Thank you.
Yes, I was noticing that this morning as well—the labour market training architecture references in chapter 5 of the budget.
Very quickly, it sounds like an interesting idea, but it raises questions about whether this is more of a patchwork of different regional or provincial kinds of labour market agreements. It raises questions about how we ensure that the mobility will be there or that portability of credentials will take place. Let's use the Red Seal program as an example. Our understanding is that we don't have a federally legislated mandate to ensure that the Red Seal program has that kind of portability and acceptance.
The question that came to my mind when I was reading that chapter is how the labour movement will be involved in the development of that architecture. We don't know how to answer some of those questions unless we can sit at the table as equals, as somebody who has something to contribute in terms of ensuring that the issues of portability, mobility, and good wages and conditions are going to take place, or that training and assessment is actually going to be done on a cost-efficacious manner. How do we know it won't be a patchwork of duplicative processes?
Earlier we were talking about foreign credentials for the internationally trained folks. They're looking at 400 different regulatory bodies. This foreign credential recognition process was an $18 million door at one point. I think it's a $12 million door now, and it's being designed as a door that folks knock on to find out what door to knock on next. I'm not sure this is the kind of labour market training architecture that's going to be effective.
The thing is that we need to be at the table to see.