ACOA has a strong focus on business skills development. Within that we have a pretty strong component that's targeted at promoting youth entrepreneurship, so when we talk about skills development for youth, we, at ACOA anyway, tend to focus on promoting entrepreneurship among youth. There are a number of other elements that we have. We have the productivity in business skills initiative under the business development program that will help companies hire staff to improve productivity and business skills. We work with CBDCs, for instance, to put in place an entrepreneurial training fund that CBDC then provides to entrepreneurs, both young and old, with an emphasis on the young there.
I'd like to just talk about two specific initiatives that ACOA has funded that are targeted at youth because they address an important issue that has affected many rural areas.
One of those initiatives is called Je reviens! J'y reste! and it is offered
in the northeastern part of New Brunswick.
The other initiative, which is called PERCE, is offered
throughout P.E.I., but is targeted mainly at the western part of P.E.I. where the francophone population is targeted.
These two initiatives help to attract young francophones back into their communities. They connect them with businesses that may have opportunities for them. But part of the program is to help educate them about how they could apply their skills in their community of origin. It's been a pretty successful approach in those areas.