Human Resources Committee on Oct. 6th, 2026

[Sean Strickland]

MP Larouche, thank you very much for the question.

Can you achieve perfection through this bill? No. Is it perfect? No, but is it signalling the right kind of conversation we need to have in Canada about trade harmonization across our provinces? Given the economic situation we're facing, given the major projects we want to build and given the infrastructure we want to build, this is going to begin the way of doing that.

Our current system gets in the way, so how can we find a way across the aisle for federal and provincial governments to figure out a way we can deal with that, to help us meet the moment, to help us build these major projects and to help us build the infrastructure? I think this is a good start.

It's not going to solve it. You're going to need a lot of provincial support and you're going to have to be careful about what's in the provincial jurisdiction and what's in the federal jurisdiction, but there are a lot of things around the edges in this conversation that I think really need to happen.

I would agree with your comment that maybe it's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction, and it's a big one.

[Martin Luymes]

I would echo that. It doesn't hurt to have the conversation.

I'll just say that we are aware that in some provinces—not Quebec, but in other provinces—there is generally a lack of awareness about what's happening in other provinces. As an industry association, we have found that convening by the federal government and convening with multiple provinces create lessons and dialogue that maybe wouldn't have existed otherwise.

We tend to assume the provinces are talking to each other. They aren't. Maybe the federal government can play a role in facilitating that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madame Larouche.

Mr. Genuis, you have five minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much.

It's great having both of you here.

We think it's very important to train Canadian workers for the Canadian jobs that we have. One of the areas we've championed to address the shortages in the trades is increasing familiarization and pretrades training in primary and secondary schools.

I wonder if you can share what you're seeing in the trends in that regard. Where are there some real success stories? Where are there some areas that need improvement in terms of exposing people as early as possible to the opportunities that exist in this area?

[Sean Strickland]

I would be happy to go first on that.

We've seen some tremendous results in certain provinces. For example, in Ontario, the Doug Ford government and the respective ministers of labour and training have done a fantastic job, starting about 10 years ago, of exposing people to careers in the trades. You've seen the commercials on TV, and there's a new run of commercials out there right now. I don't have the statistic right in front of me, but they have increased apprenticeship registrations in Ontario significantly. Integrating that with the secondary school system and introducing some of the opportunities in the trades through the grade school system, as was being done 50 years ago, have really helped improve trade take-up as well.

We're seeing more improvement in British Columbia. They're embarking on a system right now—the election notwithstanding—to bring back regulation to trades, and they're funding training in union training centres. Alberta is funding training through training delivery agents. We're seeing the direction of some really positive impacts from these initiatives to encourage more people to become involved in the trades at a younger age in a few provinces across the country.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a quick follow-up on that, and then we'll hear from Mr. Luymes.

Are your union training centres able to partner with secondary schools and bring people in, or does the training have to happen outside of that?

[Sean Strickland]

Absolutely, we have lots of union training centres. Back in the day, when I was a business manager for a local building trades council in Waterloo-Wellington, we embarked on a fantastic program with secondary schools to have young people come in and get exposed to what it would be like to weld and build a scaffold. Lots of our training centres do that across the country on a regular basis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Excellent.

Do you want to pick up on this, Mr. Luymes?

[Martin Luymes]

I will echo the comment that there are a lot of very exciting things happening at the provincial level. We have seen commitments from different provincial governments to support the trades. I will say that this has to be backed up, not just by trying to draw kids into the industry but also by providing funding for seats in apprenticeship programs, which may not have met.... We stimulate the demand, but we haven't really followed through on making seats available.

I'll just add a quick comment. In our sector, as I indicated earlier, we draw a lot of people into the industry who have an interest but then find the system too complex. They turn away. They go into something to do with IT or whatever, because the process isn't straightforward and clear-cut enough. We need to do more to take them by the hand and walk them through the process.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a minute and a half left. I'm going to try to get two quick elements in.

First of all, would you support explicitly referring to the mobility of apprentices within this bill, ensuring that we do more on apprentice mobility as well?

[Sean Strickland]

CBTU would support that.

