Our organization doesn't have any core funding. Our organization is basically reliant upon membership fees and project funding, and we all know the downside of project funding--once the project's over, where's the sustainability? Even if the results are outstanding, where is the sustainability?
What I see as some solutions in terms of the big picture picks up on Mr. O'Leary's point; I think we need an adult learning strategy in Canada. We don't have one. It would deal with the issues around literacy. It would deal with the issues around seasonal workers and older workers. We really need to grapple with the reality that our education and training system is still oriented towards youth, yet we all get old so quickly, as was mentioned earlier. I think we need to develop an adult learning strategy that would embrace literacy and would embrace prior learning assessment.
Your colleague was mentioning seasonal workers. What mechanisms do we have in place to support adult learners and career planning? Within HR communities generally, I don't think there's an HR professional anywhere who wouldn't say that their business is interested in employee development, but it's very hard to articulate that across the country in terms of an adult learning strategy, because we think of career development as something that takes place in high schools. Unless you're in transition, unless you've lost your job, you can't even access career planning or job search assistance, because it's not available to you unless you're in crisis.
I would suggest that part of the funding would deal with some of those broader issues around adult learning in Canada. That would certainly be appropriate in terms of the number of immigrants we bring into this country.