DURHAM — Ontario has unveiled a new apprenticeship and skilled trades system which it says will help employers find the workers they need in order to meet the demands of the economy.
“Technology is changing Ontario’s economy and the skilled trades have to keep up,” said Premier Doug Ford at an announcement held at Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington Energy Complex . “We know we have talented potential workers in Ontario — providing the right training will make it easier to match talent with good jobs, help us grow the auto and manufacturing sector, and make Ontario open for business.”
The province is introducing portable skill sets to help speed up certification and training in the skilled trades, without compromising health and safety, it says. Portable skill sets are a new competency-based system to provide workers and employers with more flexibility. Currently, Ontario’s tradespeople are required to master the full scope of a trade to complete an apprenticeship and obtain certification.
“We are listening to industry and tradespeople, and we know we need to get workers interested, trained and working faster,” said Dr. Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, at the announcement. “Portable skill sets will help us deliver on our promise to modernize the skilled trades and apprenticeship system, match people and training with good quality jobs, and grow our economy.”
Portable skill sets also offer cross-skilling through the trades by letting apprentices, skilled tradespeople and employers choose skills that they need for the jobs that are available today. With the new portable skill sets system, training, retraining and certifying workers in the specific skills needed for these opportunities will be more efficient than ever before, believes the province.
“Our government is introducing portable skill sets so workers can upgrade their training faster than ever before and be ready for new opportunities,” said Ford. “It’s another way we’re providing the tools to make Ontario open for business and open for jobs.”
This is disturbing, thanks Doug Ford for making skilled trades run like McDonald’s. This is going to ruin the already faltering quality of Canadian manufacturing.
Yeah I’ve been in the trades for 20 years and Doug Ford is tearing the trades apart. So if your willing to get into the trades get prepared to fight for a fair wage
It took the province seven months on how to train and employ more skilled trades workers, when the province closed the Ontario College of Trades which was a privately funded organization paid by members which were actual trades workers union and non union had a voice on education, promotion and workplace safety including enforcement. Now we have a system that rejects having to master the full scope of a trade to complete an apprenticeship, now that’s the people I want building bridges and wiring homes in Ontario, oh well I guess that’s why we have insurance,
Now Ontario is really open for business and jobs, my neighbour’s son works at a car parts store, he can now do the brakes on my wife’s car.
Perhaps the next Provincial plan to save money by no longer having in class college education and do a online teaching in two years, think of all the money that can be saved, we won’t need trades teachers or classroom space while getting the province out of debt and employ trades helpers, actually why would we need the MTCU for Trades?
Although I have had training on AC (air conditioning units), my degree must relate to refrigerator servicing. Units that cool food. As a poor working student, I cannot find a path to certification. I have a lot of related experience.
This is the provincial government listening and bending to businesses once again and not the trade workers themselves. If a person today decides “I want to be a plumber as a career”,then that’s what they want. They don’t necessarily want to learn all kinds of multiple trades just to appease the general contractor. Do we ask doctors to also do nursing, or politicians to also do their own secretarial duties. Then why should it be any different for people who are building our facilities, bridges, hospitals. If the point is to create more employment opportunities, then why are we looking to dilute the expertise and professionalism of our tradespeople. I also believe that the experts from the construction industry should be saying what the trades need to improve things for the future. Or maybe we should be asking our construction professionals how to fix our health problems in the province.