ACA ADVOCACY UPDATE

By Ken Gibson, Executive Director, Alberta Construction Association

Your membership supports construction associations working on your behalf at the local, provincial, and national levels. The role of the Alberta Construction Association (ACA) is to advocate industry solutions to the provincial government.

With the height of construction activity in the summer months, shortages of skilled personnel have become even more acute. Members tell their associations there aren’t enough skilled workers available right now and that there is a huge concern that young people may not be interested in becoming construction’s future workforce.

The ACA has brought member concerns to the Alberta government through a series of recommendations to improve Alberta’s apprenticeship system. These recommendations include:

• Government work with industry to ensure restricted activities and corresponding wages create professions of choice within the skilled trades

• Greater recognition of prior learning to facilitate apprentices changing their trade specialization

• Adding trades training capacity and more flexible delivery methods for Alberta’s post-secondary institutions

• Reinstate period exams for quality assurance via a provincial standard The ACA was able to share your concerns with Skilled Trades Minister Madu in a consultation on April 18th. Following this meeting, Minister Madu committed to reinstating period exams beginning this September. The ACA was also able to share on April 18th recommendations to:

• Make school boards accountable for offering trades-related programs

• Dedicate funding for trades-related programs in Alberta’s K-Grade 12 education system

• Make it easier for tradespeople to teach trades at the K-12 level

• Add career counsellors familiar with the trades

The ACA has also been advocating for a number of changes to the Provincial Temporary Foreign Worker program in recognition that improvements to Alberta’s talent pipeline will not generate new workers to address immediate needs. These recommendations include:

• Ensure high wage construction occupations are eligible under the Federal Skilled Trades Program

• Allow Trusted Employers to obtain work permits that apply to more than one worksite and allow for regional or sectoral Labour Market Impact Assessments that cover multiple employers rather than each employer required to submit

• Modify the international experience Class program to allow foreign apprentices in their final two periods to complete their studies in Alberta and add these grads to the Canadian experience Class immigration stream The ACA resumed this advocacy with the new government following the May 29th election.

The ACA has also secured funding from the provincial government to assist industry with skills development and hiring workers new to the industry.

The Construction New Talent Program offered by the ECA and ACA supports work-integrated learning placements of Alberta post-secondary students in engineering, business, IT, etc. with Alberta’s design and construction industry. More than 60 employers have received over $1 million to support 200 students.

The Trade Pathways Program pilot for the greater Edmonton region so far has exceeded targets and placed 63 work experience candidates with 11 employers, with 20 permanent hires and seven confirmed entering apprenticeship. The ACA has secured additional funding to extend Trade Pathways to 2026.

Digital skills will increasingly be important on construction jobsites and to entice young people to consider a career in construction. The ACA has secured funding to develop curricula for a digital tradesperson credential. The research phase of this work will commence in summer 2023 under the direction of an industry steering committee. u