[Martin Luymes]

Yes, we would too.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Great. My impression, in talking to trades workers and different organizations, is that—not always but in many cases—shortages are more acute in trades where there is less recognition. If there's less codification or affirmation through the Red Seal program, or in other ways, there are more likely to be shortages.

I imagine part of the reason is that if there's a trade that's well-understood and well-recognized, it's easier to explain to people in your family, for instance, why you're going into that trade. If it's a less recognized or understood trade culturally, then it's a bit harder to recruit people for it. Is that your impression as well? I would love your feedback on that semi-anecdotal observation I have.

[Sean Strickland]

We need to add a caveat to apprenticeship mobility: as long as apprenticeship mobility goes to the highest standard, not to the lowest standard. That's critical.

You're right. Most people, when they think of the trades, think of a few specific trades—a carpenter, a plumber, an electrician—but there are 57 other trades. We're doing the best we can to expose young people to the variety of different trade opportunities that are out there.

The other thing is that not everyone is cut out to be a construction worker. It's bloody hard work. You have to get out of bed at six o'clock in the morning and be on the job site for seven o'clock. You work off the sweat of your brow. You have to use your brains, and you're working outside when it's -20°C and 30°C.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Genuis.

Madame Koutrakis, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here with us today and for sharing your expertise.

It's been really informative to hear the experience—

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I have a point of order.

There's no interpretation.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Can you hear me now? Excellent.

Mr. Strickland, you piqued my curiosity when you referenced in your testimony and in your response to a colleague's question earlier clause 3 of this bill. You said that consultation should be ongoing.

You're advocating for the creation of a labour supply coordinating committee. Can you walk us through how that would work and what kind of representation it would have? Who would make it up? Who would be sitting on such a coordinating committee? Can you see how that would be helpful throughout the provinces? How would it work?

[Sean Strickland]

Sure.

On the consultation part, just based on the conversation we've had today, it's going to take more than nine months. You're going to need provincial and federal co-operation. That's why we're recommending that the consultation not have a prescribed time limit on it.

In terms of a labour supply coordinating committee, I can tell you how our unionized industry works. Our IVP, our international vice-president for the electrical workers, could send out a note to all the locals across Canada and would know within a day how many workers are available, how many workers are out of work and how many workers are working. We could do that for all of our 14 different unions. We'd be able to feed that into a secretariat that could help match that up with the Major Projects Office.

For example, LNG phase two has workers on site right now. It's probably going to start peaking in Q2 next year. How many tradespeople do you need? What are the tradespeople you need at the beginning of the job? Where are you going to get them? We're going to get them mostly from British Columbia. Do we have enough supply in British Columbia? You're going to need carpenters, form workers, labourers and operating engineers for the first phase of that job. What's the labour availability in British Columbia right now for that major job, and similarly for the pipeline?

Feed that into this secretariat. Have government involvement as well, with Statistics Canada and labour market people from ESDC, so that we can have a real-time labour analysis of what workers are available through our union halls. That's going to help successfully complete these projects on time and on budget, but it doesn't happen.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

What I'm hearing is that we need data in order to make sure that this coordinating committee would have the information that it needs in real time.

[Sean Strickland]

Yes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

This means buy-in from all jurisdictions.

In my previous role as parliamentary secretary to the minister of transport, during COVID, we were having a lot of challenges with the supply chains. One of the things that became quite apparent at the time was that many companies or industries didn't like to share their data. I don't know why. I don't know if it's because of competition.

Would you see it as a challenge to get that data if we were to think of putting such a coordinating committee together? It's important to be able to measure success.

[Sean Strickland]

Yes—

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

In order to be successful, we need the data. Do you think that would be possible?

[Sean Strickland]

I'm sorry. I kind of laughed there, but not out of disrespect. I laughed because unions don't like to share their data either.

There's a difference now if it's tied to a job. In our union halls, we've experienced multiple times the promise of a job. Let's say a business manager needs to bring in 100 more apprentices this year because there's a big job coming, so the business manager brings in the apprentices. The job doesn't come. What happens to those apprentices? We lose them. They go elsewhere.

However, if you have this tied to a job and you have these major projects and all this other infrastructure tied into this coordinating committee, I'm pretty sure we'll get the data.