Evidence of meeting #102 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was apprentices.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Business Outreach Liaison, Trade Winds to Success Training Society
No, right now we have about 25% female graduates.
Business Outreach Liaison, Trade Winds to Success Training Society
Thank you.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
I have a question for Mr. Snooks. And I'm a former provincial minister responsible for trades and apprenticeship.
If I recall correctly, the European countries were always viewed as a model of how to do apprenticeship right. Is that still the case?
International Representative, United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada, Canada's Building Trades Unions
Absolutely, they are. They've done it right for decades now.
International Representative, United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada, Canada's Building Trades Unions
I don't know. Maybe it's time we started listening.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
If you could just condense it for a moment—and I would appreciate a comment from Ms. Robinson as well as from you—what are we continuing to do differently from what Europe is doing today?
International Representative, United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada, Canada's Building Trades Unions
A lot of it is what we've already discussed. It is the aura around people getting into the trades. If you go back to Germany, they say “You're professional. You're rated up there with the top people.” It's a career. I'm from England—
Liberal
International Representative, United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada, Canada's Building Trades Unions
I'm from England originally. The plumber used to go to work—and he may still do it—in a shirt and tie.
International Representative, United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada, Canada's Building Trades Unions
They act like professionals, and they're treated like professionals, and that's the big difference, I think.
Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada
I totally concur, because at the end of the day, we're talking about craft. And in fact, it's interesting when you think about the changing nature of work, that we've come back to a world where craft is how we're going to survive in an automation economy. It's the working with the hands; it's the personal touch. But that's a whole other discussion.
To your question—and it constantly comes up—on why we can't be more like Europe, that means that by grade 8, we're going to have to tell the students to spend one day on the job and spend four days in the classroom. Are we prepared to disrupt our K-to-12 model? Until we are, we're going to be up against the same thing. In 20 years, it hasn't changed, because we're telling them about apprenticeship only when they're finishing high school, by which time the guidance counsellor has come in and done their damage and told them to go to university. Why? Because the guidance counsellor was trained at a university to be a teacher. We all want to perpetuate what we know instead of doing what my colleague Sarah Watts-Rynard said, which is for parents to show a different future path to their children.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Would there be any guidance counsellors in our school system—this may be an unfair question—who come from a trades background?
Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada
I wouldn't know, because I'm not an expert in the K-to-12 world.
Maybe I would ask my colleagues if they know.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Yes. That's what I thought.
Ms. Robinson, I'm intrigued by your comment about the “trades to degrees” program. I think that's a pathway to dealing with the stigma. It's an interesting statistic you gave us, if I got this right, that they're 26 years old when they're entering the system. Most people who go the academic route are exiting university before that, at 20-some years of age, and drifting for a period of time because they can't find anything. They're entering in third year, you said, for a bachelor's program. Could you expand on that?
Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada
I would invite my colleague, Matthew Henderson, to tell you about NAIT in Edmonton. He has the details.
Matthew Henderson Policy and Data Analyst, Polytechnics Canada
It's a certified tradesperson with management experience. It's someone who has been an entrepreneur, using their trade certification in an entrepreneurial—
Policy and Data Analyst, Polytechnics Canada
They have a trade certificate, but you're correct, they have no other post-secondary experience.
They jump into the third year of a Bachelor of Business Administration program, where they'll learn entrepreneurship and things like that. The technical they have learned through their certification, and then they jump into the last two years of a BBA program to get that business sense to then perhaps expand their business. The hope is that some of these people will expand their small businesses, if they already have one, or start one and then hire apprentices. It kind of recycles and keeps this process going and going.
I should mention that NAIT isn't the only one of our members that has a pathway program such as this. At Conestoga College, in a lot of their diploma credentials they are learning apprenticeship techniques, such as welding techniques. They're finding that a lot of technicians require that skill. What they're able to do is then take that diploma and have advanced standing in, for example, a welding apprenticeship.
It's really trying to encourage as many pathways as possible so that when a student enters Conestoga College, after their first year they can then pursue other opportunities as well to combine and stack. It's about the stackability of credentials.
