Human Resources committee  In our industry we have a mentor-coach program, and these experienced people are incredible mentors and coaches because they know their trade inside out, so transferring and developing those skills has kept people at retirement age in our workforce longer, passing on their knowledge to the young people; it's very important.

Human Resources committee  As for the automotive repair and service sector, those folks are everywhere, rural and urban. Everybody has a vehicle. They all need to be repaired at some point or another. The New Brunswick community college in Bathurst is one of our accredited programs. They offer excellent automotive repair training and collision.

Human Resources committee  We've been working with the education community to promote careers in our industry to young people and get them thinking about careers in the industry and moving into apprenticeship programs. The other thing we've been doing is we've developed an accreditation program with some initial funding from the federal government, which has ended.

Human Resources committee  The recommendation I spoke to is a program that we administered in the early 1990s—and it worked tremendously well—where we leveraged federal funding with industry training dollars. The program worked over a three-year period for about $7 million. We set up credits with the industry, so that it really did build a training culture among those who participated in the program.

Human Resources committee  The program as a whole was about $7 million, and about 30,000 people were trained during that period.

Human Resources committee  I think it could be done for that, yes.

Human Resources committee  We've been working with the educational community, but certainly a lot more work needs to be done there, so that careers in our industry are presented to young women and young men as being viable, excellent careers for them. Less than 3%, I think it is, of our industry is female.

Human Resources committee  Our industry does need those people who are motivated and want to work, no question. For us, as far as looking at the foreign worker is concerned, only about 400 people a year are coming in and saying they're automotive service technicians. It's a very small pool. So we do need to access those people who want to get into the industry.

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, honourable members. Good morning. My name is Jennifer Steeves and I am the executive director of the Canadian Automotive Repair and Service Council, CARS for short. Thank you for inviting us to present today. CARS is a national sector council and addresses the needs of one of the largest and most important components of the Canadian labour market.