Thank you for your question.
The apprenticeship system in Canada relies on employment. In construction it's not a system whereby young people sit in a classroom for four years. For a construction apprentice, it's basically the same in the 14 industrial trades; it's 80% on-the-job learning. So in terms of benefits to young people, energy projects such as pipelines and oil sands work, and all the spinoffs provide a really good opportunity for teenagers and young adults to get hired and become apprentices.
Those apprentice programs are three to four years, depending on the trade, and it requires the participation of employers, the government, and the unions for young people to move through the system. The way it works is a young person goes into an apprenticeship program. It's a four-year program, and they learn the competencies in a structured way, but to do that, to be adding value to the training system and being involved, they have to work.
I talk about the oil sands as a global classroom. These megaprojects and pipelines provide an opportunity for young people to gain employment. So lots of folks from Newfoundland and New Brunswick get on a plane and become tradespeople in Alberta. In fact, in Ontario, to be flexible and nimble during the recession, a lot of the training centres we represent started teaching Alberta curriculum. So now there are folks graduating and working who are based in Ontario but are getting their hours in Alberta. The benefits are twofold: one, you get a job right away as a young person; and two, it's a way to transfer knowledge from people who are moving out of the workforce, to grab that knowledge from plumbers and pipefitters, carpenters, and stonemasons.
Without these work opportunities, the apprenticeship system could become stagnant.