Finance committee  I'd have to think about it more, but the Build Canada program can do a lot more than it is currently doing.

Finance committee  Let me tell you the parts that I think are the positive side of the story. Those companies that partner, let's say, with Mitacs—and Rob, you should probably address this—or that partner with colleges.... Yesterday, I think, the Council of Ontario Universities issued a report about work-integrated learning now becoming 60% of Ontario university programming.

Finance committee  I fully agree, and I can tell you trades training.... We always think it's about metal bashing, and we always think about these old dirty jobs. But the technology is changing rapidly in many of these professions. So, the larger schools—in my membership, NAIT/SAIT in Alberta—are innovating in trades training such that in Calgary, you can actually do your course work on your smartphone while then going out to your work location.

Finance committee  There are many reasons why Germany is successful, but one of the bigger models is their notion of their chambers of commerce, which involve unions, employers, post-secondary, and mandatory participation for all employers.

Finance committee  That's one very important feature. The other thing is that all of the prosperous G-7 countries are facing this rural-urban divide. It's very difficult to get people to go back to their communities. I think what we heard after the minister's trip—and we were very delighted to be part of that trip; my colleague, Ken Doyle, was invited to join the minister—is that there are common challenges that places like Germany and the U.K. have with us, particularly on how you get the workers back to where the work is when the training had happened in an urban location.

Finance committee  The same. I'm listening to this discussion, and one thing I do want to clarify is this. Internships that are part of work-integrated learning in school programs are not what you're asking about here.

Finance committee  Thank you. Obviously we are in agreement. Yet we need to understand that in our British model of education that we've inherited we've said that we send our students to university to gain knowledge. All of the students around the table here are expecting to gain jobs. There is a fundamental societal bias here.

Finance committee  We were absolutely delighted with that initiative. We see ourselves as a key proponent of that idea. We presented it to your committee in the fall. In brief, what I think is important is the philosophical change that the initiative makes. It treats apprenticeship as learning. Making the Canada apprentice loan part of the Canada student loans program gets at that parity of esteem issue that I was talking about.

Finance committee  What I have always liked about the concept of the Canada job grant is the focus on involving employers. That said, large urban colleges and polytechnics will have to wait to see what demand is created because it really is up to the employer to find the worker who they wish to have trained.

Finance committee  Again, we'll have to wait to see the demand coming. When we look at the kinds of small companies that will have to sponsor the worker to go and get the training, we're hoping that there will be flexibility in the implementation of the grant so that companies can pool their demand and we can train 15 people in the same kind of up-scaling.

Finance committee  Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today, honourable members, on the persistent challenge of youth unemployment. We have two recommendations to propose, which will conclude my remarks. My name is Nobina Robinson, and I'm the CEO of Polytechnics Canada, the association that represents Canada's leading urban, degree-granting, publicly funded colleges and polytechnics.

Finance committee  [Inaudible--Editor]...have one system in the country, so Alberta is leading the way in some of these things and is exceptional. They have also changed ratios, as you probably know. The biggest thing I see in Alberta, which is very interesting—I'm trying to link back to the research and innovation issues, too—is that in Alberta you can actually have a tradesperson get a business degree; you can have them be entrepreneurs.

Finance committee  I think most Canadians, strangely enough, don't understand how apprenticeship works. It's a contract between an individual, a sponsoring company, governments that give support, and a master craftsperson or journeyperson who must teach the apprentice. That's what it is. It is currently not part of post-secondary education.

Finance committee  Thank you very much for your question, Mr. Keddy.

Finance committee  The thing is, we can't get to the bottom of the skills shortage and skills mismatch if we don't have the data. The point of principle here is that the federal government, in its shared jurisdiction with the provinces, runs a series of surveys administered by Statistics Canada. Many of those surveys have been left inactive and should be revitalized, because what we need to do is to connect education, employers, and governments for knowing and tracking outcomes.