SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 258

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 29, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 258 - Nov/29/23
Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)
  • Nov/29/23 5:58:26 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I enjoy serving on the agriculture committee with my colleague. I want to touch on recommendation 14 regarding skills development and the encouragement for training and re-skilling programs. During testimony we heard from UFCW, which represents many workers in our food and processing sectors. In particular, it recommended that the government bring together industry players, representatives of workers and the government, a tripartite representation. I do not think there is enough awareness out there of how technically skilled agricultural jobs have become. A lot of students have a stereotypical and very old-fashioned idea of agriculture, when in fact it is a very technologically specific area. What does my colleague think about the government having to do more to promote awareness of not only the skills required but also the very well- and high-paying jobs that are available and the opportunities that exist in this sector so that we do not always have to rely on importing workers to fill the huge labour gap that exists?
170 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 258 - Nov/29/23
Mr. Yves Perron
  • Nov/29/23 5:59:38 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intelligent question, like the ones he often asks at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. That is what I was talking about earlier when I spoke about having a vision for the future. When we take action, we need to consider what things will be like in 10 or 20 years. We need to start informing, training and providing information to our young people right away. My colleague mentioned something fundamental at the beginning of his speech. He talked about sitting people down together. The federal government has a hard time doing that. It usually prefers to act as if it has a monopoly on the truth and to launch a nice program that comes with a nice, absolute truth that may not necessarily work. We need to have people in the industry sit down with people in government for a real, serious and solid consultation to see what measures can be taken. Obviously, this will have to be done in a way that respects jurisdictions. That was clearly spelled out in our report. We need to do that and improve training and information programs, because many young people looking for a career are unfamiliar with the field. We have to work on that.
214 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border