Skilled trades funding

By Bruce Corcoran bruce@chathamvoice.com

The Ford Government is investing heavily in improving skilled trades training in the province, and local officials see it as a wise move.

The Ontario government is investing $224 million to build and upgrade training centres, and also plans to invest $75 million more over the next three years to support the operations and programming at new and existing centres to prepare workers for in-demand careers such as electricians, welders and mechanics.

“As we build Ontario, we’re providing more women and men with opportunities to begin or advance their careers in the skilled trades,” said Premier Doug Ford in a media release.

Stuart McFadden, director of economic development for the municipality, welcomed the announcement.

“It’s great news. I was just going through our jobs board and the amount of available jobs in the skilled trades is phenomenal throughout Chatham-Kent,” he said. “This is a great initiative and a great investment to help people who are unemployed or underemployed to look at the trades as a career.”

Provincial officials estimate that one in five jobs in the province will be in the skilled trades by 2025.

“Ontario is facing the largest labour shortage in a generation, which means when you have a career in the skilled trades, you have a career for life,” said Monte McNaughton, Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. “We’re supporting employers, unions and other training providers so that they can build and improve the facilities we need to attract and prepare our next generation of skilled trades workers for better jobs and bigger paycheques for themselves and their families.”

Nearly 300,000 jobs are going unfilled across the province, costing billions in lost productivity, according to provincial officials.

McFadden pointed to the James Burgess Metal Trades Training Centre, which closed nearly a decade ago in Wallaceburg, as how helpful a local skilled trades training facility can be.

“It was a perfect example of how a localized training centre can work. It literally put thousands of people into the tool industry in Wallaceburg,” he said.

No word yet on whether Chatham-Kent would host a skilled training centre, but applications for the new Skills Development Fund (SDF) capital stream are expected to open in late spring and will provide eligible applicants, including unions, Indigenous centres, businesses and industry associations, with funding to build new training centres or to upgrade or convert their existing facilities into training centres with state-of-the-art design and technology. “Anything we can do to build some capacity in our workforce would be great,” McFadden said. “To do something locally would be just wonderful. This could be win-win for everybody.”

McFadden said McNaughton, who is also the MPP for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, has done an excellent job as minister addressing skilled trades shortages.