Got Skills?

The skills economy in Canada is a major contributor to our national GDP. The construction and maintenance industries represent seven percent of our GDP—or 12.5 percent when you consider the indirect effects. Without it, we wouldn’t have the basic infrastructure we rely on every day—roads, bridges, hospitals, or houses. We also wouldn’t have oil and gas facilities that fuel or homes and vehicles, or the airplane that carries us from one part of the country to another.

Simply put, things need to get built.

Unfortunately, our society has placed far too little emphasis on these critical skills in the past 50 years or so. In high school, students who excel academically are encouraged to pursue a university education. Those who don’t do as well are pushed in the direction of the trades.

This is often a serious mistake—“book smart” students shouldn’t automatically be steered into university and the trades are not only for the scholastically challenged.

I’ve experienced this dichotomy first hand. Growing up, I did very well in school. I didn’t begrudge the daily grind of it, and I usually got high marks. But my brother struggled to achieve good grades, and it often took a tremendous amount of focus and discipline. As a result, I was steered toward university while he was encouraged to go to trade school.

One day, while visiting my brother after we’d gone our separate ways, I asked if he had gotten his journeyperson status in his chosen vocation. He had been working as an apprentice auto-body technician. He reached into his pocket and pulled a Red Seal certification card from his wallet.

I proudly tell everyone that my brother is an interprovincial Red Seal auto-body technician. He makes a very good living and gets to use his skills for the betterment of society and our overall economy. He’s used these skills in everything from renovating houses to fixing his own vehicles. He’s even become a metal fabricator, designing and building some of the most beautiful pieces you will ever see on a living room wall.

“Book smart” career paths like medicine, education, and law are all noble callings and our society needs those people. But many “book smart” kids are steered to university and gain degrees that have limited job prospects and end up working in low-paying jobs, struggling under massive debts. Many of these students may have been well-suited to the trades and technologies fields, but were never encouraged to explore those possibilities.

The skilled trades are here to stay, even in down economies. BuildForce Canada projects that 250,000 skilled trades workers will retire this decade. Too few young people have entered the trades, and we will soon be faced with a shortage of up to one million workers.

CLAC is committed to skilled trades and partners with a variety of industry stakeholders like Skills Canada and the Apprenticeship Forum. These organizations, along with a variety of others, work to make sure our society is creating a workforce for the needs of today and tomorrow.

Our skilled tradespeople are a gift to society that we cannot take for granted. As a result, CLAC is committed to investing in them to make sure this country keeps getting built.