Human Resources committee  To be frank, I think we need to look at programs like community benefit agreements first, and look after.... There's a whole labour pool we haven't tapped that is just starting to get tapped into. Yes, I think that would be a partial solution, but I think there's a big block of

Human Resources committee  There's a difference between the compulsory trades, like electricians, and the voluntary—I don't like the word “voluntary”—the non-compulsory trades. In the non-compulsory trades, I can buy a pair of white pants and get my van, go to Home Depot, get a paintbrush and I'm a painter

Human Resources committee  Yes, labour mobility.

Human Resources committee  There's the higher cost of living. You're not seeing waves of people from Alberta coming to Ontario, like when the economy crashed in Alberta. The cost of living is so high that they can't afford to move to Ontario.

Human Resources committee  That was part of my proposal. Accountants, lawyers and salespeople can do that. People who live in Barrie are working in downtown Toronto. Sometimes it costs $30 a day to park your truck. You have to bring your tools, hard hat...you can't hop on the TTC.

Human Resources committee  That would help labour mobility, for sure.

Human Resources committee  That is a complicated issue. Our experience has been that there aren't a lot of skilled tradespeople immigrating to Canada. Most of the immigration is not coming from countries where they have a formalized apprenticeship program. We're not getting immigrants from Germany, where t

Human Resources committee  Definitely.

Human Resources committee  That's exactly right. It is complicated. With immigration there are a lot of cultural things too. Depending on the country they're coming from, in many cases construction is the lowest of the low occupations, where you're general labour and you have no education and that's what y

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  I'm curious as to why CUPE would be involved in this because they're not a construction union. They're a public service union. They shouldn't be doing that work to begin with.

Human Resources committee  They don't know and parents don't know. They think Johnny or Jane is going to be hammering in the wintertime for the next 40 years and think, “No, you can't do that.” They don't see that they can possibly become the boss and start their own company.

Human Resources committee  You're saying that older workers don't want to see—

Human Resources committee  You know what? That's really a short-sighted vision, because the reality is if you're getting new workers in, they're contributing to your pension fund.

Human Resources committee  Very little. Very little.