Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call second reading, Bill 4, Skilled Trades British Columbia Act.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Members. It is now the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training’s chance to introduce the bill. If members have discussions they want to have, I’d ask them to take them outside of the chambers. I’d like us to get underway.

Again, if I might ask, if members have conversations, if they might take them outside, that would be appreciated.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 4 — SKILLED TRADES BC ACT

Hon. A. Kang: I move that Bill 4, the second reading of the bill, will be moved right now.

Last week we introduced the Labour Market Outlook, which forecasts job openings over the next ten years. I am pleased to say that B.C. continues to lead Canada’s economic recovery with 100,000 jobs added in 2021. Our province’s economy is strong, and forecasts show that it will continue to grow.

[2:30 p.m.]

In the next decade, we are expecting a wide range of job openings in various occupations, and we know that almost 80 percent of these openings will require some form of post-secondary education. In the trades alone, we expect 85,000 job openings, with more workers retiring than entering the occupations. There are so many opportunities for meaningful work in British Columbia.

Tradespeople are critical to our economic growth, particularly as we recover from COVID-19. They are building our homes, our bridges, our hospitals and our schools. They fix our cars and keep our lights on and our water flowing. We want our tradespeople to count on good, family-supporting, steady work by ensuring they have the certified skills they need to be first in line for these job openings.

Completing an apprenticeship and earning certification is one of the best ways we can help them on that path. That is why we are taking strong steps to modernize our trades-training system and set a new version for the future. We have a rare opportunity to create a lasting legacy for our trades-training system that puts workers first as we build a stronger, more sustainable and inclusive economy and respond to the challenges of COVID-19 recovery.

This vision begins with introducing new legislation and a re-focused Crown agency. The Skilled Trades BC Act will lay the foundation to support and recognize the critical role skilled tradespeople play in our economy and in our community by establishing skilled trade certification for ten initial trades that requires people to register as an apprentice or be a certified journeyperson.

Before 2003, British Columbia had 11 designated compulsory trades, but in the years since, B.C. has used a voluntary credentialing system for all trades. We are the only province without mandatory skilled trade certification requirements. That means there are thousands of uncertified workers practising a trade with no formal recognition of their skills and knowledge levels.

These workers are often paid less and have lower rates of employment stability and mobility, making it harder to support their families. This is particularly true for those underrepresented or equity-seeking groups.

With so many experienced trades workers expected to retire, we need to make sure there are enough qualified journeypeople to train the future trades workforce and keep our economy strong. Skilled trade certification will do that by making sure workers are credentialed at the highest possible skill level to earn the best wages possible and be more resilient in an evolving economy, by breaking down barriers that keep underrepresented and equity-seeking groups from accessing good-paying jobs, shifting the conversation so that trades are recognized as the critical, prestigious and valuable careers that they are in our society, in order to attract more youth.

We are finally bringing our province back in line with the rest of Canada. The skills and careers of thousands of British Columbian trade workers will now be recognized and valued as much as teachers, nurses and other certified professionals.

The Skilled Trades BC Act will replace the outdated Industry Training Authority Act and continue the Crown agency responsible for apprenticeship training, which will be renamed from the Industry Training Authority to SkilledTradesBC. This renewed vision of SkilledTradesBC reflects the expanded responsibilities to oversee skilled trades certification, with a new focus on promoting and supporting apprentices and trainees throughout their training journey.

The act will also introduce journeyperson-to-apprentice ratios to ensure apprentices have access to supervision from a qualified journeyperson. This act will establish a fair and transparent compliance model, to ensure requirements are applied consistently and employers know they are working on a level playing field.

We know these changes represent a significant system shift, but they were considered thoughtfully and have been informed by an evidence-based approach. We conducted in-depth research and analysis, looked to other jurisdictions for best practices, and sought guidance from indus­try, led by a stakeholder advisory working group.

[2:35 p.m.]

These changes also reflect what we heard during broad public engagement held this summer, where we engaged extensively on how to best support workers, employers and Indigenous communities to transition to skilled-trades certification and to inform legislation. As part of this process, we consulted with external stakeholders, including industry, labour and post-secondary trainers. We also engaged with Indigenous leaders and Indigenous leadership partners and service providers.

Our efforts to engage Indigenous partners aligned with government’s commitment under the UN declaration, in­cluding incorporating ideas directly into this legislation. For example, it will be required that SkilledTradesBC consult with representatives of Indigenous peoples on the development and implementation of the strategic plan, and a new objects statement has been added to affirm SkilledTradesBC’s strategic mandate to promote participation of Indigenous people in the industry training and apprenticeship system, including to encourage Indigenous people to register in and complete apprenticeship programs.

These legislative changes will ensure B.C. has one of the best trades-training systems in the country. This modernized system will build on our accomplishments over the last four years.

It will do that by investing in additional apprenticeship advisers to provide hands-on guidance to apprentices and employer sponsors; by investing $5 million so that more trades workers can start an apprenticeship or upgrade their skills at a recognized post-secondary institution; by ensuring apprentices and trade students have the most up-to-date facilities in which to train; by providing opportunities for over 7,500 high school students to discover, explore, train and work in the trades; by increasing the successful participation of women, Indigenous peoples and underrepresented groups in the trades; and by developing programs to address issues that may discourage members of these groups from pursuing a career in the skilled trades, such as bullying and harassment.

Since March 2019, the ITA reports a 26 percent increase of women participating in an underrepresented trade, which are trades where women represent less than 25 percent of registered apprentices.

Since 2018, our government has invested nearly $85 million to help build new or upgraded existing trades cen­tres and over $70 million in industry-standard training equipment, with more investments to come. Now is the time to build on the success and meet the challenges ahead, to ensure our trades workforce has the knowledge and the skills to embrace innovation and diversity while staying resilient in the face of rapid change so that they can reap the benefits of a changing economy.

By introducing this legislation and giving trades workers the recognition they deserve, we are saying yes to good-paying, stable jobs that support families and communities. We are saying yes to filling gaps and building a workforce of the future. We are saying yes to building value for the people who are building British Columbia.

I ask that all members lend their support to this, the new Skilled Trades BC Act.

I would like now to move second reading.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister.

Are there other speakers?

I think we have other speakers before we’ll get there.

C. Oakes: It truly is a privilege to rise today and speak to Bill 4, the Skilled Trades BC Act.

I want to make it very clear to all members of this House, and I can certainly speak on behalf of the B.C. Liberal caucus, that we share a common objective to ensure we are supporting and creating more opportunities for qualified apprentices and red seals in the province of British Columbia. We also mutually share in our desire to ensure that all workers in the province of British Columbia are in safe environments.

[2:40 p.m.]

I think it is also clear that we all share a commitment to providing increased opportunities for our Indigenous communities to get involved in skilled trades and to ensure that we are always looking at how we can increase diversity in the province of British Columbia.

We all recognize that British Columbia is facing labour shortages and that trades are lining up to be one of those industries that are most impacted by this. This labour shortage will have significant impact on every aspect of our daily lives. I fear that the demographic that is most going to be impacted by this will be millennials and young people.

I have deep concerns that the types of legislation that the NDP are bringing forward are backward-looking and do not take into consideration the very real challen­ges that young people, families and seniors in every part of this province are facing. This can range from finding someone to build your home, to someone to go out and fix your furnace.

I very much worry about the real affordability challen­ges that British Columbians are faced with today. I think the fact that we continue to hear from this government…. This repeated notion that we’ve heard earlier in this House today in question period when we raised concerns that we have heard from people across British Columbia — the very real pressures that British Columbians are feeling around affordability.

We hear comments like the minister…. With all due respect, in her opening comments, she talks about how great our economy is doing and how strong we are doing and how we are leading the country and how everything is great, and we’ve got all of these wonderful things in British Columbia.

I have deep respect and admiration for British Columbians. When I talk to them…. When we go out and we listen, we hear that there are real concerns about affordability and that for every piece of legislation, every policy, everything we bring forward into this House, we have to apply that lens. Will it make things easier for people? For young people, will it really help give them the chance, that sense of hope, that need that they know that we have their backs here in this Legislature?

Mr. Speaker, with that, I worry. I worry that this bill and this piece of legislation as it goes through the committee stage is another piece of legislation and policy that is going to have fundamental, long-lasting impacts affecting general affordability on young people, on families.

I have serious concerns — as I’m certain my colleagues from the opposition parties will raise — on the very concerning trend that this government has about moving away from transparency by introducing legislation in this House and leaving any of the controversial impactful pieces to regulation without this Legislature’s ability to have oversight or the ability to question and to hold the government to account.

Quite frankly, that needs to be called out, and that needs to stop. This trend that this government has of disrespecting our roles here in this Legislature, this direction from the executive, the cabinet, the Premier, that we will move the significant decision points to regulation where we can make the real decisions, is very alarming.

The idea that we will introduce a theme and a piece of legislation — “We’ll introduce the theme, but the real nuts and bolts of the true impacts of this legislation we’ll leave off for regulation” — is a concern that every member in this House should have. “We’ll hide behind executive privilege. We can make decisions based on politics,” rather than providing members of this House the ability for each of us to do the job that we were elected to do.

A government’s shift of power to the executive through decision-making powers and regulation. The notion that I have heard repeatedly is: “The intent is here.” I want to thank the minister for the ministry staff providing a briefing. I appreciate that. But what I repeatedly heard — “Well, the intent is this. The intent is that. It’s not in legislation because it will find its way in regulation” — is a challenge.

[2:45 p.m.]

In legislation that is vague on details, leaving powers to this executive, the idea that the government keeps putting out there — “Trust us; trust us. The intent is good. We’ve got these ideas that we think are wonderful and that we’ll bring forward” — is not providing the type of certainty or clarity that is required at a time when British Columbia and our province need it most.

The real question is: what is the intent of Bill 4, Skilled Trades BC Act? A significant portion of this legislation — again, this is not about the hidden regulations, which we truly don’t know of; there is just an intent, because government has yet to be transparent on what those regulations are — is truly about the repealing and replacement of a Crown corporation. With some minor changes in the Crown corporation, it’s basically a name change from the ITA to the new SkilledTradesBC.

If there were a more worthy award from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business for taxpayer waste, it probably would be a name change of a corporation. Let’s just think about it. Let’s go out and change the name of a Crown corporation. As we understand, as we go through committee stage, we’ll walk through and understand what changes will be made by this piece of legislation. Think of the marketing material, folks. Think of every aspect of a name change to a Crown corporation.

