Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for having me. It's a treat to be here. I don't often get to come to this committee.
To the Minister, hello and welcome. It's good to see you, too. I don't know why I'm welcoming you. I'm not really part of the committee, but anyhow, thank you for your comments.
Minister, you did speak about a number of great things. I'm wondering if we could focus for a few minutes, though, particularly on skilled trades.
As you know, there's a desperate shortage of skilled tradespeople in this country, about 200,000 currently. For your provincial counterparts, particularly in Ontario—I know you'll be meeting with them soon to talk more about paid sick leave—I'm wondering if you might be working with them to help them in their work to eliminate the stigma about skilled trades. Oftentimes we talk about the importance of a university degree. We think that the way forward to help our provincial counterparts is to encourage more young people to consider the skilled trades, because there's a desperate shortage.
If you could quickly comment on that, I have a couple of more questions about that whole area.