I think our research capacity in the labour market field is significantly deficient. I think what we've done with devolution is that we have moved the responsibility to each one of the provinces according to an accountability framework for these various different agreements, and we have not, as a country, been able to even develop research where we can compare one province to another. I think it's very important to do comparative research, particularly interprovincial research to understand what Ontario has put in place and its results compared to other provinces'. I don't think you can do that by having some more statistical models and data collected by Statistics Canada. I think you need a vibrant research institute that actually develops a research plan that would look at what the objectives are that we are trying to achieve with these programs.
That's why I think it's also very important that on a pan-Canadian basis, we not just do everything by these segmented bilateral agreements. Where are we going with our labour market programs? What are our overall strategic objectives? Then, how do the provinces achieve those through the particular defined agreements, and how are they accountable for them? I think you need a vibrant research institute that has a capacity to actually use the data that is collected and to actually increase administrative data that would go to a research institute and would not necessarily go to a Stats Canada institute.
I think that's why you need something like a CIHI equivalent that would put a research agenda in place for this policy area, that would collect the information that governments would require in order to understand where we're going with this particular policy area. I don't think some additional surveys in Stats Canada would do that.