93.6 Federal Funding for Private Sector Training Programs
[Whereas,] Rationale:
A major factor in high unemployment in Canada is a federal-provincial training system that is concentrated on the classroom and lacks a mechanism to get graduates into jobs. This system covers only part of the skill spectrum, with the result that skill shortages remain unaddressed while, at the same time, many young Canadians are unemployed. Asking industry to fund the training has proven to be ineffective, because in a competitive world, employers who spend money on training workers then risk losing them, and their investment, to employers who have not participated in the training system. This systemic problem can only be overcome by government intervention to ensure parity, as is done in all countries with a strong training structure.
[RESOLVED,] The National Council of Women of Canada urges the Government of Canada to:
- Follow through on its promise to give industry a greater role in training decisions*, and, more specifically;
- Redirect training money through phasing out classroom courses that cannot show high ratios of employed graduates, and fund industry-run programs which allow trainees to acquire skills that are chronically in shortage because they are necessarily learned on the job.
*see Federal Government Report Living Well, Learning Well?, p. 24.