Over the past 10 years, the creation and proliferation of sectoral committees (some committees were originally established as the Quebec chapters of Canada-wide sector councils), which now number 30, Footnote 36 are also an upshot of the Act and its regulations, especially the measures and co-operation that these institutional frameworks have permitted and facilitated (Charest, 2002; 2006; DFNFMO, 2005, chap. 6): dissemination of information, mobilization, negotiation, support for initiatives involving more than one company, representation, action-research, research support, etc. In the decentralized context of Canadian industrial relations at the level of individual companies, the emergence of these forms of sectoral consultation and mediation is a very significant qualitative development (Charest, 2006).
This concerted and deliberate sectoral structuring is a major factor in the achievements that can be ascribed to the Act. Several sectoral committees have played an important role in the expression and operational definition of learning demand in the relevant sector. The joint development of skill profiles and professional standards profiles covering similar jobs in a single sector has helped, and will continue to help not only to improve initial professional education to make it more relevant (Tremblay, et Doray, 2000) and to improve the supply of continuing education, but also to help put in place measures and services associated with the Recognition of Prior Learning , an important field of endeavour linked to the Workforce skills development and recognition framework, but with a much broader scope. Footnote 37
Nor can we ignore the initiatives taken by certain sectoral committees to create or attempt to create, despite the difficulties that still exist, Footnote 38 mutuelles de formation in such a way as to meet the demand coming from the smallest firms.
The sector-by-sector analysis by Bélanger et al. (2004) makes it possible to qualify some of the results. In businesses in the retail sector, for example, the Act has made it possible to inventory all of the moneys invested and to better structure both external and in-house ALT activities. A similar structuring effect could also be observed in the food-processing sector. In the biopharmaceutical industry, the impact of the Act to foster the development of manpower training has been markedly different. In that sector, investment by companies in the education and training of their staff was already quite substantial and exceeded by far the minimum 1% threshold. The Act has mainly an incentive effect here, encouraging more systematic monitoring of these ALT activities. Use is also made of the training fund when special financial support is required to implement a pilot project, embark on some innovation, systematize training evaluation, develop ALT in particularly reluctant sub-sectors or review the training of the trainers. In these companies, the person responsible does not hesitate to emphasize the tedious and bureaucratic nature of the necessary steps and initiatives, even where the overall evaluation remains positive.
Return to note 36 Including the mining industry's sectoral labour force committee.
Return to note 37 See, for example, the opinion of the Conseil supérieur de l'éducation (2000) on this subject.
Return to note 38 See the Five-Year Report, pp. 72-73.