May 13, 2008

TERRY TINKESS

CCA chairman Paul Charette addresses an event organized by CCA at Ottawa’s Algonquin College to encourage federal funding of a proposed Environmental Demonstration Centre for Construction Trades and Building Sciences.

CCA urges federal funding for proposed Environmental Demonstration Centre at Algonquin College

TERRY TINKESS

correspondent

As the demand for skilled trades continues to rise, the Canadian Construction Association (CCA) has called for government funding for a proposed $69 million Environmental Demonstration Centre for Construction Trades and Building Sciences at Ottawa’s Algonquin College.

The centre, tentatively slated for completion in 2011, would create 600 new students spaces per year in construction trades training programs and become home to over 2,500 cross-discipline students.

At an event hosted by the CCA at Algonquin College’s Woodroffe campus, Paul Charette, CCA chairman, Mike Sharp, chairman of the Ottawa Construction Association, and Robert Gillett, president of Algonquin College, expressed the need for federal support for this initiative, as well as for the broader college sector in general.

The need for action, according to Charette, is obvious.

“At present Canada simply does not have the training capacity, particularly in our college system to meet the demands from students. “We know, for instance, that some institutions across the country are facing waiting lists of upwards of 9,000 students. It has been estimated that there are over 12,000 aboriginal students on college waiting lists.

“At a time when industries like construction are in desperate need of people, and when we are having to import tens of thousands of foreign workers, and when the demand for training is clearly present, it is simply unconscionable that we are having to tell our young Canadians ‘Sorry, we have no room for you.’ ”

Gillett stressed the unique characteristics of the proposed facility, which he described as an investment in Ontario’s future.

“The trade centre that we’re trying to put up is a very unique building. It is an environmental demonstration centre — there is no other one in Canada,” he said. “This will be a unique proposition because our construction trades have told us we need to have people skilled in environmental construction.

“All partners have to see this as an investment,” added Gillett. “Health care was a consumption, we’re an investment.

This one building will generate 600 new graduates every year. You just do the multiplier effect to that and it could make a difference to this community and to Ontario.”

In addition to the three scheduled speakers, those in attendance also heard from Shirley Westeinde, chair of The Westeinde Group of Companies and a member of the Algonquin College Board of Governors, as well as John Baird, MP for Ottawa West-Nepean.

“I am concerned about the massive shortage of skilled trades workers in Canada and I look forward to working with Premier McGuinty and (Municipal Affairs and Housing) Minister Jim Watson to ensure that the Skilled Trades Centre at Algonquin College becomes a reality,” said Baird.

The Canadian Construction Association is the voice of the national non-residential construction industry, representing over 20,000 construction firms in an integrated structure of some 70 local and provincial construction associations. Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology is located in the nation’s capital and the Ottawa Valley and is the fourth-largest college in Ontario. It has nearly 16,000 full-time students and more than 39,000 part-time registrations in more than 140 programs.

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