Skilled trades crisis and the future of Canada

by Maj (ret'd) CORNELIU. CHISU, CD, PMSC, FEC, CET, P. Eng. Former Member of Parliament Pickering-Scarborough East While spending taxpayers' money generously on corporate welfare, to the tune of billions of dollars, financinggigantic projects, the Canadian government as well as the provincial ones, forget that we lack thepeople skilled in trades to make these projects a reality. The sad reality is that skills oriented education has been neglected for generations. Even the community collegesestablished by William G. Davis in 1965 to teach applied arts and technology, have moved away from technical training in an effort to become universities. These years of neglect in pursuing a strong skilled oriented education policy,has now come to fruition, with results that will severely affect the Canadian economy and subsequently the standard of life. Some 700,000 of Canada's 4 million skilled tradespeople are set to retire by 2028, according to recent projections. At least one-third of tradespeople and apprenticesin Ontario are 55 or older. As older workers hang up their tools, they are not being replaced by young ones who bring matching skills to the job site. As Statistics Canada has warned, the discrepancy between the glut of unfilled jobs and the scarcity of qualified workers "poses a serious challenge for industries relying on the skilled trades." The manufacturing sector, which generated $213 billion in economic activity and 1.6 million direct jobsin 2023, is seeing serious issues in the future for the lack of skilled trades. The president of the Canadian Manufacturers Association (CME) Dennis Darby says thatas a result of labour shortages, "over 60 percent of manufacturers we surveyed said [they've] turned down or lost contracts." "Which means they just can't meet the production," and he adds Forty-three percent have postponed or cancelled capital investments. "That's how important labour is in manufacturing." CME's economists estimated the skills shortage in the manufacturing sector cost the Canadian economy some $13 billionin 2022 in lost contracts and delayed investment. Darby says Canada is not doing enough to close the gap. "I think we're going to have chronic labour shortages." The question is, how the billions of dollars of taxpayers' money committed to foreign corporations through government sponsored projects, will benefit Canadians, who will not see employment in them, due to lack of skill trades. Looking at the construction sector, a $165-billion industrythat accounts for 8 percent of Canada's GDP, a CIBC reportlast year identified 80,000 vacancies across the country. Half the unfilled jobs require a skilled tradesperson to fill them. "It is hardly a secret that the industry needs more workers, and fast. Ask any developer about supply issues and the availability of labour usually tops the list," the report explains. The scarcity of skilled construction workers is causing major headachesfor employers and delaying the building of much-needed infrastructure.The shortage is driving up costs and contributing to the housing crisis. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimates that Canada needs to increase its housing supplyby some 3.5 million units by 2030 to bring affordability back to where it was in 2004. However, current housing starts number abouta quarter of a million new homesa year.Due in part to growing labour and material costs, the housing shortage is growing rather than shrinking. As an RBC report summed it up: "The pace of housing construction would need to jump by nearly half…just to meet future demographic growth." In other words, the skills crunch is not a looming problem: it is already here. It is holding back Canada's economic growth anddriving inflation. Therefore, Canada has a major problem at hand. To resolve it, a complete overhaul of the skille trades education systemis needed. First and foremost, it is the responsibility of the provinces to do this in a bold and radical way. Unfortunately, the provinces'political establishments are incapable of the required action at this stage.They seem stuck in an ivory tower, incapable of looking at alternativesuccessful educational systems practised in other countries. The other factor that needs to change drastically in the interest of all Canadians,is the immigration system, and that is the responsibility of the Federal Government. When it comes to recruiting from abroad, Canada has increased the flow of newcomers dramatically in recent years, but only a small proportion of them come equipped with a hands on skilled trade. In 2022, when the federal government announced an increase to 500,000 immigrants a year by 2025, representatives from the construction and manufacturing industries applauded the increase but cautioned that more is needed to be done to ensure that some of the newcomers know how to swing a hammer. The perception was that a significant number of new immigrants would help to build the homes that would house new arrivals, rather than just being more people who needed a roof over their heads. "The federal government is making housing more affordable and bringing in the skilled workers required to build more homes," asserted Immigration Minister Marc Miller last year. "Without those skilled workers coming from outside Canada, we absolutely cannot build the homes and meet the demand that exists currently today." As it stands now, CIBC estimates that only 2 or 3 percentof newcomers to Canada over the last decade have arrived with skilled trade qualifications. A research paper published last yearquoted an immigration lawyer complaining that "we don't necessarily need more HR managers and administrative workers but we do need carpenters and we are not doing a great job attracting bodies to fill positions…So we have this constant shortage of workers in these industries." Critics have lambastedthe federal government for even falling short of its modest goal to bring in some 3,000 skilled tradespeople annually through a targeted stream called the Federal Skilled Trades Program. Just 450 people were admitted to Canada through the FSTP in 2022, down from 500 in 2021 and 565 in 2020. (Compare these figures to the number of reported job vacancies in construction-related trades in the third quarter of 2023: 4,865 for electricians, 4,010 for plumbers, pipefitters, and gas fitters, and 9,010 for carpenters-around half of the job vacancies had been open for at least 120 days for the latter two groups.) The program might attract more successful applicants if it didn't require them to have a job offer in Canada, or Canadian trade qualifications-not easy things to procure beforemoving here. Immigration officials aren't in a hurry to speed up the program, with an average application processing time of 63 months in 2022 much longer than for related entry streams for applicants with more office-bound skills. Unless industry and governments at all levels undertake aggressive reforms, Canada's skilled trades workforce will continue to shrink, exacerbating all the challengesthat shrinkagebrings: lower economic output, inflation, and an accommodation shortage that fuels high housing costs. What do you think?