I tend to agree with everything you said, but in order for that to occur, I think the federal government probably needs to reposition itself back in the business of playing a leadership role around training and post-secondary education in Canada.
Beginning in 1997, there was massive devolution of what had been historically 40 or 50 years of federal leadership and funding for training. That's gone to the provinces and territories. How can you have a national system when you've really got 13 systems, with some players involved more or less reluctantly in the game? I know this is going to be hard to do politically, but unless the federal government plucks up its courage and repositions itself in the business of being a key leader and financier--because it is a key financier of the post-secondary training and other learning that people require--we won't have the kind of system that we need to be competitive as this century unfolds.