Thank you, Chair, and thanks to the witnesses for coming.
In my former life, I was a human resources manager. I worked in the petrochemical industry. We had a lot of tradespeople. We hired apprentices. Along came the national energy program, and you know what? In Alberta it killed virtually everything. Apprentices were gone. Over the 1990s, apprentices were non-existent, or very few of them were around. The average age of journeymen was in the mid to late 40s and even into the 50s.
You did talk about the ups and downs of the economy and that is continual. Even back then when I was human resources manager, everyone was talking about a good university education. I was looking at people in our industry who were making big money and that continues today. Certainly I've always encouraged people to find a job they like. My dad was an electrician. I'm a politician. I'm not sure how you figure that out.
A young man in my riding by the name of Jordan Bartman is a journeyman welder. He's a very young lad. He's a third-year auto apprentice. He is going to the WorldSkills International competition in Leipzig. Our government has had an opportunity to help fund those kinds of skills competitions. I think they're extremely important. We obviously do have some funding. For small employers there's a $1,000 tax credit.
I think there is a big problem in trying to get the educators to change from encouraging kids to go to university. When I went to school there were opportunities to have a welding shop or go into the automotive trade or whatever. That doesn't seem to be there these days. Somehow as the federal government, we need to work with the provinces obviously because that's their responsibility, and they need to work with educators.
Have you got some positive suggestions that would help us move in that direction to make that happen?