Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.
It's good to hear that there are unions out there trying to create these apprenticeship systems as strongly as you are. The government has not done very well in assisting in creating these apprenticeships over the years. It has spent billions of dollars in infrastructure money and, as far as I know, very few of those dollars had targeted apprenticeships in them.
More recently, with some federal money, but mostly provincial money, Metrolinx in Ontario is spending close to $10 billion on rail infrastructure projects in the city of Toronto and is refusing to create apprenticeships through the Hammer Heads program. It has come up with various excuses, mostly to do with the fact that it just doesn't want to be bothered with it.
Is there a role for governments to play in insisting that there are apprenticeships attached to the spending that those governments do?