Natural Resources committee  Absolutely. Every one of our programs has what we call a program advisory committee. We also use those in program development. These are committees made up of people from the industry we serve or that program serves. It's absolutely vital, not only at the beginning and developm

Natural Resources committee  I'll confess that we don't do trade programs, but that's absolutely essential. The built environment is a huge source of the challenge on the climate crisis. The construction trades, for instance, are going to have to be a kind of front line in the march towards the low-carbon ec

Natural Resources committee  I don't have the context of the comment, but in general there is a lot of money out there, at least on paper, in terms of meeting the needs of workers for retraining and upskilling and so on. Part of what I was trying to say is that from our perspective, there could be better way

Natural Resources committee  I'm going to pull a Mr. Nilsen here and say, “It depends.” There's such a big range. Let's look at the range of credentials offered, for instance, at Seneca. It goes from microcredentials—these are short-term, literally a matter of weeks—to four-year degrees. It goes from one-

Natural Resources committee  The short answer is probably no. This is very much industry-driven. What we need is a tighter connection with employers, which, of course, colleges are very proud to have. This isn't a theoretical exercise. We need to be right on point about what the skills are, particularly in

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you my thanks to the committee for providing me with the opportunity to address you today. I am president of Seneca College here in Toronto, York Region and Peterborough. I have the honour to join you here today on behalf