Human Resources committee  I want to add that under the youth employment strategy, for example, we have the skills link program. While we do not support apprenticeship training from beginning to end, the program supports youth who may have difficulty finding an employer to finish their apprenticeship. Thro

Human Resources committee  Yes, I just wanted to add a few words in answer to your question about international studies. We are quite aware of some other countries that have different education systems and they are doing fairly well when it comes to apprenticeship training, vocational training. We very

Human Resources committee  I would just like to add that the Government of Canada is a supporter of Skills Canada, from whom I think you're going to hear at some point. That is an organization devoted to promoting the skilled trades and technology. As I said, we strongly support Skills Canada and the ski

Human Resources committee  No, we're not doing that. This is something that we really need to work on with provinces. It is not something the federal government can do alone. We cannot step into grade schools and start promoting certain careers. We have heard many times from Canadian experts and experts

Human Resources committee  I was talking about the skills link program. It's part of the youth employment strategy. It's a horizontal initiative. HRSDC's the lead, but we have nine departments and agencies participating. HRSDC's portion of skills link is just over $100 million. Skills link is a program tha

Human Resources committee  Yes. Regarding our wage subsidies, under the youth employment strategy we have Canada summer jobs, for example, which is a wage subsidy program. We have career focus, which is an internship wage subsidy program. Under skills link it's the same, the work experience; it's a wage s

Human Resources committee  Thank you for your question. For the opportunities fund, yes, there is certainly a follow-up that is being done on persons with disabilities to do a regular reporting on the data that Yves just presented in terms of how many found employment and how many returned to school. For

Human Resources committee  Yes, they are public.

Human Resources committee  The opportunities fund is a very specific fund. The clientele of the opportunities fund is persons with disabilities who have very little or next to no labour market attachment. When we are talking about episodic disabilities, absolutely they are part of the group of clientele of

Human Resources committee  No, you're not wrong. The opportunities fund does have an employer awareness component in it. We actually added that after the 2008 evaluation. One of the shortcomings that came out was that, first of all, the awareness of the program wasn't great, but then also the awareness of

Human Resources committee  To obtain what? Sorry, but I'm having trouble hearing you.

Human Resources committee  Yes, absolutely.

Human Resources committee  Exactly. Eligible expenses are included under the opportunities fund. First of all there's wage subsidy, for example. Wage subsidy is always important to give an individual a chance to show their abilities to an employer, so we provide wage subsidies. We provide workplace accomm

Human Resources committee  I can start from the program policy perspective in terms of the importance of employers. I was mentioning that employer awareness activities are very important. It came out in 2008, and was confirmed again by the panel, that employer awareness is very important. In budget 2012, a

Human Resources committee  I see great potential. Again, I'm talking from the program policy area. We're sort of the thinkers. We always look ahead in terms of how we can make our programs better and more efficient and more effective. Certainly, everything we've heard now confirms the idea that we need to