Industry committee  No, not yet. The measure is fairly recent, as it was included in the 2018 budget. However, it did not show up on our tax returns until 2019. Then there was the pandemic. I am very interested in knowing how much the public uses this measure. It will take some time to accumulate enough data, so let's wait about five years, until 2024, before we begin studies on how popular this measure is and how it is used.

Industry committee  The federal government has already introduced the Canada training benefit for Canadian workers. There is also the Future Skills Centre, whose goal is to promote training. It works with the federal government through the Department of Employment and Social Development. These organizations could do that promotion with the provinces, to set up institutions across Canada, somewhat along the lines of the Quebec model, but without the other provinces having to repatriate powers as Quebec has done.

Industry committee  Yes, absolutely. There are ways to do that. I will give the example of Quebec and its institutions. Quebec focuses on designing training for these underutilized and under-represented groups in the labour market. There are various institutions, including the mutual training organizations I talked about earlier, which are more oriented toward specific sectors of activity.

Industry committee  Okay. The success of mutuals depends on the willingness of employers and unions to get involved. The labour shortage and the needs will not go away. They are here to stay. So we need a strategy to develop national mutuals to meet the needs in this country. Each province could then look at how this model could complement what they have in place to meet their needs.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning. Thank you for the invitation. I am here to talk about a public policy device that has existed in Quebec for a number of years and that I have been researching. It is called mutual training organizations. Mutual training organizations are used to support small and medium-sized businesses in the development of their employees' skills and to address the labour shortage.