Human Resources committee  No, and that is the single biggest issue because not only are they in five different clusters, they're often across different verticals. For example, in Saskatchewan, the cluster there is very heavily agrifood, agrifood-based biotech, and in Vancouver, for example, in southern B.

Human Resources committee  The bad news is that I don't have that information for you right now, or I should say, I could have it in some form, but it's outdated. It's four years old. The good news is that we're currently conducting a new labour market study, a scoping one, in Canada, across all of the lev

Human Resources committee  Are you saying the programs that we're currently running?

Human Resources committee  Do you mean students, or job seekers? There's a big difference.

Human Resources committee  Yes, indeed. Currently, because we're not able to take them into the employment standards and because of the fact that we have to link the two—we have to both get the job seekers to use our online tools, and then have the employers register to hire them on that—it's very difficul

Human Resources committee  Our numbers are exceptional. For example, for our GMP skills check we had over 27,000 downloads last year.

Human Resources committee  No, we do not.

Human Resources committee  The program that we've done for the biomanufacturing and for the bio-transfer has just been launched in February. We do have a tracking tool on that right now. We had several dozen going through the program as it is, but it's not culminating until December, but all of those will

Human Resources committee  Certainly from all of the research, both allegorical and anecdotal, the agrifood sector is booming. There's no question it's one of the things that's driving the Saskatchewan economy, specifically in those areas. What I've heard, certainly from the SME standpoint, is very inter

Human Resources committee  No, not currently. Unfortunately, biotech has a very broad vertical. We have not stated specifically for verticals like medical devices or nanotechnology or aquaculture or anything like that. However, it would be wonderful to be able to see if we could align our programs with tho

Human Resources committee  The answer to that is absolutely. I'm sure I had a few people wondering when I said the words bio-economy. The problem is that we have a vertical in biotechnology that touches on so many others all the way—pharmaceutical, health care, agriculture, as you say, veterinary medicine,

Human Resources committee  That's a good question. A surplus in talent for the biotech field, I suppose you're saying, is a possibility. I haven't seen any studies that indicate that right now in terms of a direct transfer. I believe those students may be taking a look at other fields, but I'm not sure tha

Human Resources committee  No, although I think your point is quite laudable. As I mentioned about the transfer from manufacturing to biomanufacturing, let's say we were able to look across more verticals beyond just biotechnology. Some of the other sector councils could compare notes so that we could see

Human Resources committee  Currently, according to labour market information, in a lot of the lower-skilled work, specifically in biomanufacturing, that doesn't necessarily require a master's degree or a PhD in biotech or anything else, there is a direct indication that there are skills shortages. So with

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Wonderful. Thanks. On behalf of BioTalent Canada and its network of members and partners, I'd like to thank the members of the committee for the invitation and the opportunity to present to you today. BioTalent Canada is a national non-profit association that strives to ensure