Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my hon. colleague from Winnipeg North and I want to follow up on the education aspect.
Clearly, we have a situation in which we have people without jobs and jobs without people. Particularly as it relates to young people, to me one of the biggest challenges is that the people without jobs are not qualified to fill the jobs that are looking for people. In Germany, Austria, Denmark, and some other European countries, there are very aggressive programs that highlight the trades at a very early age. The average age of a German apprentice with the equivalent of Red Seal would be 19. The average age in Canada is probably about 10 years older than that because young people get into the education stream, whether it is university, a B.A., B.Sc., whatever, and find they cannot get work, wind up in the trades, and have lost a decade.
Would my colleague see some merit in having some kind of mechanism, perhaps in social or education transfers, with the provinces for that? I mention the provinces because it is a provincial responsibility obviously. With reference to his time in the Manitoba legislature, would he seem merit in encouraging the provinces to start a program much sooner in high school, highlighting the trades and starting that stream whereby young people would go into the trades much earlier?