That's a very good question.
Yes, the subsector was heavily impacted by the pandemic, given its reliance on air transportation. We know the impact of the pandemic on air travel, both domestically and internationally.
In our study, we also found that labour shortages are expected to be extreme as soon as 2025. One of the obstacles to recruitment is, again, lack of recognition, particularly for the skilled trades in aerospace. That's one thing. The second thing is the availability of training programs. What we're seeing is that colleges are not able to get sufficient enrolment numbers, so when there are students who are interested in a particular program, the program gets cancelled and they transfer into a different skilled trade. As a result, there are never enough people trained for work in aerospace, even though it's rewarding work, it's enriching, it's stimulating, it's well paid and it's stable. Really, the issue is between people wanting to get into the industry versus having the ability to do so. It is just not there. It's a provincial responsibility, and all of the provinces could be looking more at that. We do have recommendations on what that would look like.
You're absolutely correct that Montreal is the third-largest ecosystem when it comes to aerospace. Canada is very much globally competitive. This is a subsector that is also of national importance. However, we see that Canada has been falling in terms of global competition and we see that investment on all fronts, from education and training all the way to support to SMEs, really isn't there, so it's a much broader issue. However, skill shortages certainly are plaguing this industry, like many others.