There’s really, as I understand, only very limited change to what this is, besides a name change, and what that real impact will be. Think about the cost. I know we will explore the costs more as we go through committee stage, but basically, there are a few minor adjustments in the moving of bylaws from their government manual to legislation, to promote Indigenous people to register and participate in skilled trades training, and to modernize, as required by all Crowns, to reflect the Freedom of Information and Personal Privacy Act, Indigenous, UNDRIP.

The real question is why the significant cost of changing the name of a Crown agency. I’ve asked, in the technical briefing, for the cost to taxpayers on this renaming of the Crown. I very much look forward to the information from the minister that will be provided, I’m sure. My commitment is that when that information comes out on what that significant cost will be to taxpayers, we’ll make sure that we make folks aware of what that will be.

The second question that comes as we talk about the name change to a Crown corporation is: why has this not come before the legislative committee, of this House, on Crown corporations? It’s another theme we’re seeing here: lack of transparency. “Let’s move things to the executive council to make the decisions. Let’s make sure that we don’t utilize the committee structures,” which we actually all have a responsibility and an accountability to participate in here, in this House. We have a committee on Crown Corporations. Why has this legislation not been brought forward to this committee?

Why are we not utilizing this Legislative Assembly the way that it should be? Why are we not following things that have been laid out for us to be accountable, as elected legislators, to look at? Why does this government feel that it can circumvent legislative processes in some of these instances, like we’ve heard in the conversation about the freedom-of-information debate and the disregard for the legislative committees in that respect and for the officers?

Let’s talk about the Health Committee, and let’s talk about all of these committees. Why are we not using this House, this Legislative Assembly, to do the work that we were elected to do? Why are we not using our committee structures to make sure, when bills and legislation come forward in this House…? We have an elected responsibility — every single member of this House — and this is another piece of legislation that has circumvented that.

I’m asking the question: why do we repeatedly do this? Why is the government continuing to think they can circumvent things that are laid out in the Legislative Assem­bly, in our roles and responsibilities? The government does not get to make the rules up as they go along. There is a process that needs to be followed. So my question to this House is: what is the government hiding in Bill 4, the Skilled Trades BC Act?

[2:50 p.m.]

I want to now take a moment to consider the funding model for post-secondary and vocational seat training. We repeatedly hear that the funding model is coming, and I hope that we will see that in the upcoming budget. I sincerely hope so, because the experience on the skills training, college training institutions under this government is that we certainly have not seen the significant investment in training seats that are required to meet the labour shortages — the 85,000 people that will be retiring and we need to replace.

Where are those seats? Where are those training seats that will be required to meet the needs of this labour shortage that the minister has talked about? As opposed to this, we get recycled announcements or card shuffling on funds.

I hope it was not the government’s intent to find a way to not make the necessary needed investments into post-secondary and skills training that is required and that this bill that basically changes the name of a Crown corp sets forward an intent that will be the real nuts and bolts in regulation. I hope it isn’t a cover for the real needs and investments that need to be made in training, to really help people achieve all of the things that the minister laid out earlier.

Look, I’m sure we’ll hear from government members some message that dates back a significant amount of time, but I would remind all members of this House that in the year 2022, following several years of COVID, our lives have changed. Our communities have changed. With that, I think we all have a responsibility to reflect on what our citizens, our constituents, need from us as legislators. They’re counting on us. They’re counting on us to speak up for them.

I repeatedly hear from millennials and young people about how infuriating and disrespectful that we often tend to look backwards. We talk about, “20 years ago this hap­pened,” or: “Ten years ago….” We do it on both sides, to be fair. I think it’s a theme that we all too often bat around as politicians. But I’ve heard from young people that they want us to do things differently.

Here’s our chance. Here’s our chance to get it right for them. This is their lives, and they want us to know clearly that they feel that life is not affordable. They’re concerned about what their futures will be, and they’re very concerned about the types of policies that are being brought forward in this House that will have unintended, long-lasting consequences on their lives.

Millennials and young people want their government to understand that they’re deeply frustrated, and they’re concerned about the length of time it is taking for them to access the necessary training so that they can be certified and so that they can work on these major projects. We all agree that we want to increase apprenticeships and red seals. But what I’m hearing is not that we need a Crown agency name change.

What I’m hearing from young people is that they know. They respect. They are excited to get into the skilled-trades-training world, but the seats aren’t available. The training seats are not available for them to access. Millennials and young people want this government to know that the limited spaces and wait-lists can easily push a three- or four-year program to nearly a decade. I want members to think about that.

We want to solve the labour shortage. We want to pro­vide opportunities for people to get into these critically important skills- and trades-training fields, yet under the current system, under what the NDP is doing with the training, a three- or four-year program can push into a decade to get the certification that they need. This will not meet the province’s labour timelines.

I think it’s critical for every member of this House to understand, to go out and to talk to a young person and ask if making it more difficult to get into the skills and trades training, the reality that it could take you ten years to complete a four-year apprenticeship program, is something that is going to result in an increase in people accessing skilled trades training and going in to become an apprentice. Think about that. Ten years.

[2:55 p.m.]

I want members to think about the costs of going in and waiting and taking ten years to get apprenticed. I’ve heard from young people that textbooks are currently out of date, and the materials are not relevant. As a result of that, we’re seeing a sharp drop-off in student participation. That is what young people want this minister to work on. That is what I’ve heard that people across this province want this government to consider. There is a major shortage of trades-training spaces in colleges and vocational institutions that is leading to these chronic wait-lists that we’ve seen.

Let us look at the framework that this legislation is putting forward, this new timeline, where it can take a young person a decade for certification to meet the new compliance codes that this government is setting out. What will be the real impact? Young people in their prime earning years. What do you think their choice will be when faced with this new framework? Has the government even talked with millennials and young people?

I hear time and time again that this demographic is looking for flexibility. They’re looking for options. They’re looking for mobility. They’re looking at how they can….

It’s not like in days past where you consider a career, and you find yourself in that career for the extent of your life. Young people are looking for flexibility. They’re looking for job flexibility. They’re looking for ways that they can get flexibility in training. They’re looking at innovation. They’re looking at how we can utilize technology better so that they can access the type of training, so that it increases their ability for flexibility. Let us also understand the ever-evolving industry and the needs to upgrade, train, and the curriculum that is needed to meet the needs of our trades and our industries.

Why didn’t we take the money that it is costing to change the name of a Crown corporation? Basically, let’s be clear. For most of it, that’s the extent of what this legislation will do. Take that money and invest in our colleges and our training facilities. Let’s take that money on marketing and all that stuff that is…. It’s going to be a massive cost and a huge bureaucratic red tape. It’s going to take a lot of effort to change a Crown corporation with a new name.

Why aren’t we taking that money and investing it in people and investing it in training? Why is the government not focused first on making sure that our training institutions have state-of-the-art equipment so that students can train for now and into the future? Why is the government not coming out with a bold plan on how we can offer the necessary training to actually tackle the labour shortage? Why aren’t we looking at innovation? Why aren’t we utilizing technology? Why aren’t we looking at best practices around the globe?

Why don’t we make British Columbia the best place to come for skills and trades training, because we have the training ability right here in a new innovative training fashion with a new enhanced curriculum that meets the needs of today and far into the future? Why isn’t that what we’re debating here in this House today?

How are we investing in curriculum development? What is the work that’s being done? Are we spending all of this time on trying to move into a new Crown corporation instead of taking the very valuable, necessary time that it takes to look at curricular development? How are we going to find those extraordinary red seals to support our apprentices? And how are we going to make sure that we’ve got those red seal instructors? How do we make sure…? Again, whether it’s supporting our apprentices with red seals and what that looks like…. Why aren’t we investing that energy and time in that?

Where is the government’s plan on skills training? Why didn’t that come first? Why didn’t we lay the foundation for how we are going to train for the future and invest in people? Why didn’t that piece come first?

Part of the rationale of the name change was to ensure that we’re encouraging and supporting Indigenous populations as they enter into the skills trade. Did we need to change the name of a Crown corporation in order to do that? If you want to help Indigenous people, rural people, to access the trades, then you need to rethink the actual training programs and how we deliver them themselves, because far too many trades…. There is only one school offering apprenticeship training, and it’s often located in the Lower Mainland. How is this helping our rural and Indigenous populations?

[3:00 p.m.]

If it takes you ten years to complete your training…. I want you to consider this, Members. The travel each year to the Lower Mainland to access trades. How is this going to help people? How do I go back to my Indigenous population and say: “Hey, you know what? Here’s a great opportunity, but you’re going to have to travel down to the Lower Mainland every single year in order to get the necessary training.”

Why aren’t we investing more of that money so that we’re training locally? Why don’t we have more skilled-trades training opportunities in each of our communities? Why aren’t we making that investment? Why aren’t we talking about that in the House? I know firsthand the extraordinary impacts. When we invest in our colleges and our training institutions and when we have training opportunities right in our communities, it makes a significant difference in people’s lives, and it impacts our communities.

Here’s an example. When you look at the ironworker apprenticeship, the only courses that are offered are at UBC. Drywallers, commercial painters and glazers: there’s only one school, and that school is located in Surrey. There is only one school in B.C. that offers the technical training required for power line technicians and refrigeration and air-conditioning mechanics, both of which are on the compulsory trade list as listed by this government.

Why are we not investing our time and our energy into finding new ways to deliver skilled-trades training right across this province? It’s imperative to implement more online delivery models, and we’ve got to figure that out.

How will this new framework support families and single parents to participate in skilled trades, and how does this framework support women in the trades? I heard the minister talk about that, and I think that’s something we all agree on. But think about that single mother. Think about that single father. Think about that family that may be looking at a ten-year stretch where travel to access training, into the Lower Mainland, is required every single year.

Think of how hard it is and how complicated it is to figure out our daily routines — figuring out how to get kids to school and to soccer and all of those other pieces. Now take out of that that, as a parent, you may have to travel to the Lower Mainland every single year to access training. What is that going to impact on families? Ten years.

Address the very real training challenges that are im­pacting our labour shortage. Start looking at ways to hire more instructors.

At the end of the day, there are serious impacts in the hidden intent of this piece of legislation, and that is concerning. We want this government to stop hiding behind regulation and start addressing the very real challenges of British Columbia, such as the labour shortage and the impact that this is having on all British Columbians.

Stop the rhetoric. Put forward initiatives today to ensure our workforce can meet the demand for skilled tradespeople now and for years to come. Provide real certainty for young people so that they know, when they make the decision to enter into skilled trades, that they’re not at the whim of a government that can make changes behind closed doors without scrutiny and have significant impacts on their lives.

