I'm inclined to agree that there has to be a lot of consultation, but it has to take place at a highly, if you will, atomistic level. That is to say there is no one grand plan, as has been detailed here. As well, there is no one manufacturing sector. The manufacturing sector is highly divergent. The economy is highly divergent. Young Canadians are quite different in their own interests and aptitudes.
My sense of it all is that when you actually look at our labour market, notwithstanding the current stresses we are under, we've been here before and we've had a lot of these pressures. I'm sure the minutes of committee meetings would reflect that these concerns are perennial.
Yet in many respects the Canadian economy and labour market are highly resilient, and a lot of these things work out. They don't always work out for the individual workers themselves who are affected by this kind of change. But we should never actually forget just how much flux and change is actually going on at any one point in time and how well we're adapting to it.
If I told you that in 1999 one in five manufacturing workers either quit or lost their job, you would be shocked. But in fact, over one in five new hires took place in that year. It's just an indication of the amount of churn that does take place in the sector.
The key challenge we actually face is making sure that people have enough skills, first of all, especially those foundational skills. In fact, my single largest concern would be not so much our level of educational attainment, but some of the literacy challenges we face in the economy. If you don't have the literacy skills, the first thing you're missing is a tool for learning, because literacy and reading skills are the most important tool for even learning new skills.