Thank you.
I agree as well. I sit on the board for the Resource Training Organization of British Columbia. We oversee 17 trades. I'm representing the oil and gas industry. We also have shipbuilders, steel workers, electrical.... There's a good representation across the board. What's unique about this circumstance is that the group we oversee has a number of partnerships with industry, and that's essentially what this group is supposed to do. It's supposed to go to industry and be that direct interface, understand what industry requires with respect to trades and training, and then work with, in this case, the B.C. government or the ITA, the Industry Training Authority, to develop the industry requirements with regard to trades.
I'm also involved in Alberta with the petroleum competency program, where we identify skill sets that don't necessarily fall under a trade. Cathodic protection of pipelines and well bores, for example—we've carved out a bit of a niche under the petroleum competency program, developed the skills, the training, and the competency, and oversight was given by the Alberta Industry Training Group. There again, it was partnerships with industry.
There's definitely a need for funding from a federal oversight, but I would encourage government and industry to work together to develop the trades. The industry knows what the needs are. And government can help provide the standardization across the board. An example, if I can throw it out there, and I'm sure you've heard of it, is Australia. Australia has a national apprenticeships program, NAP. That's across Australia. That's a standard for every state and territory in that country. This B.C. group I work with actually partners up with them, and we get some good ideas on how to encourage trades, women in trades, orphan apprentices—all sorts of good ideas.
There's definitely a place for government. I'm not a big advocate of asking for funding all the time. Some support and oversight is really good, but let's look after ourselves in industry.