Understand that we already have some of the strictest regulation and oversight bodies. We heard earlier about the work of WorkSafeBC. We heard the minister talk about that earlier today.

Finally, understand the real challenges millennials and young people are facing. We’re calling on this government to stop making it more difficult, to stop introducing pol­icies and regulations that are going to have far-reaching, long-lasting impacts on all British Columbians, especially our young people. Sitting on wait-lists for years. Not being able to access the necessary programs in order of when you need to meet the certification requirements. The lack of training innovation. The fact that people have to travel each year, which is a significant barrier.

I challenge the government to solve that problem. I look forward to listening to the contributions of the members of this Legislature on this bill and on behalf of their constituents.

In closing, I have this to add. I’ve heard members this week recognize and acknowledge Chamber Week. Chambers, boards of trade are dear to my heart. I worked with them for over 14 years prior to this job.

[3:05 p.m.]

I’m calling on chambers of commerce to consider the impact of this bill on your community. Contact your local college or your skills-training institution and ask if there’s significant investment in training seats. I know the Surrey Board of Trade, in the past, has completed a government red-tape-reduction report which indicates the cost to business for compliance, and I look forward to reading what the Surrey Board of Trade has to say about this bill.

I would ask you to look at developing policies and regulations going forward this year at your conventions. I ask the Union of B.C. Municipalities to also look at this bill and consider the implications of what this will be on building your communities. This bill, the intent behind this bill, can have significant impacts on affordability now and into our future.

To the CFIB, when you look at considering the awards that you put forward, recognizing governments have the potential to misuse tax dollars, consider reading this bill and consider if a name change from an ITA to a build skills B.C. — with not a significant amount of change in the Crown corporation but a name change — is good use of taxpayer dollars. I’ll leave that up to you. I’m sure your members have something to say about it. I look forward to hearing from you.

Finally, in closing, let us make life more affordable for British Columbians and start setting a vision of hope for our young people, understanding we already have strong foundations in this province. Let us once again provide hope for a strong vision for British Columbia where all people know that the next generation has all the opportunities that we have had.

A. Mercier: It’s an honour to rise in this House, not just as the member for Langley but as the Parliamentary Secretary for Skills Training, to speak to this very im­portant bill.

I just want to start by saying, as a young person and as a millennial…. I’d like to thank the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training for bringing forward the Skilled Trades BC Act. What it’s about is creating red seals, not red tape.

Now, throughout the course of my speech this afternoon, I’ll go through some of the inaccuracies in that profoundly confusing and inaccurate speech we just heard from the member for Cariboo North.

This is an historical and auspicious day, because this bill corrects an historical mistake that was made in trades training in British Columbia that we are still struggling with the ramifications of today. I’m going to speak about the bill. I’m going to speak about these very important changes and the engagement and consultation that we did along the way.

First, I think it’s important to understand how we got here. How we got here was a series of decisions made by the B.C. Liberal Party when Kevin Falcon sat in cabinet as the Minister for Deregulation in 2003-2004. So 2003 is a key date in the history of B.C.’s trades-training system. So many problems and issues that we have and that we’re facing now flow from that. I’m going to unpack that a bit as we go here. But it’s important to understand the context.

Pre-2003 we had 11 trades that were designated compulsory in the province of British Columbia. What that means is that for those particular trades, it was mandatory that a tradesperson be either certified with a certificate of qualification, red seal, or be registered as an apprentice in those trades. All ten provinces and territories at the time had a system of compulsory trades. Nine still do, and all the territories still do, and that’s an important part.

At the time, pre-2003, there was an organization called ITAC, the Industry Training and Apprenticeship Commission. The Industry Training and Apprenticeship Commission, which was set up in 1997, was there to ensure industry-led regulation of trades training. It had a board that was interest-based, which led to some decision-making issues, arguably. It had a board that was interest-based, and it regulated trades training in British Columbia, as opposed to the government ministry regulating it itself.

[3:10 p.m.]

The B.C. Liberals came in….

I should say ITAC, the Industry Training and Apprenticeship Commission, was staffed by over 40 apprentice advisers. I can’t say enough about the value of apprentice advisers. They are the key point of contact for young peo­ple, now for millennials, for sponsors, for apprentices to navigate what can be a very difficult system to get through on your own.

I mean, there’s a lot to learn in an apprenticeship. And 80 percent of the time you’re at work, working sometimes gruelling hours. So I think it’s important to recognize that folks need an extra hand and they need a hand up, and apprentice advisers provide that.

In 2003, with zero consultation with industry, the B.C. Liberals gutted ITAC. They shut it down. They laid off 40 apprentice advisers. They replaced them with three people in a call centre in Richmond for 15,000 apprentices in British Columbia. Now, if we want to talk about a name change — and I’ll talk about this later — when they introduced the ITA, the Industry Training Authority, they took the word “apprenticeship” out. That was their name change, because they devalued apprenticeship in this province.

They went to a self-help model of apprenticeship, where apprentices were required to understand all the complexities of registering online. They had to maintain their ap­prenticeship files up to date, with no assistance, and make all adjustments for employer changes. Keep in mind that at the time, 50 percent of apprentices were in the construction industry, which is a multi-employer industry, where people often span different projects and they span different employers. There was no one there to assist them.

I invite you to imagine being a young apprentice at that time with no family in the trades. You’re looking to break into it. You have no one to help or assist you to navigate it. Contractors are overwhelmed by the demands of the job, understandably. You look to the government agency that’s there to help you, and it’s been completely gutted into a shell. You’ve got to get into a phone queue with 15,000 other apprentices so one of three people can take your call. I mean, that is just absurd.

It was part of a suite of changes represented by an ideological drive to deregulate apprenticeship. That change happened in tandem with the removal of compulsory status for the 11 compulsory trades in British Columbia. That had a real and demonstrable impact on annual completions in this province.

During the transition away from compulsory trades, annual completions in British Columbia dropped by one-third. They went from approximately 3,000 people per year to 2,000 people per year. Provincial certifications issued in British Columbia fell 31 percent. That’s 1,073 people less between 2002-2003 and 2003-2004.

Red seal endorsements dropped 27 percent, because not all trades are red seal trades. It dropped 27 percent, by 683 people, between those same years. This drop was maintained over time, and we still haven’t recovered.

I just want to ask all the members of this House to contemplate how many more journeypeople we could have in this province had we maintained that system, had we maintained compulsory trades — like every other province in this country did — and had we supported young people and apprentices with apprentice advisers and other services instead of leaving them to their own whims.

I want to read this into the historical record. In 2008, the Auditor General, John Doyle, released a report entitled A Major Renovation: Trades Training in British Columbia, where he was critical of the government at the time for failing to work with the industry stakeholders — it is a diverse and complicated industry — in delivering massive change to the apprenticeship system. He said: “The ITA did not sufficiently consult with, or provide enough guidance and support to, its partners and stakeholders. This has led to poor relationships that have hampered the training system.”

[3:15 p.m.]

Now, it’s important for context here to understand that at the time, the ITA, the Industry Training Authority, was a brand-new Crown corporation, with ten people staffed at it and no apprentice advisers, that was functionally under ministry control. It was the government — you know, the government’s arm of the trades training system. So this is really a condemnation of the B.C. Liberal government for their insufficient consultation and the relationships that they burned in industry during that time.

Mr. Doyle goes on, in his overall conclusion. He’s talking about the shift in 2003-2004 away from compulsory trades:

“While the provincial government and the ITA have established a new model for trades training, the ITA has not provided sufficient guidance and direction to its partners and stakeholders to put this model into practice. When assuming responsibility for leading the trades training system, the ITA did not sufficiently consult or collaborate with stakeholders in developing its plans and strategies. Given the significance of the changes being introduced and the number of stakeholders involved, this was a large omission.”

I think that’s a really important point, because what we’re talking about here is making transparent consultative decisions and not making decisions behind closed doors that no one is involved in. We have experienced that in British Columbia. We experienced that in 2003. The consequences have been absolutely disastrous.

That change was an ideologically driven change that was done with no consultation, and the market did not buy in. It turns out that employers want full-scope tradespeople. They need journeypeople. This change devalued the trades as a career. It was based on the idea that anyone can be a tradesperson and that there is no value added from a full scope of training. We know that is just not true.

I just want to reiterate here: no province followed us in doing this. No province blew up their trades training system like this. Not even Mike Harris, the Progressive Conservative Premier of Ontario, who came into office on a commonsense, free enterprise, free market revolution.

Not even he followed Gordon Campbell and the B.C. Liberals in gutting compulsory trades. They still have a system of compulsory trades. Even with trades training changes made by the Labour Minister Monte McNaughton in Ontario just recently, they’ve strengthened that system. They haven’t gutted it. I think that’s very important.

I just want to mention, because we heard the member from Cariboo North talk about chambers. I’d like to talk about the chamber of commerce, because I do think that the B.C. Chamber of Commerce is the legitimate voice of independent businesses in British Columbia.

I want to read a policy statement out from the B.C. Chamber of Commerce. This policy statement was made in 2018 and it was reaffirmed in 2021. If the members are curious, they can go on the B.C. chamber’s website, because it’s in their general policy book from 2021. This is about improving apprenticeship completion rates. They say: “The impacts of B.C.’s 2003 model,” so that’s the elimination of compulsory trades and the shutting down of ITAC, “have now come into focus just as the growth in demand for skilled trades and the need to replace an aging workforce approach peak levels.”

They then talk about the unintended consequences of those changes, and they reveal what they call troubling findings: “Overall apprenticeship completion rates have declined compared to a decade ago and relative to other jurisdictions. Lower average rates of completion for trades that are compulsory in other jurisdictions suggest that the absence of compulsory trades certification in British Columbia decreases the motivation for apprentices to complete.”

They then go on. Of course, provinces keep their data in different ways, so they apply a cross-methodology between the other provinces so they can make an appropriate comparison. They then go on to apply that methodology looking at completion rates between 2004 and 2014, a step following the deregulation of trades training and the establishment of the Industry Training Authority.

When they look at this, they say:

“The average completion rate in that period in B.C. falls to 42 percent, compared to a small increase nationally to 48 percent.” So other provinces are going up; we went down.

[3:20 p.m.]

“Even the Industry Training Authority’s own reports estimate completion rates at 36 percent. The decline in completion rates provides some evidence that the B.C. model has not achieved one of its key objectives: to increase training completion rates within skilled trades.”

