Thank you very much for your question.
This is another example of a disconnect. We have seen a number of recent policy statements by some governments that one of the ways to solve the skills shortage problem is to make people work longer. So we did three things to search out this issue. We had two active task forces in Atlantic Canada and Saskatchewan, a survey of business and labour leaders, and a survey of the general population.
When we asked this specific question in all of those contexts, there was no appetite whatsoever on the part of the general population, business and labour leaders, or the hundreds of people involved in Atlantic Canada and Saskatchewan, to use a lengthened working life as a solution to skills issues. What they wanted to do instead was make sure proper mentorship took place while older workers were in the workplace, so that younger workers gained from the experience of older workers.
If I can be so bold as to say this, national policy-making has incredible pitfalls when it comes to what actually happens in the regions. I want to use a provocative example of EI in Prince Edward Island, where we had very active task force activity.
Short of eliminating the fisheries industry in Atlantic Canada, there is no way to get around the problem of seasonal workers in the short run. It is not the fault of the workers that it is seasonal work. In the case of P.E.I., people wanted to continue to be fishers, but they wanted access to EI, not primarily to have income support but to get skills training and entrepreneurship training to open up small businesses and become involved in other enterprises.
It is absolutely critical for this committee to get out into different parts of the country, as I know it will. Similarly on the migration front, what is very good for some provinces looks very different in provinces like Atlantic Canada, Quebec to a certain extent, and Saskatchewan, where the biggest issue they raise, bar none, is the loss of young workers and what that does to the local economy. We have to be very careful--and I hope the committee will be in the regions--to listen to the perspectives of the regions, and not just make policy and take federal action from a central point.
Thank you.