Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. These new industries require all kinds of talented tradespeople. Unfortunately, we are falling behind in terms of skilled tradespeople.
The current crisis with employment insurance underscores that, inasmuch as in order to qualify for employment insurance, people must have a certain number of hours and many people cannot possibly manage to get those hours. At the same time, they are being shut out of the skills training associated with employment insurance. It is a double whammy. They do not qualify for EI and they cannot support their families. They need the skills training to get the jobs that would allow them to support their families, but they cannot get that either because they cannot access the employment insurance that should be available.
Only 40% of the people who contribute to employment insurance in this country are able to enjoy that benefit. What about the other 60%? That is 60% of Canadians who are hard-working, who simply need a government that understands that some training would help them to find those all-important jobs.
If we supported our manufacturing and shipbuilding industries, we could put those young skilled tradespeople to work.