Human Resources committee  No.

Human Resources committee  I won't go down the road of tax breaks or incentives, but certainly industry needs to hear it more than once. We have to do a major lobbying campaign to market to them and to indicate that they're part of the solution. There's no one silver bullet here; they're part of a solution.

Human Resources committee  Okay. Let me just retrace the steps, then. CCTT is Canada's signatory on two accords, the Sydney Accord that was signed in Australia in 2001 and the Dublin Accord for technicians that was signed in Ireland in 2002. They validate a student graduating from one of our accredited programs in Canada.

Human Resources committee  The first answer is no, the government has not helped yet, and yes, we're open for discussions. Travel is expensive.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. I think that's one of the avenues we should be pursuing to match people who don't have jobs, but who certainly have the skill sets, with employers. Absolutely. That registry doesn't exist today, so we're going to be pushing the envelope starting on April 1.

Human Resources committee  You're correct. That study was commissioned and supported by HRSDC. It was co-managed by Engineers Canada and us. It contained a number of recommendations in terms of immediate ones and a longer-term vision. The better part of the short-term ones have been acted upon to various degrees; the longer-term ones have not, because most of them involved serious capital.

Human Resources committee  The International Qualifications Assessment Service, known as the IQAS, was launched on January 20. Its purpose is to accelerate the movement of foreign-trained people into small and medium-sized businesses—get them in at the entry level and get them working now. It's a pre-screening tool; it is not about licensure.

Human Resources committee  That's correct. We represent Canada on two different international accords.

Human Resources committee  Targeting to young women specifically, clearly the outreach program has to be done from grades 6 to 9. We have to drill down lower. Aiming at the high school level is too late. That's number one. There have to be initiatives. We know that education is a provincial sandbox, but we do work with all the ministers of education on the national level to help us promote our National Technology Week.

Human Resources committee  It goes hand in hand. Yes.

Human Resources committee  Thank you.

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. CCTT, as it's known, is a national association that was formed in 1972 and represents the interests of over 512,000 applied science and technology workers in this country. We don't represent just one profession, but 14 different sectors, ranging from architectural, building, bioscience, civil engineering technology, chemical, electrical, electronics, forestry, and the last one is this thing called IT.