They then go on to say:

“This overall decline in completion rates is accompanied by marked differences in completion rates across individual programs in B.C. Lower average rates of completion rates for trades that are compulsory in other jurisdictions suggest that the absence of compulsory trade certification in B.C. decreases the motivation for apprentices to complete.

“The link between compulsory certification and completions has been established in previous studies. A study conducted by Patrick Coe concludes that ‘apprenticeship programs for which certification is mandatory had completion rates that are about 10 percentage points higher than those without mandatory certification.’”

This is the B.C. Chamber of Commerce. They go on to recommend that the provincial government should realign with the certification practices of the rest of Canada, “accompanied by using a clear framework for the review of trades with an effective compliance and enforcement policy, based on evidence-based analysis and input from industry.” This is a national best practice that we are an outlier and not following, and we’re suffering as a consequence of it.

Now, in 2014 — I do think the history here is important, and 2014 is relatively recent history — a report was commissioned into the functioning of the Industry Training Authority. The provincial context for that was that the provincial government of the day was around an election on trying to land liquid natural gas investment, which they were not successful in doing. They realized if they wanted to land investment of that calibre and that size, that labour supply would become an inevitable issue, so they were forced to look at it.

What the minister at the time — who is the member for Prince George–Valemount, who served as Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training — did was to turn to Jessica McDonald to do a review of the Industry Training Authority and trades training and write a report with recommendations on how to improve it.

I should say, for context here, that Jessica McDonald was the deputy minister to Gordon Campbell from 2003 to 2009, at which point she was the head of the provincial civil service. So a very accomplished civil servant. She also served under Christy Clark, as the president and CEO of B.C. Hydro.

This is someone with a very sophisticated view of government that has no reason to do anything other than make recommendations that make sense to put things back on the right footing. The report, I would recommend to anybody, because it is very, very good reading for anyone that is trying to understand trades training in B.C. But she makes some good points and some interesting findings, and I’m going to read them out, because it’s in part of how we got here today in a very real way and a part of the process.

I’m conscious of the time, Mr. Speaker. I should just let you and the Clerks know that I am the designated speaker for this bill.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

A. Mercier: In her report The Industry Training Authority and Trades Training in B.C.: Recalibrating for High Performance, the independent review lead, Jessica McDonald, states: “Over the recent past, several new directions have been introduced, such as deregulation of trades and modular training, that have caused strain because they were not fully inclusive during development, were seen to benefit single interests, and they impacted the whole system.”

Strain. So you’re seeing similar language to what Auditor General John Doyle pointed out when he said it hampered. These were interferences that made trades training more difficult. The approach they took was a mistake. But I digress.

Jessica McDonald goes on in her report, under the heading “Enhanced Industry Leadership,” to talk about recognizing variability between sectors and trades. She says the following:

[3:25 p.m.]

“In focusing on evidence-based planning targets, the system must recognize variability between sectors and between trades. Over the recent past, the system has strained under new ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy directions. These include examples such as modularized training and certification, the elimination of compulsory trades and apprentice ratios, a focus on competency-based assessments and others. While each of these concepts has merit within the system, they are not right for every trade and circumstance. A shift towards evidence-based planning must include a clear realization that the solutions that will allow the fastest progress towards an alignment of supply and demand require differentiation between sectors and trades.”

If we want to hit that equilibrium in terms of supply for labour power, we need to realize that the trades are different and that trades are highly variable in between sectors and in between trades. “Industry must have a role in advising on the appropriate measures that will best target each trade, and this advice should be based on evidence-based analysis geared to meeting demand targets.”

That’s, to my view…. It’s very unfortunate that a government has to be told that industry should be consulted when making such a significant change, but clearly a report had to be done that said that.

McDonald goes on to issue recommendation No. 15:

“Sector advisory councils should be asked to advise governments on the relevance and need for specific policy directions for each sector, with resulting recommendations backed up by clear evidence relating to projected impact on achieving demand and supply alignment targets. These policy issues may include the need for reintroduction of compulsory certification, apprentice quotas and ratios, expanded opportunities for challenging for trades credentials, etc.”

Before 2003, we had a system that recognized the differentiation between trades and recognized the value of the trades. This, I think, is very telling.

The member for Prince George–Valemount received this report. What it says is that compulsory trades not only have merit, but a committee of industry representatives should be put together to discuss and advise on the need to introduce apprentice quotas and ratios — apprentice to journeyperson ratios. I’ll touch on that as I get into the bill.

The report goes on, on page 39, to say: “Over recent years” — this is somewhat of a restatement, but the wording here is interesting — “many new directions have been introduced, such as deregulation of trades, elimination of apprentice ratios and modular training and certification, that have caused strain because they were not fully inclusive during development, were seen to benefit single interests, and they impacted the whole system.”

She unpacks that a bit: “Because different concepts benefit different interests, these approaches have become associated with ideological positioning and the system is resistant to discussion. While each of these concepts has merit within the system, they are not right for every trade and circumstance.”

She goes on to advise on her recommendation that there ought to be a sector advisory committee put together of representatives from different industry to advise on the best approach to restore compulsory trades.

This is telling because this is not a partisan report. The B.C. Chamber of Commerce is not a partisan group. These are independent voices looking clear-eyed at the problems facing us today, how to solve them, and they inextricably come to the exact same conclusion, which is the conclusion we’ve come to as government, which has led us here to this bill today that’s been introduced by the minister.

We are facing a skills crisis in British Columbia. That was characterized by the member for Cariboo North as a labour shortage, and that’s not quite accurate. It’s more complex than that. It has different ramifications, and I’m going to talk about that in a moment.

We’re facing a skills crisis. We’ve heard from the minister that there will be 85,000 job openings in skilled trades by 2031, and approximately 70 percent of those job openings are going to be due to retirements.

[3:30 p.m.]

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

We are about to lose a generation of journeypeople right as we need to be producing an incredible amount of apprentices. In a very real way, the clock is ticking in British Columbia, which is that if we want to have enough skilled workers, we need to get them in, and we need to apprentice them now. Action needs to be taken now. We can’t afford to not take action. Part of that is because, historically, we’ve been so set back by the drop in completions that occurred, when the trades were totally devalued in 2003.

I want to touch on my point that this is not the same as a labour shortage. What I mean by that is this is a skills shortage. It’s more acute than a labour shortage because we don’t just need people; we need people with a very high degree of skills and value-added skills. I think making that distinction between labour and skill shortage really goes to understanding the value of the trades, which is not just anybody can come in and be a refrigeration and air-conditioning mechanic. It’s a very difficult job. It requires a lot of training and a lot of experience and a full apprenticeship.

You can’t wake up one day and decide you’re going to be an electrician. It just doesn’t work like that. You need so much training and experience. The system and the entire idea of apprenticeship is built around that to make sure that folks have that experience and have that training.

The best way to think about — and I’ll confess I’m indebted to the Deputy Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training, Shannon Baskerville, for this metaphor — our skills-training system, our apprenticeship system, is to think about a leaky pipe. Water comes in, and then it leaks out, at different points. We have kind of distinct problems right now, which are the flow of apprentices and then completion drop-offs and apprentices leaving after year 1, after year 2, after year 3.

We need to get more apprentices in, and we also need to deal with issues in completion along the way, where folks are dropping off. Those are distinct issues. This bill addresses both of them, but in no way is it a silver bullet in the sense that there’s not more work to do and there’s not more work that is actively being done right now. And I will get into that. There absolutely is. This is part of a coherent strategy to ensure that we have the people that we need, when we need them, and that we have people to fill the jobs.

Like I said, it’s a generational crisis. I can tell you from my personal experience as a millennial. I don’t have to go out and speak to millennials. I’m a millennial. I get it. This is stuff that keeps me up at night.

In many ways, this problem is symptomatic of a very strong economy. There is high demand for skilled labour. In some ways, this is the kind of problem that I think would be the envy of a lot of governments in that what it means is we have more demand than we have supply. We have more investment than we have workers to fill the jobs.

We have two industrial projects in northern British Columbia — right? — Site C and LNG Canada, both of which require significantly high pools of skilled labour. We’re building a whole slew of brand-new hospitals and building additions and upgrades to existing hospitals.

Then you look at all the other civil projects that we have going on. We’re building a brand-new Pattullo Bridge. We’re building the Broadway corridor. We’re extending the SkyTrain all the way to my riding of Langley, which I am ecstatic about. We’ve got road construction going on left, right and centre. We have a massive rebuild of the Coquihalla that we have to do, and we’re currently doing pre-works for the Massey Tunnel. We’ve got a very high demand for skilled labour, and it’s also an opportunity to train the next generation of apprentices.

An important point here is that often what might happen in British Columbia, or in Canada more generally, is that you’ll have a downturn in one province, and then you’ll have apprentices and journeypeople move from that province to a province where there’s higher demand, where there is more investment, more projects going on, that type of thing. Or say there are shutdowns in the oilfield in Alberta, and you’ll have people go there to do maintenance.

[3:35 p.m.]

It’s a very highly mobile workforce that moves around. That’s the entire idea. That’s why we call it a journeyperson. That’s the entire idea of a red seal. It’s that they’re interprovincially harmonized so that the credential is recognized everywhere.

We can’t expect to be bailed out of the skills crisis by downturns in other parts of the country. The Maritimes, Ontario, Quebec have got record levels of investment in civil works going on right now. If you look at maps of population flows, what you will see is that whereas previously, folks from Quebec and Ontario and the Maritimes may have come out here for work, what typically seems to be happening now is that Ontarians and Quebecers are staying in their provinces because there’s more than enough work at home, and Maritimers are going to Ontario and Quebec.

I’ve lived in the Maritimes. I’ve lived in two Maritime provinces. Maritimers like to stay close to home — I completely get that — and relatively close to the same time zone.

The point is that we need to build our workforce here in British Columbia. We need to be getting women and Indigenous peoples the support they need to be success­ful as apprentices. We need parents to encourage young people to pursue the opportunities that are in front of them right now, because there are significant and mas­sive opportunities in the trades if you’re young. I tell my friends this all the time: you can make a really good living in the trades. You can work outside. It takes a high degree of skill and intellect.

There is a lot of financial reward right now, but we’re coming from behind with a previous government that had so completely devalued the trades. We need to raise the prestige of the trades again and make it an attractive option because we need parents to encourage their kids. The average age of an apprentice is 28 years old. That’s not going to bail us out.

That is why we’re moving forward with skilled-trades certification. It is a new approach. It’s skills focused. It’s industry-driven. This bill, the Skilled Trades BC Act, will create a requirement for people performing work in certain trades, not all trades — we heard about the need for differentiation between trades and sectors from Jessica McDonald, and we take that to heart — to either possess a red seal or be registered as an apprentice.

