Thank you for the question.
This is an opportunity not only for young people, but for everyone across the country. These are very good jobs, because they pay very well. They also offer a lot of benefits and, often, a very good pension plan.
It's a really important component not only for building up the opportunity for young people, but for making sure that we have the skilled trades in this country to meet the ambition of the time. In fact, I'm glad to hear you're speaking with your constituents, because I am as well with mine.
I was visiting northern Ontario. As a matter of fact, last week I visited a small area called Marathon, Ontario, which is experiencing a mining boom. One of the things employers were telling me is that they're having a hard time finding skilled trades workers that can work in specific areas of the mining industry, both in building the mines in some cases and, later on, in servicing the mines and servicing the equipment that goes into the mines.
I will note that there are over 50 Red Seal trades, and the variety among the Red Seals it quite large. This program will provide an opportunity to build on some of the work that some provinces and territories are doing to introduce people to the trades to ensure people have an opportunity to feel what it's like to work. These will be paid experiences. It's also meant to support people who are already in the pipeline of skilled trades training. My son is an operating engineer, and I've had the opportunity to see how challenging it can be for someone to get from the first days of their training to a Red Seal certification. We're very excited about the supports in place that will help people through that journey.
Finally, there are many employers who would possibly consider hiring a Red Seal. Small businesses often feel it's unaffordable. There is such an advantage to training your own talent, though, and we'll be recruiting more employers—hopefully particularly small employers, but all sizes of employers—to hire first-year apprentices to make sure that apprentices completing their training have a place to get their hours so that the process of certification is steady and there's hands-on learning with a Red Seal journeyperson. We have to plug these holes, if you will, in the gaps of the journey so that we make sure we graduate more Red Seal professionals.
The numbers are not the greatest. Overall, about 32% of Red Seal workers complete the training and get their Red Seal certification. You can imagine the frustration of young people—or people of any age—who enter the skilled trades and then find that their pathway to certification, which is when you really start to make the money and when you are really able to use your skills in a wide variety of ways.... You can imagine the frustration people feel when they're not able to complete that after making significant investments in their pathways.
We've been holding round tables around the country with unions, employers, technical institutions and training institutions to talk about the plan, and it is landing very well. People feel that we have in fact identified some of the significant gaps. We also have a plan to work with provinces and territories, in particular in the recruiting area, because some provinces are starting co-op credits with colleges, for example, and with high schools to reintroduce trades into high schools, which those of us my age know is part of the challenge we've had.
Over the last two decades or more, there's been a diminishment of the value of a skilled trades job, a skilled trades career. In fact, one tradesperson said—and it's in my notes—that we must work together to restore honour to the skilled trades. These are highly technical and highly science-based trades, with lots of math. Lots of intelligence goes into being a tradesperson, and somehow over the last several decades, society has undermined the value of these workers and their skills. Part of restoring honour is having a prominent program that says, “These are worthy valuable jobs, and you are worthy valuable trainers as Red Seal journeypeople.” These careers are needed by the country. We actually cannot build Canada strong without talented skilled tradespeople.
Thank you for the question.