I can speak to what's changed, at least from the welding industry. What's changed is that 25 years ago the issues around worker mobility were not on the radar because they weren't required. We've shifted. Our economy has shifted. The nature of our work has shifted, and now where we see the strongest demand for welders are large-scale projects, mining and natural resources, which require the movement of workers. That simply wasn't the case before, so in our particular industry, that issue of worker mobility is now high on the radar.
When you go to northern Alberta, you see people from all over the country. But even when you go to places on the two coasts with the NSPS, the shipbuilding procurement program, we're starting to see workers trickle in from other places as well, so that's what's changed.
I don't think the trades created the system to be separate, but what's happened is, as the systems in each province have evolved slightly differently to meet the unique demands of their local industry, whether it be manufacturing in southern Ontario or oil and gas in the western provinces, when workers do move under the Red Seal program, the skills that they have are sometimes very different.
That's why I mentioned earlier that we're looking for a national curriculum, a national approach on training that could be supported by LMDAs, and then that makes it easier for the workers to move. What we see now are barriers under Red Seal programs where the number of hours, the topics that are taught, etc., don't match up. So the provinces say, “Sorry, you're a welder there, but you're not a welder here”.
So that's kind of what we've seen change in our industry as an evolution over the past 25 years.