The value of skilled-trades certification is clear. In addition to the points made by the B.C. chamber and Jessica McDonald, we have done significant work, and the ministry has done significant work, on a business case to look at the value of creating this requirement for mandatory certification for certain trades. What they found is that…. PricewaterhouseCoopers was contracted to do labour market data. This is all public. This is all transparent. We’ve been very transparent with this process the entire way through, and I’ll touch on this. But the business case was released and is on the ministry’s website.

Registration in apprenticeships, in trades, where skilled-trade certification is a requirement, are projected to in­crease by 7 percent. That is due to the rise in the prestige of the trades. That’s real. It is important that we get more people into apprenticeships, which we desperately need right now.

Interestingly, we did our engagement over the summer on implementation. I’ll talk about that in a little bit, but I’ll flag one point here: 75 percent of parents that we spoke to, that answered our survey, said they are more likely to encourage their kids to pursue trades as a career if a red seal is a requirement of that trade. Now, I just want to pause and reflect on that. That is incredible, and that is exactly what we need in order to get more young people to actively be pursuing the trades and picking up the opportunities that are in front of them today.

I want to talk a bit about the process that brought us here, that brought us to this bill. I’ve talked a bit about the history, and now I’d like to talk about the process. When I’m doing that, I want to take a moment and thank the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

[3:40 p.m.]

I want to thank the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant because everyone who’s been in government will know that by the time you get to a piece of legislation on the floor, or the time you get to an announcement, significant work has to happen to get to that point.

The member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, when she became the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training in 2017, picked up the ball and ran with it. I think often of the comment she makes that has really stuck with me — that we need to get away from this perception: “I have two kids. One of them is smart, and one of them is in the trades.”

I mean, I think that is kind of a good summation of a problem that we have, which is that we casually devalue the trades, and we look at them as less than, and we shouldn’t, because they take all kinds of skills. There are all kinds of incredible people working in them. You know, you can have an incredible life.

I also want to thank the team in the civil service, because there was a lot of work that went into this, and I’m going to detail that. I’ll read out their names for the record, because I think they all deserve some accolades here.

That’s Shannon Baskerville, the deputy minister for Advanced Education and Skills Training, and Bindi Sawchuk, the assistant deputy minister for Advanced Ed and Skills Training, both of whom have done a phenomenal job leading the ministry; Emily Cronin, the executive director for labour market and trades training policy; Kim Buchanan, the director of trades training policy; Catherine Poole, the executive director of workforce development and skills training; James Papadopoulos, the director of governance for skilled trades B.C. and implementation of skilled trade certification; Kelly Fitzsimonds, the legislative analyst who has done a phenomenal job in legislative drafting; Matt Dell, the director of legislation; the policy analysts Avery Bonner, Ken Corbett, Kendra Greek, Janet Baker and Adam Skulsky; as well as the team at the Industry Training Authority: Rod Bianchini, Shelley Allan, Shelley Gray and Andrew George.

They’ve all done a tremendous job, and we’re going to benefit as a province as a consequence.

I just want to say a special shout-out to Michael Snoddon, the director of strategic initiatives and corporate operations in the deputy minister’s office. This has been a personal project of his that he has pushed along and has done a phenomenal amount of work on. And Jeff Hannah, the minister’s ministerial adviser, who works with me on this file, really helped carry the ball during the consultations and engagement that we did over the summer.

We’re picking up where the McDonald report left off. We got industry together, and we created a stakeholder advisory working group that engaged in an 18-month long process to identify the best manner of proceeding with skilled trade certification and selecting the trades.

This is typical of the approach this government has taken to engagement. This was begun under the member from Mount Pleasant when she was minister, and it was finished under the member for Burnaby–Deer Lake, who is the minister now, who is bringing the bill forward and championing this going forward.

I want to read out the names of the stakeholder working group, because they’re a tremendous group of people. When you hear the names, you’ll hear that they come from all corners of industry. This was not a case of government going in and picking their friends and putting them on a committee. It was well-rounded, and it made sure there were very diverse viewpoints.

I know a lot of these folks. The idea of getting them all together in one room and agreeing to ten trades…. I would have told you it maybe couldn’t have been done. It’s a testament to all of them and the hard work they did and just the common sense behind this policy that they got there.

The members are Chris Atchison from the B.C. Construction Association; Helen Boyce from ACCESS Trades, which does phenomenal work with Indigenous apprentices; Laird Cronk from the B.C. Federation of Labour; Abigail Fulton from the B.C. Construction Foundation; Kaanesh Ghosh from LNG Canada; Shelley Gray, the CEO of the Industry Training Authority; Lisa Langevin from the B.C. Tradeswomen Society; Robin Lucas from Allteck power line contractors; Kathy Kinloch, the president of BCIT; Irene Kerr from B.C. Infrastructure Benefits; Jud Martell from the B.C. Building Trades; Ken McCormack from the Construction Labour Relations Association; Larry Richardson from the Christian Labour Association of Canada, or CLAC; Ken Tourand from the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology; Rob Tremblay from the Automotive Retailers Association; and Rieghardt van Enter from the Progressive Contractors Association, which is a group of the Christian Labour Association’s signatory contractors.

[3:45 p.m.]

This is exactly the process that the McDonald report recommended, which was to go out to a broad-based group of stakeholders representing varying interests — and, frankly, representing very different philosophical positions — and bring them together. The result of that was an industry-driven approach that maximizes the benefits of skilled trades certification while mitigating the risks, by starting with ten highly certified trades.

The work they did — they took a variety of labour market work and other work — informed the business case, to select the ten initial trades. What they did was that they picked trades that were in high demand and where there’s going to be a need for higher levels of apprenticeship, but also trades that are very highly certified. Part of the rationale for that is to ensure that this isn’t disruptive, that this doesn’t create any type of labour market disruption and that we do this in the best possible way.

The list of the ten trades are: electrician; industrial electrician; power line technician; gas fitter A and B — I’ll just note that gas fitter A and B isn’t a red seal trade at the moment, but it’s going through the process of harmonization; refrigeration and air-conditioning mechanic; automotive service technician; automotive body repair; heavy-duty-equipment mechanic; steamfitter/pipefitter; and sheet metal worker.

To give you a sense, there are estimated — by the ministry, based on the labour market data and not the national occupational code — to be 12 uncertified industrial electricians, for instance. That trade is 99.7 percent certified. Electricians are 98 percent certified. You can see that the amount of uncertified workers presents a very manageable opportunity in terms of making sure that those folks have recognition for the skills they need and the supports they need to become certified. So this ought to boost registration within those trades.

There’s another point about those trades that I think is critically important for this House during its deliberations. That’s that these trades are highly certified to begin with and, with some exceptions, don’t have a high impact on the housing market. “Carpenter” is not on this list. That’s not a mistake. We went through a very planned and deliberate process to pick trades that will be minimally disruptive upon introduction. The business case pretty frankly states there’s going to be no impact on housing affordability. I mean, construction electricians are 98 percent certified.

Now, that being said, what would impact housing costs is not enough skilled workers. So this is going to drive more apprentices in. This is really aimed at helping affordability in the long term. To assert otherwise, I think, belies a pretty significant lack of understanding of trades training policy, and I would invite anybody that actually thinks that to do broad consultation and engagement with industry, not just with preferred groups.

What’s also important here is that we’re taking a phased approach. We announced this back this past June — the minister, myself and the Premier. We announced what the trades were, out of transparency and a need for market certainty. We’ve released the business case. We’re going to do it in a phased approach. There are seven construction trades here and three automotive trades. The seven construction trades will come into compliance in June 2022, and the three automotive trades will come in by June 2024.

We’ve heard the member for Cariboo North assert that the devil is in the details when you talk about what they’re going to do with regulations. “What are they hiding?”

We’ve come out pretty plainly and said: “Okay, well, this is a regulatory authority. Here’s what you can expect of this.” These trades will be designated by regulation. “Here’s the timeline you can expect, for market certainty.” That’s very significant. I’ll touch, in a bit, on the importance of regulatory authority to preserve flexibility in some of this, and the need for flexibility on the jobsite and in industry.

[3:50 p.m.]

That’s the process that brought us to these ten trades.

I want to talk a bit about the engagement we did after the stakeholder working group and after that announcement. After our initial announcement of the stakeholder working group selected initial trades, we launched a comprehensive engagement on skilled trades certification implementation with industry and Indigenous communities.

We went out, and we actively, through the stakeholder working group, said: “Send us contractors. Send us apprentices. Send us journeypeople. Get as many folks as you can to sign up for round tables who are out on the ground working in automotive shops, working in collision and body repair shops, who are working on sites, who are running crews. We want to hear from people where the rubber hits the road.”

And that’s what happened. We had a lot of folks. We did it via Zoom. We did our round tables via Zoom. We had a lot of folks Zoom in from the workplace. We had people who were running their businesses Zooming in. So we had a pretty good response, I think. We took a dual distinctions–based approach in accordance with our commitment under UNDRIP, the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

We did engagement with industry, looking to employers and apprentice sponsors, looking to labour unions, looking to journeypeople, apprentices, uncertified workers. We had a round table specifically for women in the trades and a round table specifically for new Canadians, where we had translation services available, to really make sure that we dug into the kinds of issues that people were concerned about and to make sure that we were as conservative as possible in making sure that we conceived of every possible angle. I’ll talk about each one of those engagements in turn.

We released two reports on the engagement, two what-we-heard reports on skilled trades certification engagement: one for industry, one for Indigenous engagement. They were pretty revealing.

I will start with the first, which was the process-for-industry engagement. We had over 30 individual stakeholder meetings that I took, where I was able to have some pretty good conversations.

I met with the Mechanical Contractors Association; the B.C. Construction Association; SMACNA, which is the sheet metal and air conditioning association; the New Car Dealers; the Automotive Retailers Association; the B.C. home builders; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the Electrical Contractors Association; the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association; the Christian Labour Association of Canada; the B.C. Building Trades; the B.C. Federation of Labour; the Sheet Metal Workers; the HVAC industry; and several others.

We did very comprehensive, one-on-one discussions so we could hear people’s concern and input in a more drilled-down way. We had 12 round tables in addition to that, with 113 participants. We had a survey with 860 responses. I just want to say that I think that’s a phenomenal turnout for a survey that was very technical about the trades-training system.

