Mr. Speaker, we need to get our act together with our apprenticeship and trades program. It's not serving apprentices or employers the way it should be, and now more than ever this territory needs skilled tradespeople. If we're going to build and maintain the new housing we need, if we're to ensure upcoming major projects actually use northern labour, if we are to boost employment numbers in smaller communities, all of these need a well-functioning apprenticeship program.

First, we need to seize every opportunity and be more flexible to offer trades programs closer to people's home communities. That way, they can maintain more continuity with their employers while literally building up their own communities.

Now, we have an ATOC board that is set up to be a bridge between industry and government and advise the Minister but ATOC seems to have no role in directing or advising Aurora College which is, of course, our only trades training provider. That's a problem because the college is arm's length from the Minister and a lot of the valuable feedback from employers relates to problems with implementation.

For example, the college often doesn't offer courses every single year so unless an apprentice is given special permission to go down south to continue their training, they have to wait a year or two which stalls their progress and momentum. Sometimes college trades courses are even cancelled at the very last minute, leaving students high and dry.

There's no formal system to connect employers with apprentices whereas an employer could call up an Alberta Trades Institute and get a list of, say, second-year electrician apprentices they could reach out to. But ECE or Aurora College can't offer that information so an employer has to wait for students to come to them.

We have heard a major bottleneck is a shortage of Red Seal journeypersons. One strategy might be to assess whether there are cases where a journeyperson might be able to safely supervise more than two apprentices at a time, which is currently the limit in our regulation.

Mr. Speaker, these are just a few ideas to help draw attention to the need to improve our apprenticeship and trades program to ensure the success of our apprentices, our northern businesses, and ultimately our territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.