Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Mississauga EastâCooksville for bringing forward this extremely important motion. I also want to congratulate him for bringing it to the House rather than straight to committee, as has been suggested by one of the NDP members.
The reason I say that is because when a motion comes before the House and gets the authority and sanctioning of the House to then proceed to committee, it has the full weight of the House behind it and it signifies to the committee that this is an important subject matter for the committee to undertake, given that the House has endorsed it.
Getting to the member's motion specifically, this is the exact kind of motion we need at this time when it comes to the trades. We have heard the statistics about shortage in trades, obviously in the GTA but throughout Canada. In fact, throughout North America and parts of the G7 countries are experiencing these shortages.
Mike Rowe is an American TV personality who used to have a show called Dirty Jobs. It was about visiting various job sites and trying to highlight what it was like to have a job in the trades.
Unfortunately, a lot of the stereotypes that come about as a result of having a job in the trades, as not being quite on par with other jobs, have developed over time and have brought us to where we are. I think back to my grandparents who came here from both Italy and Holland.