I'm Henry Reiser, and I'm representing the Council of Deans of Trades and Apprenticeship Canada. We are the educational leaders in trades apprenticeship training in the country. I'm going to speak to many of the issues that have been raised by every speaker.
The first is the lack of apprenticeships for grads of pre-apprenticeship programs. In British Columbia, for example, we have ACE-IT programs and foundation programs. In the ACE-IT program, students at risk can get dual credits, complete their high school diploma, and get trade recognition for level one. Foundation programs are simply pre-apprenticeship programs.
The problem we're having right now is that there is only a 24% completion rate in British Columbia, as an example. We need to promote and increase the apprenticeship training tax credit to the employers. I met yesterday with the vice-president of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters Association. We discussed precisely this issue of access to pre-apprenticeship graduates, and the point was raised that small and medium-sized enterprises simply lack the revenues to train. They find it too high a financial risk for them to take on apprentices, so they prefer to go down the street and hire certified workers. There's also a strategy that should be used to work with CAF on promoting trades and encourage employers to indenture apprentices.
It's important that government take a leadership role in identifying the strategic importance of a skilled workforce. The impact of temporary foreign workers on Canadian youth and their ability to find apprenticeship placements has a very negative effect. We do not have a shortage of people, we have a shortage of skilled workers. It appears that business and industry are looking to satisfy the skilled-worker demand with trained foreign workers rather than investing in Canadians. This tactic does not address a sustainable apprenticeship model looking forward.
A second matter of primary importance is the whole issue of funding. As has been mentioned before, many apprentices cannot afford to complete the in-school component of their trades training simply because of the delay in collecting their EI payments. We need to overhaul the EI strategy for apprentices. We need to remind everybody that apprentices are excused from their normal work practices, and this funding is to pay them simply to attend classes. We need to remove any waiting period, and we need to simplify the application process. My son is a third-year sheet metal apprentice and has been unable to collect his EI twice, because of the complexities of the process. Many apprentices who have not received their funding—either at all or long after the training period—leave the process in frustration and simply don't complete.
The third issue is the mobility of apprentices. We need to come up with a national strategy. The work is not necessarily available in the region where the apprentices live, and they have to relocate to the west, for example, as has been mentioned on numerous occasions. We need to align the content of the levels to ensure mobility, and we need to work with the directors of apprenticeship to coordinate this activity. This is a leadership opportunity for the federal government, which should possibly subsidize as well the relocation costs for apprentices to travel. That is a very high burden on the young and makes it very difficult.
In general, the government has an opportunity here to provide leadership and direction for apprenticeship training within the country.
Thank you.