What I’ll say is that the engagement on trades training that we did was characterized by very frank, very open and very honest conversations. We heard very clearly about the need for flexible learning options. The pandemic has shown us, in many ways, that there’s a whole new world possible — trades-training providers are leading the way, and the Industry Training Authority is leading the way — and that need is there, albeit somewhat limited by, sometimes, the need for equipment.

We heard about the need for trades-training seats to address wait-lists. You might end up in a situation sometimes where you might have a college up north — say, in Vanderhoof — that has extra trades-training seats that aren’t being filled while you have significant wait-lists at BCIT. There’s a need to look at making sure that there’s balance so that we don’t have folks leaving apprenticeship because they’re stuck at level 2 or they’re stuck at level 3 and they can make more money in a warehouse or they get a little down about it.

We need to make sure that we’re addressing wait-lists, and we’re absolutely alive to that. I would say that there’s a lot of capacity within the system, and there are specific things we’re doing, and I’ll detail that.

[3:55 p.m.]

We heard about how important it is to get young people into the trades. Like I said, a key takeaway: 75 percent of parents that answered our survey told us they’re more likely to encourage their kids to get into the trades if red seal is a requirement. We heard about the need for specific supports to the challenge process — to challenge your trade ticket — and the importance of diversity and culturally relevant training.

We also heard about the work we’ve done to remove barriers for women and the need to continue to remove barriers for women. Women make up 10 percent of ap­prentices and 4 percent of journeypeople. There is a significant drop-off happening there. When you look at the leaky pipe, I think all of that is exacerbated if you’re a women in the trades, for various systemic reasons.

I’ll tell you this. The number one issue that I heard about from tradeswomen — I talk to tradeswomen all the time, and this was reiterated during our tradeswomen round table — is lack of affordable child care. If you’re a single mom and you need to get from Mission to a jobsite in Vancouver, you need before-and-after care.

The work that our government is doing and the work that the Minister of State for Child Care is doing to make that a reality — how far we’ve come and how far we still need to go — is critically important in addressing the skills crisis. But what we heard, ultimately, is that our approach makes sense and that skilled trade certification is viewed when you speak to people as just common sense.

Second, I want to talk about the process for Indigenous engagement. In accordance with our commitment under UNDRIP, we offered multiple methods for participation. We had seven virtual dialogue sessions, multiple one-on-one meetings, a survey and an option for written submissions. I should state obviously that this is not consultation on the legislation. This is engagement on how we can implement this, and how we can develop and design policies in a way that ultimately addresses issues that they’re facing.

We had 54 individuals that participated in the dialogue session. We had representation from across Indigenous communities, although not all. We heard about the need to address systemic barriers to Indigenous participation. I can think of one conversation that I had as part of that process that I think is all too common. It really left a significant mark on me. That was hearing a very dignified Elder talk about the racism and the invective that he had to deal with as a young man working in the trades that ultimately caused him to leave the trades.

It’s absolutely heartbreaking to think that has been and is a reality for Indigenous people in British Columbia. It’s not okay. It’s not appropriate, and we absolutely need to do everything we can, and better, to support Indigenous apprentices and to make sure that people are valued and feel safe on the jobsite, because that’s just not okay.

We heard about the need to build supports respecting cultural diversity of Indigenous peoples and include Elders in the process, and the need for more flexible and accessible learning options such as digital and remote instruction. We also heard about the success of what the Industry Training Authority has been doing, which is community-based training — going up to community with trades trainers and putting on community-based training and the success of Indigenous cohorts in training.

I just want to give a special shout-out to the director of Indigenous initiatives at the Industry Training Authority, Andrew George. Andrew George, I think, is the trades-training system’s best-kept secret. He’s a Wet’suwet’en Her­editary Chief and the very first red seal chef I think in Canada from an Indigenous background.

He’s written two incredible cookbooks. I haven’t had the chance yet to enjoy his cooking, but I hope to. He’s been a trades trainer as well. He’s probably overseen, either through mentorship or as a trade trainer, 1,000 apprentices in British Columbia. He is so dedicated to it.

I have no doubt that where we are with Indigenous participation and trades training is a consequence of the work that he has done and is doing. In the past ten years, we’ve gone from 1 percent Indigenous participation in apprenticeship to 8 percent. We still have a lot of work to do, but that’s significant. It’s because of the work that the Indigenous initiatives department is doing within the Industry Training Authority.

[4:00 p.m.]

We’re working to address the gaps and issues that were identified in engagement. I’ll give you two concrete, tangible examples. I think the member for Cariboo North will like this, because she brought up wait-lists.

We have just invested $5 million in funding with the ITA so trades trainers can apply to the ITA for funding for additional trades-training seats. So $5 million specifically for skilled trades certification trades — like I said, we are projecting an increase in demand for those trades — and other high-demand trades. That can also be used for refresher courses and a whole manner of things.

That is a significant sum when it comes to new trades-training seats. So while there may be longer-term discussions that can be had around trades-training funding, this is something practical and now that addresses a real need. It’s an example of the government taking action and of the minister taking action. We’ve also hired five brand-new apprentice advisers at the ITA to make sure that people have the support they need.

We heard a comment about how maybe we should in­vest in equipment. I think the member will be pleased to know that the minister, in November, announced $3 million in funding for new equipment for public post-secondary institutions for trades training. So we’ve invested a significant amount of money in that. That’s also driven by demand, right?

The post-secondary institutions know what equipment they need, just like trades-training providers know where they need training seats. We’ve made sure that this is all set up in a way that’s driven by demand in industry.

I’ll say, just finishing on the consultation that I did, that another key thing we heard throughout that consultation was the need for effective enforcement, the need for a level playing field so that everyone has the certainty that everyone is playing by the rules.

Now, there has been some talk in this House about regulations and decisions made by regulation. I know the minister is committed to the utmost transparency in this process, which is why we announced the trades back in June.

There are certain things that are done through regulation, effectively for the need for flexibility. You’ll see…. If you look at legislation across the country dealing with mandatory certification systems — which, like I said, every province has and every territory has — you will see that issues like scope of trade, ratios, temporary authorization are done through regulation. That allows flexibility in the ability to vary things, should they need to be.

The Industry Training Authority led a technical engagement on policy matters that would fall under regulation. That was done to allow a non-political technical discussion with industry so that the recommendations could be industry-led. I’m going to talk a bit about those recommendations, but before I do that, I just want to say that stakeholders are currently being engaged on these recommendations and are going to continue to be engaged. The reason I say that is because that’s currently happening and going to continue to happen and because there is a cabinet process.

These, right now, are just recommendations from the Industry Training Authority, but we have heard recommendations pretty clearly come from the ITA — from their process with industry, their engagement with industry — for scope of trade, that the red seal occupational standard be used.

We’ve heard very clearly that a ratio is needed. Everyone agreed on a default ratio. Well, there was broad agreement on a default ratio for the purposes of certainty and administrability and the need to make sure that apprentices have adequate mentorship and supervision.

A ratio is the number of apprentices you’re allowed to have per journeyperson so that there’s adequate supervision in place so that apprentices have the support they need to get through to completion — we want a completion-centric system — but also to ensure there’s enough flexibility for labour market needs so that we’re suitably reproducing journeypeople. The recommendation that came out of that was one journeyperson per two apprentices.

[4:05 p.m.]

Also, we had recommendations on temporary authorizations. The recommendation on temporary authorization has been that as trades come into compliance…. Like I said, the construction trades are all highly, highly certified.

As they come into compliance, the recommendation from the Industry Training Authority, based on its consultation with industry, is to allow a two-year temporary authorization for uncertified workers so that support can be provided for them to write the exam — there are some technical bits about that two years, in terms of when to register — and understanding the need for legacy workers and that there may be folks who are legacy workers, who worked for a long time in the trades and have all the skills but just lack the recognition of a red seal, which is part of the perverse effect of having gotten rid of the requirements — to allow a five-year window for workers that have either 24 years’ experience in the trades or 36,000 hours.

Like I say, this still has to go to cabinet for regulation, and engagement is still being done. But what that would do, were that to come into effect in terms of regulation, is allow a pretty broad window for the automotive trades, which would come into compliance in 2024 for legacy workers. There’s a whole process of attestation and everything else in terms of the challenge system, but that’s significant.

I think that if you look at this honestly, and you look at the amendments to trades training and mandatory systems in Ontario or in Manitoba or anywhere else, we will have the most flexible, commonsense system, should this go through, in the country.

Now that concludes my preamble to the bill. I’ll turn now to the bill itself. I want to start by talking about section 2. There’s been some consternation here about a name change. I just mentioned that the previous government spent a whole bundle of money changing the name to take the word “apprenticeship” out in devaluing the trades. But all of this is part of putting the trades back on prestigious footing and getting more people in and looking at: what is the corporation supposed to do, and what is its role?

In that sense, I would say, it’s not different than the name change, in principle, of Workers Compensation Board to WorkSafe. It’s important that industry and British Columbians understand what the role and purpose of this is.

Section 2, part 1 of the bill, continues the Industry Training Authority as a corporation named SkilledTradesBC, consisting of a board of directors appointed under section 4. That’s a very important point, because it continues the governance system of SkilledTradesBC. I’m going to call it SkilledTradesBC going forward. It continues the governance model. You heard me earlier make a comment about ITAC and how it had a governance model that sometimes led to some problems because it was interest-based. This continues a very efficient governance model that allows the trades-training system to go forward.

Then there are some very important changes in the objects of the corporation in section 3. I just want to turn to section 3(d). Section 3(d) is amended…. Well, not really amended; it’s a repeal and replace. What I’d say is that sections 3(a), (b) and (c) are identical to the objects (a), (b) and (c) in the Industry Training Authority Act. Section (d) is changed.

Section (d) states, and this is one of the objects of the corporation: “to promote apprenticeship programs and industry training programs, including by encouraging persons to register in those programs and encouraging employers and sponsors to participate in those programs” — “to promote apprenticeship programs…and encouraging employers and sponsors,” sponsors of apprentices, “to participate in those programs.”

[4:10 p.m.]

The old language had the purposes of the ITA being “to promote industry training programs, including by encouraging employers and individuals to participate.” It explicitly omitted apprenticeship. It explicitly omitted promoting apprenticeship. The goal was to promote non-apprenticeship training over apprenticeship training. That’s corrected, and that will refocus the work of the corporation to meet the challenges that we face now in terms of labour market demand.

It also, very importantly, as the minister stated, adds 3(e): “to promote participation of Indigenous people in the industry training and apprenticeship system, including by encouraging Indigenous people to register in and complete industry training programs and apprenticeship programs.” This takes the work of the Indigenous initiatives the ITA is doing and carries it into a purpose of the corporation. This is broadly significant for the direction of the training system in British Columbia, and I couldn’t be happier that that is being done.

