going on.
As I said earlier, a small business owner manages 5 to 10 employees. It was complicated to ask him if in fact the very informal training it provided Joe this week complied with the criteria of Bill 90 and whether he could consider this a training expenditure. What we are saying is that the accounting approach is not the right one.
Training has to be concentrated in certain regions. It is difficult for an isolated company in a given region to work toward implementing a training pool and motivate employers to participate in it. Right now, we have a training program that results from the framework for skills development with sectoral committees. We establish occupational standards. We have to get companies to bring their employees skills up to par. That is far more promising and fruitful.
It was in that sense that we were against the legislation as it stood. We were working toward an amendment to the Act to foster the development of manpower training, that is unanimously supported by employers, unions and community groups who sit on the Labour Force Partners' Commission. This is a step forward.
I want to be very clear: we are not against the development of labour force training.