For our industry, in fact we have a national education and training committee at the Canadian Home Builders' level, in which reps from across the country get together and report on who's doing what in our residential industry, but that's from the standpoint of attacking our labour shortages.
We need, for all industries in all provinces, some vehicle that ties everything together. This is a large country, and when we start having Alberta--and Saskatchewan has been doing this for years--drawing on our youth, we in residential need to know where our supply of manpower for the future is going to be. There is getting to be a very short supply. Unless we have a cohesive national approach involving all governments and training facilities, our supply shortage is going to really damage the economies of different provinces.
Look at what's happening to Alberta. At our national committees in Ottawa last weekend, CMHC was showing all their charts. They're saying we now have to get another skill, because Alberta's up there and the rest of us aren't even on the chart anymore because of what's happening to their economy. Big companies in Alberta are simply finding avenues to fly people from here and there and all over, but we have to have a cohesive base for the training.
We sit in Ottawa as home builders, each talking about the problems we have with individual apprenticeship programs across the country. We are making headway here on this. Somebody else can't do that. Why is that happening? That's the type of thing.
Although they have a central body nationally for apprenticeship, it is not getting to the detail of what's happening in the field and the needs of the industry. The industry has to get better at defining the needs to the education system, but the education system has to get together cohesively and decide how best to get the people trained, and where and how many.
Right now everybody is under pressure. They should be training more everywhere.