There is a series of other very important provisions in here having to do with bylaws and strategic planning requirements, etc., but for the purposes of this debate, I’m going to go to the skilled trades certification provisions.

Before I do, I just want to touch on section 7, “Em­ployees and officers.” So 7(2): “The board may designate an employee of the corporation as the review officer.” What that does is…. It means it’s a procedural fairness or natural justice prerogative there — that the board and not the CEO designates who the review officer is that folks can effectively appeal to for an expeditious clarification or resolution to an issue that may arise. I think that is incredibly important.

Turning to section 26 of the act, part 5, “Working in a Trade.” This sets out the requirement for skilled trades certification. This is hugely significant. “A person must not work in a skilled trades certification trade unless the person is one of the following….” Then it lists the requirements: an apprentice, a registered apprentice, a registered apprentice for another jurisdiction, a journeyperson, some­one with a temporary authorization, etc.

It also sets out regulatory authorities under section 27: “(1) The Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by regulation, designate a trade as a skilled trades certification trade. (2) The minister may, by regulation, establish the scope of work for a skilled trades certification trade.”

Effectively, and in the interests of transparency and market certainty, we announced in June which trades we were looking at — or we will be, should this act pass the House — to designate as skilled trades certification. Creating that was done by an industry-led process, but we also are being open and transparent about what the recommendation is and being engaged on in terms dealing with scope of work. There’s nothing hidden here.

Sections 28 through 29 deal with the registration of apprentices and sponsors. Section 31 is where you’ll find the power to issue a person a temporary authorization that authorizes the person to work in a specific skilled trade certification trade. That’s to allow folks who are currently uncertified. That’s one use of it: to allow folks who are currently uncertified to work in the trade for a period while they are working to challenge their credential.

Another critical component is ratios. That goes through sections 32, 33 and 34. Section 32 allows the establishment of apprentice-to-journeyperson ratios, which I’ve already commented on. I’ve commented on the importance of that. It very importantly — section 33 — allows supervision ratio adjustments. I want to read that out:

“33 (1) An employer may apply, in accordance with requirements established by the corporation, for a supervision ratio adjustment that authorizes an employer to have a greater number of apprentices supervised by one journeyperson than is indicated by the supervision ratio established for the skilled trades certification trade. (2) The corporation may grant a supervision ratio adjustment only in accordance with the regulations of the minister. (3) The corporation may impose terms and conditions on any supervision ratio adjustment granted, and the employer must comply with those terms and conditions.”

This is a regulatory authority, but it’s unique in the sense that it’s led by the corporation, because it’s instigated by an application to SkilledTradesBC for a ratio adjustment that may be due to a variety of factors.

[4:15 p.m.]

I wouldn’t prejudge what any of those factors would, but you could see that there may be a need for ad hoc ratio adjustment for a variety of unique purposes that might be labour market driven, might be geographically driven — whichever. It gives broad flexibility here to make sure that the system is flexible and that we’re maintaining the policy outcomes we want, which is more people in the trades.

Section 34 allows exemptions of classes of person. I think an obvious example of what that could be would be, say, youth in trades training programs or something like that.

Important is part 7, “Enforcement — Skilled Trades Certification Trades” and the inspection powers and the creation of a class of persons called compliance officers. This is in the defined terms of the bill.

We have heard universally that enforcement is where the rubber meets the road on this policy. We’ve heard from industry that we need to enforce this equitably and with a fair hand and that that is part and parcel of the legitimacy of a mandatory system. So this creates compliance officers who, without a warrant, may enter a premises — they can’t be refused — and that can go in and inspect, audit, examine or do a variety of things to ascertain whether or not the skilled trades certification requirement is being complied with.

It also gives them certain powers. I can tell you one of the powers it gives. They’re all discretionary. One of the powers it gives is it allows compliance officers to issue a warning. That’s not a power that I believe exists in any of the other nine provinces. That’s significant and important because sometimes, the carrot is much better than the stick. Not everyone is an errant actor, a chronic bad actor. Most folks may not realize they’re not in compliance. So this allows compliance officers to take an education-to-compliance approach.

It also allows compliance orders under section 38, which can be anything from stop-work orders to having the work, task, activity or function stopped to having a person cease claiming to be an apprentice or journeyperson. They’re pretty significant orders. As well, there are administrative monetary penalties set by regulation.

I think, importantly, section 39(4) allows for director liability of a corporation so that someone can’t skirt their obligations by virtue of walking away from a numbered company.

Section 39(4) says: “If an administrative monetary penalty is imposed on a person that is a corporation, an officer or director of the corporation who directed, authorized, assented to, acquiesced in or participated in the contravention is also liable under this section for the administrative monetary penalty if the corporation fails to pay the administrative monetary penalty in accordance with this section.” That’s similar to language that is in the Employment Standards Act for director liability. I think that’s incredibly important.

As well, it sets out a whole appeal process through sections 42 to 45 that not only allows for a full administrative tribunal to do an appeal to ensure that the administrative law prerogatives of natural justice and procedural fairness are complied with but also allows that review officer that I talked about earlier to make expeditious clarifications for folks so they don’t have to go through the full court-like tribunal process. Although they still may elect to. That’s obviously still there.

I guess I want to end and just comment on the value of apprentices. Since I’ve become the Parliamentary Secretary for Skills Training, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of apprentices in B.C. I’m so filled with hope talking to apprentices, talking to young people getting into the trades for the first time, talking to folks who are a little older, who want a new start in life — just the hope and opportunity it gives them.

[4:20 p.m.]

I reflect on the work of Amartya Sen in his Nobel Prize–​winning work on economic development, Development as Freedom, where Sen characterizes or asserts that the goal of all economic development ought to be building capabilities in the person and thus expanding the reach of human freedom and autonomy.

I think this bill does that. I think apprenticeship, more importantly, does that. It lifts people up. It lets them live their best lives. It lets them self-actualize and see the productive benefits of what they’re doing, and it also gives them an income, at the end of the day, as a journeyperson, that lets them live their best lives.

I am very proud of the work that went on, by the whole team, as a part of this bill. I think it’s very good. I don’t think any of the assertions from the member for Cariboo North really stand any kind of serious scrutiny. I would just say that apprentices are the beating heart of our economy. We can’t let them down, because government has done that before, in 2003 and 2004. The outcome has been absolutely heartbreaking and terrible.

The Skilled Trades BC Act is a good act, and I’m proud to support it.

With that, I will take my seat.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Skeena.

E. Ross: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and welcome to the chair. I haven’t had my chance to congratulate you on your new appointment. Congratulations.

I just got through listening to a riveting speech by the member for Langley. A large component of it was around the First Nations engagement in regard to the Skilled Trades Act, which we’re talking about here today. Just like the conversations around engagement on every piece of legislation that came through this House, it’s lining up to be a broken promise to First Nations.

Their own UNDRIP bill said they would consult the rightful title holders in B.C., which are actually 203 communities in B.C., yet we find that after four years this NDP government has not fulfilled that promise. Instead, they go to advocacy groups. They don’t go to the elected chief councillors to consult, as promised in their own UNDRIP bill.

Listening to the member for Langley, I’ve got to say that was one of the most patronizing, condescending, paternalistic speeches I’ve ever heard, when we’re talking about First Nations. You were talking like you split the atom: “Hey, we are going to encourage First Nations to get involved with apprenticeships. This is groundbreaking.”

What do you think leaders like me have been doing for the last 19 years? What do you think leaders before me in our territories, in all the communities across British Columbia, in 203 communities, have been doing for the last 40 years? Do you think you just discovered this in your engagements?

This is not a new discovery. This is why First Nations got involved with forestry in the first place, in 2006, and signed on to all these forest and range agreements across B.C. It’s why we fully supported LNG. It’s why we supported mining, because all the training opportunities in the world will not help the situation of First Nations if they don’t have a job to walk into. It’s what discourages First Nations from getting into trading opportunities in the first place. So to talk like you’ve actually come across something that nobody else ever thought of is insulting.

Interjection.

E. Ross: Please heckle louder. Where’s that member from? I don’t have my list, but I’ll keep it in me.

Interjection.

E. Ross: Sunshine Coast, please heckle louder.

Interjection.

E. Ross: What’s that? Okay. Anyway, in the future, if you do, please…. So I can hear it, okay.

[4:25 p.m.]

Anyway, the reconciliation we’re talking about, especially what I’ve been talking about, means lifting people out of poverty. That’s what it means. It means bringing two parts of society in B.C. back together. That’s what reconciliation means.

At one point, First Nations and non–First Nations worked together to build B.C. and to build Canada. Over the years, First Nations got excluded from government policies dating back 50, 100 years. Reconciliation is to bring those two sides back together and uplift First Nations out of the social conditions that were actually imposed on them by policies that were set in place by the B.C. government and the federal government. It wasn’t just the federal government that did this.

To think that somehow First Nations have not thought of this before is incredibly condescending and patronizing. You’ve actually eliminated all the hard work that First Nations leaders have done for the last 40 years, and you’ve taken credit in one single act, where you haven’t even fulfilled your promise to actually consult First Nations on this legislation, as you promised in your own UNDRIP bill, your own act.

Every time a piece of legislation goes through this place, we bring it up again. Did you consult the First Nations rights and title holders across B.C., which actually represent 203 communities? Every time we get the answer back, it’s: “No, we didn’t.” It’s an old cliché to break promises to First Nations. Well, the NDP government brought back that cliché, and they breathed life into it.

In the 21st century, with all the progress that we’ve made on First Nations development from 2004 to 2017 — whether it be environmental stewardship agreements, protocol agreements, forestry agreements, mining agreements or LNG agreements — it has all been wiped away, like it never existed, all that progress. Now all of the discoveries, of encouraging First Nations to get into apprenticeship programs, are on the floor of this House.

I’ll tell you, if you did go to talk to the leaders of these 203 communities, you’d find out how incredibly difficult it is to get First Nations into training opportunities, much less apprenticeship opportunities. It’s hard.

One, because if there’s no job waiting for them at the end, they get discouraged. Two, travelling. For a First Nations member who has never left their village, it’s terrifying to get on a plane and leave for a good year, to leave your family and community behind. It’s terrifying; it’s foreign. So to somehow get and up and say: “Hey, we’re going to encourage all First Nations to take training. Hey, it’s going to be lots of fun. Yeah, let’s get started….” That’s not the way it works.

