It creates a more robust economy for the whole country. It increases employment. It increases national competitiveness. Industry is certainly prepared to pay and is playing its part financially. The work we've done has all been co-funded. The majority of the spending on the work we've done has been from industry.
The “own the podium” campaign was the same. It was a public-private partnership. That's what we need. If industry is not at the table, it's not going to work. It won't have credibility. We won't get the real stories about what those careers really are. We have 100 volunteers from industry, most of them from our membership, who we're sending into the schools. They're telling their own stories. It's that gritty reality that brings it to life. If you're going to do that, you need to have some skin in the game financially, obviously.
We've demonstrated that we can do this. We need a signal now from the public system. One of the biggest problems we have—and I know this is outside of the federal jurisdiction and we have to find a way to quarterback this—is that a lot of teachers and guidance counsellors are still in the old narrative. They don't understand how this field has changed. We can't do it by sending volunteers into schools. We need to get it right into the high school curriculum in all subjects, not just guidance.
There are many layers to this. As we like to say in the tech industry, we need to build an ecosystem around this sort of game plan for national global leadership in the knowledge economy.