Thank you for being here, gentlemen.
I want to give a bit of context to my comments. Yesterday we had a reception of the board members of the chamber of commerce, as well as Senator Ogilvie, who is a former scientist, a university president for 13 years. Among the comments that were made, first of all, was that the chamber of commerce treats skills shortages as its number one issue this year and next year, so this is exactly its single focus. Senator Ogilvie commented that the curriculum as it stands right now at universities would be just about the worst way to develop skill sets for being employable. It was quite a bold comment.
I want to boil my question down to this: How do we make apprenticeship, trades, skill development—meaning that when they graduate, students are employable in a particular field—a first choice for students?
I go back to the years when I took tech in grade 7 and 8 as an entry and an introduction to technical things, working with my hands, doing things. It was mandatory in the curriculum of Ontario at the time. I watched my high school that I attended in Ontario absolutely abandon a whole wing that was tech-related.
I think Dr. Crocker hit the nail on the head in a couple of ways. I believe we've completely removed it out of the primary and secondary school education facilities, in many ways, and we've said let's graduate people in general arts and liberal arts—which is fine; there's nothing wrong with that.