To comment briefly, I really strongly agree with your orientation. I grew up in a town with a high school that had what we called “technical training” of the kind you've talked about, and it has disappeared too.
I've been spending some time in recent months in the United Kingdom. A big debate is being waged there. Like so many countries, they're looking at Germany as a model, where they make a distinction between formal academic training, like you and I probably had, and technical training. There's no low status allocated, to put it bluntly—quite the contrary—to working-class men and women who get technical skills. They're being recognized not only all over Europe but elsewhere.
In addition to what's been said already, a point I would make is that it seems to me that an industrial policy for Canada, in the manufacturing sector in particular, might use some kind of incentive in terms of tax systems in regard to corporations—and they have to really do it—for them to have apprenticeship training programs in the industry. That, by and large, as I understand it, is the emphasis in Germany. Also, we should encourage our children. As you say, not everyone is going to be a doctor, and being a skilled worker should have the same kind of positive response from the rest of us.
One thing a federal government could do, it seems to me, is look at the idea of having a tax policy for corporations that is related to skills training.