Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here this morning.
It strikes me that we have this almost perfect storm, if you will. We have a skills shortage, we have the decline of the middle class, and we have really high rates of youth unemployment and aboriginal unemployment, all of which makes apprenticeship seem an important part of the solution, so I really welcome your comments here today.
I certainly hear what you're saying with respect to the need to make apprenticeships seem more attractive at the secondary education level as a career choice for young Canadians. Unfortunately, I don't think that's something the federal government can get directly involved in because of jurisdictional issues. Nonetheless, we all have to play our part in that.
I wonder whether you'd be willing to comment on this: I'm from Hamilton, a large manufacturing industrial sector. In the 1970s and 1980s, we had really vibrant apprenticeship programs. Companies were willing to invest. They saw apprenticeship programs as investments, not as expenditures. I think now, more and more, companies are seeing apprenticeships as an expense to them because they're not necessarily seeing the payoff. I wonder if you can reflect on why that shift happened and what we need to do to change that mindset back again.
The Europeans are still hugely successful with respect to their apprenticeship programs. They didn't see the same dip that we saw here. I'd be interested in hearing from you whether there was a shift in the way the federal government supported apprenticeships throughout those periods which may account for some of the dips. My colleague was talking about changes in the EI program that made the wait times longer; certainly, that's been entirely unhelpful. That's probably not the only factor that has changed. I know we have the capability to deliver. The building and construction trades, I think, are still the most vibrant part of our apprenticeship program, but we also see other opportunities for apprenticeships not being as vibrant as they used to be.
It's kind of a broad question but I would appreciate your comments. Mr. Bellai, you already started to talk about some of the solutions, but I wonder if we can focus on what we used to have, what we need to get back, and how we might improve on it.