On Thursday, August 2, MFL President Kevin Rebeck and MFL Special Projects Coordinator Jean-Guy Bourgeois participated in a federal consultation on strategies to address Canada’s skills shortages.

The consultation session was led by Dr. Kellie Leitch, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. Dr. Leitch led a very participatory and open-ended discussion that focused on strategies to better integrate key groups – aboriginal Canadians, young Canadians, workers over 55 years of age, and new immigrants – and to meet the skills needs of our economy.

The MFL focused its contributions on the need:

• for expanded investment in skills and apprenticeship training spaces and facilities;
• for more incentives that encourage employers to take on apprentices;
• to better provide skills training opportunities to Manitoba’s young and rapidly growing aboriginal population; 
• to improve retention of younger skilled workers; and
• to reject exploitative, cheap labour strategies, as embodied by recent changes and exoansion to the Temporary Foreign Worker program.

Other participants included representatives from business, human resource consultants, policy researchers, and new immigramt settlement services.