Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all very much for the opportunity to speak with you today.
I serve as the vice-president of public safety with the Canadian Welding Bureau, known more commonly as the CWB. The CWB is an independent, not-for-profit organization funded solely from the industry that we serve. Since 1947, our certification programs have expanded beyond the welding of steel, and we now offer programs for aluminum welding, resistance welding, welding electrodes, and welding inspectors, to name but a few. In all cases, our programs are based on standards produced by the Canadian Standards Association.
With offices in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, the CWB's team of 160 staff provide services right across the country. The majority of our services are provided on the shop floor, providing guidance and oversight to multiple industry sectors involved in welding. The CWB is accredited by the Standards Council of Canada as a certification body, and is the only national organization with a primary focus on welding.
Today, the CWB has over 7,000 welding fabrication companies certified across Canada and the world. Our primary mission is to help protect the safety of Canadians. To support this mission, the CWB provides its services not only to Canadian organizations but also to organizations around the world that supply welded structures and products to Canada.
Each year the CWB witnesses the welding of over 90,000 test plates completed by welders, and trains thousands of welding supervisors, welding inspectors, and welding engineers. In addition, CWB staff provide an independent review of over 30,000 welding procedures to ensure compliance with national standards. It's this combination of qualified welders, qualified welding supervisors and engineers, and qualified procedures that will help ensure a high-quality and a safe weld. If one of these elements is missing, the risk of weld quality issues and failure greatly increases.
The welding industry contributes over $5 billion to the Canadian economy, and employs over 300,000 individuals. Through our membership and advocacy arm, the Canadian Welding Association, we are actively involved in working with our over 45,000 members to ensure the industry in Canada remains healthy.
One of the biggest issues facing Canadian welding is that this sector is in the midst of a skills shortage. With an aging demographic and a strong demand for welding professionals in several industries, including mining and natural resources, an active effort must be made to attract young people to the industry, and ensure that we have the trained labour force required to meet the needs of the industry, both today and into the future. To put the issue of demographics in context, the average age for most skilled welding positions is fast approaching 60.
In our most recent member survey, conducted earlier this year, two-thirds of our industry still quotes skilled trade shortage as the number one issue facing their business. The current skills shortage in the welding sector not only creates difficulties in finding skilled tradespersons, but it introduces the risk that those who are doing the work may not have the level of skill that we have relied on in the past. We are working with our members in government to ensure that there is a pool of skilled workers for both short-term and long-term needs around several issues including the Canada job grant, worker mobility, and immigration.
The CWB welcomed the federal government's intention to address training initiatives in budget 2013, and we are pleased that agreements were reached with the provinces on these initiatives earlier this year. The CWB also welcomes the Canada apprentice loan program announced in budget 2014.
However, the CWB believes that there are several other actions that must be taken to address the skills shortage in welding.
First, the creation of a national training curriculum for welders would provide colleges and other training institutions with a current and comprehensive approach to creating a first-class generation of skilled trades. Government, industry, and training organizations must work together to meet the needs of the future. We must also work to tap into specific demographics—such as women and aboriginals—to seek this next generation of skilled workers.
Secondly, we must also work to improve the ease of labour mobility from province to province to ensure that skilled tradespersons can go where they are needed.
Thirdly, in addition to training Canadians, a key part of this solution is ensuring that when skilled foreign workers are needed, they must meet the needs of Canadian industry from a skills perspective. We believe the federal government's recent changes to the federal skilled trade program is a positive step forward, and CWB is already working throughout the world to ensure that potential immigrants to Canada are trained to Canadian standards and requirements, so that they are job-ready when they arrive.
I look forward to answering your questions related to the renewal of the LMDA agreements, and how government, industry, and training organizations can work together to ensure that Canada has access to the skilled tradespeople needed to meet our infrastructure, energy, and economic needs.
While we realize that LMDAs will not provide solutions to all of the labour and skills issues our industry faces, they certainly are our key tool in working towards solutions.
Thank you.