Human Resources committee  It's important to recognize that you're not going to.... You know, if it's an experienced welder who needs a specialized welding course and does a three-week welding course to get his specialist training, that is going to be successful. But if it's a kid who dropped out of grad

Human Resources committee  I'm going to be a little abstract. The administrative data is data that is required for administrative purposes. In other words, you can't go on and do whatever it is you wanted to do unless you supply that data. The trick in developing a labour market information system that's i

Human Resources committee  First of all, don't misunderstand what I said on the Kijiji data. I think it was really dumb to use that and really bad. What I was saying is that there is a core idea in using it that does make sense, in that this is the way that labour market vacancies are being reported ther

Human Resources committee  Some might see it as a risk; others would see it as a benefit. One of the paradoxes of the labour market is that labour supply is local, and labour demand is national or international. How you marry those two is difficult, but I would say that one of the benefits of the LMDAs wou

Human Resources committee  Health files are notoriously complicated, by the way. Of all the records and systems we have, they are among the most challenging and difficult. I used the seven months. I was just talking. I wasn't very—

Human Resources committee  It's a long-term project. I have a broader point, sir. This is that the concept of survey data, where you survey annually and you get your report and then you assemble the data and it takes a year and a half, is the way of the past. The way of the future is to do what the whole

Human Resources committee  First of all, under the Canada job grant, many employers will have less skin in the game because they'll be getting government grants, whereas before they weren't. That's an issue. But how is a high school graduate in Nova Scotia going to get the skills they need to get a job in

Human Resources committee  Yes, I think it's critically important. I'm not an expert on that use of technology, but I know this: we're not going to get from where we are today to where we ought to be unless there's some leadership and somebody decides to undertake that task. People made fun of the federal

Human Resources committee  There is reporting required now by the provinces, but if you look through the reports that the provinces provide you'll find that they are pretty sketchy. It's pretty hard to tell what actually happened and what particular outcomes there were, but also where the inputs really wer

Human Resources committee  Sure. I've avoided talking about the Canada job grant because I did not want to.... I think there were some important things to say about the LMDAs that we could just submerge in a discussion. I'm going to say something contentious. In my view, it's very evident that the Canada

Human Resources committee  The old way of getting data was to do a survey, and that's very extensive, especially if you have to do a detailed firm-level survey, and then it takes a lot of money and a lot of time to analyze the data, which is inevitably, if it's really fast, a year and a half out of date or

Human Resources committee  Okay, I have three recommendations.

Human Resources committee  I do.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. I'll skip right to the next two recommendations. First, we recommend a vastly strengthened labour market information system at both the wholesale and what I call the retail level. Second, through the LMDAs the federal government distributes employer and

Human Resources committee  I'm your second Mr. Mendelson for the day, and I'm no relation, by the way. Thank you very much for the opportunity today to comment on the renewal of the labour market development agreements. Most of the presentations you've heard have focused on the rules and the funding of th