Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In reviewing the department, one of the things that came to light, and one of the main concerns that this committee had was the fact that so much money, I think it was $400,000 last year, was lapsed in apprenticeship training. There are various reasons for this.
Certainly the low levels of literacy and adult basic education contribute to this to some degree and in some factor. Simply, people do not have the basic reading and writing skills to be able to get into apprenticeship programs much of the time. So it is important for us to develop skills and trades and apprenticeship programs. We know this. We know we are sorely lacking qualified trades, yet we cannot get people up to that level or over that hurdle, so they can get into these programs we offer. For that reason, and various other reasons, some of this money was lapsed last year and was not accessed.
In this year, to the department's credit, they have come up with half a million dollars for oil and gas training. That is good to see, and I think everybody on our committee was waiting to see the details of how this money was going to be spent.
When it was brought up to the committee, we were given a cursory glance at it, but did not get any time to analyze the detail, and the clock is ticking. We are waiting to see this information. I am not sure if the government had reviewed the information or has now, but our committee would certainly like to get a hold of it.
I think we are concerned that there may be, or has been in the past, a focus on short term types of jobs, especially in something that will see a boom, like oil and gas, and possibly the construction of a pipeline. We want to make sure that this government has people who are in a position to take advantage of jobs in the industry, not just catering, Mr. Chairman, and not just some of the labour jobs required, but some of the skilled positions as well, because that is where we see we can really make a difference.
It seems that in the past, the government has focused too closely on short term benefits and has not looked at the bigger picture. We would like to get a look at the oil and gas training they are proposing, the $500,000, and see how that fits in with what we would like to see.
Especially, Mr. Chairman, given the comments that Mr. Handley made the other day about the fact that setting up socio-economic agreements with oil and gas companies is going to be altogether a different game than it was with the diamond companies. We simply do not, maybe, have the same ability or pull to insist that these companies hire North, or use Northern businesses.
I think we are all concerned that if we cannot hold them to this, what is the sense of training people for some of these things that the companies may or may not be required to hire?
If Mr. Ootes could respond to some of those comments, that would be appreciated. Thank you.