Ready To Deliver

Overview

As part of the 2026 federal pre-budget process, this submission focuses on a central challenge facing Canada: translating ambition into execution.

Canada’s ability to deliver nation-building projects across housing, energy, infrastructure, and industrial development is increasingly constrained by labour shortages, rising costs, and global competition for capital. At the same time, the Government has signalled a clear focus on productivity, investment attraction, and economic growth. Meeting this moment requires a policy framework that is disciplined, outcomes-driven, and focused on removing barriers to building.

CLAC represents nearly 60,000 workers across Canada and is actively engaged in delivering major projects in every region. We are grateful for the focus on skilled trades in the government's 2025 Budget and Spring Economic Update and are ready to partner with the to accelerate project delivery and strengthen Canada’s economic performance.

Bottom Line
Canada will not close its productivity gap or attract sustained investment without improving its ability to execute. That requires mobilizing the full workforce and ensuring federal policy enables delivery at speed and scale.

Key Recommendations

1. Enable Execution by Maximizing Workforce Participation

Execution, not intent, is now the defining test for major projects. Federal policy must ensure that workforce and procurement frameworks expand, rather than limit, the ability to build.

Priority actions:

• maintain open and competitive contracting environments
• ensure access to the full pool of qualified workers
• avoid restrictive conditions/preferences that reduce participation

Why this matters:
As a union we are highly supportive of the value, safety and support we add for our workforce, but we also support the freedom of association and the choice of workers to choose if they want to be part of a union or not.  Constraining workforce participation based on union affiliation directly increases project costs, restricts local participation, impacts indigenous inclusion, reduces the number of bidders and causes delays in construction timelines.  In Canada, approximately 30% of the workforce is unionized and these numbers drop significantly on Canada’s west coast.  In a globally competitive environment, predictability and access to local labour are decisive advantages.

Canada needs all hands on deck. Policy must reflect that reality.

2. Shift to Outcomes-Based Workforce Policy

The Government’s objective of supporting high-paying, sustainable skilled trades careers is commendable. As the Government advances policies tied to major project delivery and clean economy investment, it is important that implementation frameworks support both strong worker outcomes and efficient project execution.

CLAC believes Canada’s existing federal and provincial labour relations systems provide workers and employers with established mechanisms to negotiate compensation and working conditions appropriate to their industries and regional labour markets. Policy frameworks should support those freely negotiated arrangements while ensuring projects can proceed efficiently and competitively.

Current prevailing wage conditions tied to the Clean Economy Investment Tax Credits have introduced additional administrative complexity for unions, employers, and project proponents. In many cases, employers operating under existing collective agreements or established compensation structures are required to apply separate trade-by-trade compensation assessments to demonstrate compliance with the program requirements. While the policy may increase compensation in some cases and reduce it in others, it consistently introduces duplicative administrative requirements that complicate workforce planning, limit flexibility, and increase project delivery costs.

If the Government wishes to maintain compensation-related conditions within federal investment programs, we recommend modernizing the current framework to focus on achieving strong compensation outcomes while enabling flexibility across recognized workforce models and collective bargaining structures.

Priority actions:

• replace the current prevailing wage framework with a more flexible outcomes-based model for projects supported or enabled by the federal government
• alternatively:
  • enable multiple workforce models to meet established compensation standards without unnecessary administrative burden
  • redefine prevailing wage within the Income Tax Act to recognize any compensation framework established through collective bargaining, project labour agreements, or equivalent market-based compensation standards

Why this matters:

Canada’s ability to deliver housing, infrastructure, energy, and industrial projects depends on policies that support workforce participation, labour stability, and project execution. Procurement and workforce frameworks should remain flexible enough to reflect regional labour markets, different workforce models, and existing negotiated agreements.

An outcomes-based approach would better align with the Government’s productivity and investment objectives by:

• protecting workers
• respecting collective bargaining
• reducing administrative burden
• improving workforce flexibility
• accelerating project delivery

3. Unlock Productivity Through Labour Mobility

Labour mobility is one of the fastest levers available to improve productivity and accelerate project delivery.

Priority actions:

• continue working to reduce interprovincial barriers to mobility
• align immigration pathways with skilled trades demand
• support mechanisms that connect workers to projects across regions

Why this matters:
Canada’s constraint is not just labour supply, it is labour access. Projects stall when workers cannot move efficiently to where they are needed. Improving mobility is a low-cost, high-impact intervention that directly supports growth and investment.

4. Strengthen Apprenticeship Completion Through a Federal Group Sponsorship Program

Helping apprentices get trained and complete their training is critical to long-term workforce capacity.  The Build Canada Apprenticeship Service announced in the Spring Economic Update is a welcome initiative, but we also recommend supporting union-led group sponsorship programs.  Unions are in a unique position to follow the apprentice through their journey and to ensure that they are supported.  These programs deliver end-to-end apprenticeship supports, including:

• recruitment and intake
• employer matching
• mentorship and tracking
• completion support

Why this matters:
As the government recognizes, Canada needs a significant increase in skilled trades capacity to deliver on housing and infrastructure commitments, yet completion rates remain too low.

The federal government is supporting apprenticeship in Canada with $6 B in investment and we believe this initiative will compliment the current agenda.  This is a practical, scalable intervention with immediate impact on workforce capacity.

Conclusion

Budget 2026 is an opportunity to align policy with execution. The Government has set a clear direction: strengthen productivity, attract investment, and deliver nation-building projects. Achieving these objectives will depend on disciplined policy choices that remove barriers, expand workforce participation, and focus on outcomes.

CLAC is ready to partner in that effort.

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