Human Resources committee  If I may, I honestly believe that within the environmental sector we do not have common language and logic. So when you're comparing some of the other numbers, we're not necessarily using the same NOC or NAICS codes to collect that data. Our data has been accepted by Stats Canada as being more reliable because it deals specifically with functional jobs, and NAICS and NOC have not kept up with that.

Human Resources committee  $25 million.

Human Resources committee  We're seeing skill gaps in renewable energy and energy efficiency areas because they are, again, expanding; as well as around retrofitting and construction.

Human Resources committee  Yes. We will be affected by that, but ECO Canada perhaps will not be affected as much as some other councils, as we do have alternate revenue sources from services that we provide within the private sector.

Human Resources committee  It absolutely is, and I believe that there are three main audiences for this labour market intelligence, or labour market information. One is, of course, that individuals who are potentially coming into the field, or those who are already there, can find out the changes that are going on with respect to where the jobs are, and how the competencies are changing.

Human Resources committee  Immigration is certainly a project in which we're very keenly interested. We have created partnerships with several provinces across the country. We're actually offering an immigrant bridging process in partnership with local immigrant-serving organizations, where we offer a 180-hour classroom process to tell new immigrants about the ethical conducts of work, and to give them the ability to work within Canada.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. It's my pleasure to be here to represent ECO Canada, Canada's sector council for the environment industry. We are an industry-initiated, industry-led, not-for-profit Canadian corporation with a mandate to ensure an adequate supply of people with the appropriate skills and knowledge to meet the environmental human resource needs of the public and private sectors.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you so much for having me. It has been my pleasure, and you all have my coordinates. Please feel free to give me a call. I'd be pleased to help you in any way I can. Thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  To acquire those training dollars is always difficult. We always run into particular problems. In some cases what we look at is a partnership with industry. If there are some particular activities that are going to happen in relative close proximity, then often industry will help to offset costs for those particular activities.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, we do. A lot of our training is actually done within the community. We actually offer the training within the community for those particular activities. The problem is getting a critical mass of students. How many students do we have? If we only have three or four it becomes quite expensive to do that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We are indeed. We've only offered one program in Quebec to date. Our organization actually accredits university, college, technical institute, and CEGEP programs. We send accreditation teams in and accredit them to national occupational standards. We have already completed one CEGEP in Quebec and I believe we have two more on the list for next year.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly. There are a variety of other areas within the whole sustainable development area, whether they are with respect to solid waste, waste water, potable water, the natural environment, or wildlife preservation. There are a tremendous number of environmental activities. How is this going to tie in, as well, with new alternative and renewable energy sources and with new ways of doing business?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly not all energy extraction or any sort of industrial activity is going to have positive effects on the environment and can be mitigated. So we indeed do look at those particular activities. We talk to the communities. An awful lot of the activities that you will see within our training programs are looking at cleaning up our past sins.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's correct. We look at the common elements that are in there, and then the instructor's manual would give specific elements, if there are specific elements for different regions of the country. We are a large country geographically, but we're relatively small economically.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely.