Letter to the Editor: ICBA’s trades certification argument belongs back in 2003

To the Editor,

Re: “Bill 4 is ‘wrong-headed and won’t work’: ICBA,” Feb. 21, 2022

Chris Gardner calls the re-introduction of skilled trades certification (formerly called compulsory trades) a “breathtaking breakdown of our trades training system.”

His argument belongs back in 2003 when the skilled trades were deregulated by the BC Liberal government. The belief back then was that removing compulsory trades training would somehow result in higher completion rates and more apprentices entering the system.

The opposite happened. Yet Gardner and the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA) still oppose mandatory skills training for the workers building our homes and hospitals, roads and bridges, and literally every piece of infrastructure on which we rely.

The ICBA certainly appears out of step with the rest of the business community. The BC Chamber of Commerce, which is the collective voice of 36,000 businesses and 120 chambers of commerce and boards of trade in the province, recommended a return to skilled trades certification, or compulsory trades, in its 2021 policy manual, titled Resilience to Recovery.

It also recommends B.C. stop modularizing and compartmentalizing training, noting this continued “narrowing and shallowing” of the trades training system carries a major risk. If economic conditions change or the types of skills in demand change in B.C., the workforce risks not having the depth and breadth of skills required to adapt.

Other BC Chamber of Commerce observations:

• C.’s overall apprenticeship completion rates have declined compared to a decade ago;
• lower average completion rates for trades that are compulsory in other jurisdictions suggest the absence of compulsory trade certification in B.C. decreases the motivations for apprentices to complete;
• certification of Red Seal trades has declined significantly in B.C., from 84 per cent between 2001 and 2004 to 65 per cent between 2011 and 2014;
• while there has been a modest increase in completion rates in B.C. since 2013, B.C. continues to lag behind all provinces except Nova Scotia;
• the increased incidence of workplace injury suggests the Industry Training Authority under the 2003 model has been unable to ensure the quality of safety training programs. The injury rate for B.C. tradespeople is nearly four times that of their counterparts in Ontario;
• compulsory certification requirements would increase labour market demand for certified workers and related apprenticeship training;
• compulsory certification would likely put upward pressure on wages, attracting more workers to the trade, and has been found to raise the prestige of trades, increasing their appeal; and
• re-introducing compulsory trades certification will lead to improvements in completion rates, improved safety and will contribute to increased productivity.

We are doing our part to address the skilled trades deficit through our College of the BC Building Trades (collegeofthebcbt.ca), which has more than a dozen schools and campuses throughout B.C. While the ICBA touts itself as the single largest sponsor of apprentices in B.C., we sponsor and train more electrical apprentices alone than all the trades apprentices sponsored by the ICBA combined.

But don’t take my word for it, take the latest data from the Industry Training Authority:

• We represent eight of the 10 largest sponsors in B.C.;
• our schools sponsor and train 4,529 apprentices;
• we sponsor more tradeswomen than anyone else. One of our schools has 25 per cent women apprentices; another is the single largest sponsor of women apprentices in the province; and
• we sponsor more Indigenous apprentices than anyone else. We have more than 400 Indigenous apprentices in our system, and many of our schools have more than 15 per cent Indigenous students.

We invest more than $30 million a year in our training schools, we have $50 million in brick and mortar facilities and equipment, we have almost 150 trades instructors in our system and many of our trades programs are absolutely tuition free.

The answer to our critical skilled trades shortage is not to compartmentalize and shortcut training. The answer is to invest in a truly robust apprenticeship system that supports the recruitment, retention and advancement of apprentices.

Brynn Bourke
Executive Director
BC Building Trades