June 11, 2008

Cross-industry coalition ready to lobby for improvements to apprenticeship system

Canadian Construction Association plans to be front and centre in talks

VINCE VERSACE

staff writer

The Canadian Construction Association (CCA) will be front and centre today in talks on how to consolidate lobbying efforts to strengthen Canada’s college apprenticeship system.

“There will be 12 representatives from national associations, representing sectors such as mining and forestry,” said Jeff Morrison, director of government relations and public affairs for the CCA.

“We are coming together to see if we can work together to lobby the Canadian government (on apprenticeship improvements) and how to do it.”

The CCA, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and other sector representatives, who will all be at the meeting, realize how important apprenticeship funding for colleges is as shortages for skilled workers loom across the board, noted Morrison.

“What comes out of this meeting will set the direction on where we [CCA] go this coming year,” he said.

Paul Charette, chairman of the CCA has stated on numerous occasions that increasing not just apprenticeship numbers, but also the capacity and physical space to train students, are priorities for the CCA. The CCA partnered with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges earlier this year to help bring more attention and funding to apprenticeship training issues.

Morrison said the CCA has set several specific goals it thinks should be central to any consolidated lobbying efforts. They are:

• Improvements to facilities and infrastructure of colleges.

• Improving and updating of trades machinery at schools.

Ontario faces a projected labour shortage of over 360,000 people by 2025, according to Ontario’s Workforce Shortage Coalition.

The recent Construction Sector Council labour forecast for Canada indicates that construction will need 94,000 new workers in order to keep pace with new projects and an additional 162,000 workers to replace retiring workers by 2016.

Morrison added that the federal government has in the past supplied funding to improve infrastructure and machinery at universities.

Charette will chair the coalition meeting and believes focus will be needed during the meeting since there will be so many agendas converging at once.

“This coalition has become a lot larger than we ever envisioned,” said Charette. “We have to stay close to the issue at hand and not let all the members of the coalition hijack what we want to achieve.”

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