I’ll use myself as an example. When I left for college, I had no idea what I was doing, and there was nobody there to teach me. I jumped in a truck with my friend, drove to Abbotsford, got to Abbotsford and then realized: “Hey, I’ve got no place to live.” We had to drive around Abbotsford one day and go door-knocking to all of the apartments and all the houses. “Hey, you got a place for us to rent?” It was just by sheer luck that we got a townhouse.

Fast-forward to being an MLA. I didn’t know how to get on a plane. I didn’t know how to check into a hotel. I didn’t know that you needed a credit card to check into a hotel. These things I had to learn, because I came from a reserve. So the idea of encouraging First Nations to get an apprenticeship, to leave their community for a year and…. “Yes, we’ve solved it. Good on us.” That’s not how it works.

On my first travel away from my hometown to do work on the AFIC council in 2003, I waved at somebody on the SkyTrain because I thought he was the conductor. I didn’t know that the SkyTrain was actually automated, that it was electric. Quite embarrassing.

[4:30 p.m.]

In fact, I kind of threw a tantrum when I missed the SkyTrain, because I thought that that was the last train I was supposed to catch, not knowing that they come by every ten minutes. It’s these little things. I even proposed developing a handbook for councillors, to teach them the basics of what it means to travel on a plane, to check into a hotel. Then I realized that most First Nation members that have never left their community before don’t even know how to check in for a flight.

This is not easy, what you’re talking about. Many, many First Nations leaders have tried to achieve this, have tried to accomplish it. There’s only one component that we solved up in Skeena: to provide a job, through forestry, through LNG, through mining. That made it much easier to encourage people to go into training, but it didn’t solve the overall issue. It still hasn’t solved the overall issue.

You mentioned the corporations that were part of your advisory group. I sat with those corporations and asked them the same exact thing. I didn’t get any feedback; I didn’t get any help. The apprenticeship opportunities coming up in Skeena are coming from the smaller contractors that are working on these major projects. They didn’t come from the corporations that you listed on your advisory panel. Maybe their input was great, but show me, on paper, where they’re going to commit to it. Show me, on paper, where they’re going to commit to helping 203 communities and their band members get into apprenticeship opportunities.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The most success we saw was with the smaller companies in our region that were actually helping to build LNG Canada, as well as the modernization of the local aluminum smelter. That’s where it came from. That’s where it continues to come from, but it’s still hard work.

We complement what can be done with an individual need to go to apprenticeship training, with our own revenues, because that’s what engagement with the economy means. As a First Nation, you get your own revenues, and you get to decide what to do with those revenues — unlike the Indian Act, where they tell what you to do with your money.

This is why it was so disheartening to see the NDP opposing LNG before they got into government, because what you were really doing was keeping First Nations down, keeping them in poverty and keeping them in a state of exclusion from society and the economy. So when you signed the anti-LNG declarations and when you talked about First Nations elected councillors being put in place to annihilate the native or laughed at Hereditary Chiefs’ nicknames, that actually contradicts the speech I just heard from the member for Langley.

For a disadvantaged people that were just trying to get ahead, trying to get their people away from poverty and unemployment, it’s really disheartening to hear the speech from the member for Langley, because we’d made so much progress in terms of signing the first-ever forest and range agreement in 2006 with the then B.C. Liberal government. We made so much progress in signing on to Chevron’s KLNG project that is now on its way out. It was so gratifying to see people getting ahead by signing on to the LNG project — all the First Nations from Prince George to Kitimat, and even down the channel.

I heard the member talk about how we couldn’t get over the finish line. Yeah, 99 percent of the heavy lifting was done by the Christy Clark government and with First Nations leaders from Prince George to Kitimat, down channel and even up in northeastern B.C., but it was the NDP that did that final 1 percent of approving LNG. I’ve said it before in this House.

They also did it by giving LNG Canada the biggest PST tax break in B.C. history. This was after the B.C. Liberals had wanted a 7 percent LNG tax imposed, and then they cut it back to 3 percent. The NDP wiped that away. The B.C. Liberals had wanted neutrality on the carbon tax.

Deputy Speaker: Sorry to interrupt, Member. If I just might draw you back to Bill 4, that would be appreciated.

E. Ross: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It was mentioned, in terms of First Nation engagement, as well as the people that were on the advisory panel, that it included LNG Canada.

[4:35 p.m.]

Well, how did LNG Canada come to be? It was be­cause leaders like myself, as well as leaders from all across B.C., were trying to get their people into trade opportunities so that they could get a job. That’s what they were trying to do. It still hasn’t fully been realized. That was always our goal.

This still doesn’t hide the fact that this NDP government still hasn’t fulfilled the promise of UNDRIP. I have heard it mentioned in the previous speech from the member for Langley, who kept mentioning UNDRIP and their engagement. Well, you didn’t fulfil the promise of what was in the UNDRIP bill in the first place.

In terms of training…. This is what I take offence at: that somehow, the member for Langley thinks the NDP have actually discovered something brand-new, that First Nations somehow missed the idea of training or apprenticeships and that the whole notion of encouraging First Nations to get involved with apprenticeships is groundbreaking. It’s not groundbreaking. It’s not innovative.

In fact, when we found out that there was going to be opportunity for the modernization of the local smelter in Kitimat and the LNG opportunity, we tried as hard as we could to get people the training and apprenticeship opportunities, but we couldn’t get people to travel for the training. So what did we do? Even though we had no money, we partnered with local industry, and we purchased Kitimat Valley Institute. We thought a private post-secondary in­stitute could be the stepping stone to apprenticeships, so we purchased it.

At the time, the narrative was that the only people that could save this private post-secondary institution that was in the city of Kitimat was us, as the Haisla Nation. So we did it with no money. We found the money. We scratched together the money, and we purchased it. We even purchased the building. Now, we think we’ve got a good idea, a good foundation to go forward in apprenticeship training. Wait a minute. Not so fast. It’s not that easy.

Then we found out that you can’t just purchase a facility and then start apprenticeship training right out of the gates. There’s a lot of rules, policies, regulations that prohibit it. There are funding rules from Canada and B.C. that prohibit it. We even tried remote training. It didn’t work. We even tried to bring in trailers, and I heard the member talking about this. We even tried to bring in trailers to our facility to provide apprenticeship training. It didn’t work. The timing has to be right. Not only do you have to drive in these mobile units, you have to make sure that the instructors are there full time. It didn’t work.

Now our facility actually offers training to everybody across B.C., no matter where you’re from, no matter what your ethnicity is — Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals alike — but it’s more for corporate training. It’s more for safety training. The apprenticeship idea that we had slowly died off, but it didn’t mean we gave up. In every one of our agreements that we signed with B.C. and Canada and industry, there’s always a chapter on training and trades. Hard to enforce, but there’s always a chapter there.

This goes back decades. It goes back long before I became a political person in 2003. It goes way back. I don’t take credit for all of the hard work that we did, but I’m surprised that this NDP government wants to take credit for inventing the lightbulb, on encouraging First Nations to get involved with apprenticeships.

[4:40 p.m.]

What’s so disheartening about this, apart from the broken promises of UNDRIP, apart from this framework bill that actually leaves more to the regulatory side than anything else is it doesn’t really talk about what this actually means on the ground. What’s more disheartening is that there’s a lot of people that see the same obstacles that First Nations see in trying to get apprenticeship training. Maybe the regulations will cover this.

As a young person, the trade opportunity was offered to me, but it was always in the same manner of: “Hey, why don’t you go get a trade?” “Okay. What kind of trade?” “I don’t know. Just go get one.” I might as well have been planning a trip to Mars. It’s such a foreign concept.

It’s a lot better in Skeena now. People can now work on a site. They can see the reality of tradespeople working on site. But if there’s a waiting list currently and historically that can take a three to four year program and extend it to ten years…. If you’re anybody like me, as a young man in the ’80s and ’90s that didn’t see any opportunity — there was no economy; there were no jobs — you’re not going to wait around ten years. You’ve got to put food on the table. You’ve got to try somehow to raise funds to look after your family. You’re not going to wait ten years. Other things are going to come up.

Right now, with that young person looking for an op­portunity…. Even if they did get on to the waiting list and even if they could see the ten-year wait-list come to an end, what are they going to get into? The LNG industry is not going anywhere, apart from LNG Canada. I don’t see any support for the Nisg̱a’a’s LNG project. I don’t see any support for the Cedar project out of Kitimat or for Woodfibre. That construction is out of the question.

There’s no opportunity for the private sector, which actually contributes over 80 percent of the apprenticeships in B.C. They’ve been frozen out of government projects through the community benefits agreement.

As a young person, you’ve got to wait ten years. If you’re any part of the private sector, the 80 percent of those apprenticeship opportunities, you’re out of luck for B.C. government infrastructure projects. Eighty percent of the apprenticeship opportunities come from the private sector, but the private sector is not allowed to engage with infrastructures under the B.C. government.

In the previous speech I heard, by the member for Langley…. I mean, I changed my speech based on what I heard.

It’s something that’s been completely ignored in this House, when we’re talking about the inclusion of First Nations in the economy of B.C. It does speak to what we’re talking about here, in terms of this bill, in terms of apprenticeship opportunities.

The majority of First Nations with signed agreements with B.C., Canada and industry actually did it under the consultation and accommodation of rights and title. That’s where it flows from. It’s an accommodation on the in­fringement of rights and title. So it only stands to reason that the consultation should go back to the 203 First Nation communities that actually signed those agreements in the first place to talk about their specific needs.

You’re not going to get it talking to an advocacy group based out of Vancouver. You’re not going to get it. The remote communities are definitely not going to get wind of this, unless it’s under the same procedure, under this NDP government that says: “We’re going to notify you on what we think is what’s best for you. We’re not going to consult you because we’ve already made a decision.”

[4:45 p.m.]

This was admitted to yesterday in another bill debate. The B.C. NDP decided on what’s best for First Nations under a bill and notified First Nations. That’s why I refer­red to the paternalistic nature of UNDRIP, the paternalistic nature of this NDP government. You’ve taken over the Indian Act.

I’m not even going to bother asking the question of whether or not there was any consultation on this bill with First Nations, because I know what the answer is: no, there wasn’t.

We also heard the idea a number of times. “We’re listening.” Well, hearing and listening are two different things. You probably heard, but you didn’t listen. In terms of consultation, you’ve got to ask first. You’ve got to go out there and tell them: “We’re going to consult you on legislation that will affect your community, the 203 communities in B.C.” That didn’t happen. If there’s any resemblance to past listening of this government, I can only expect there’s already a plan in place that will get imposed on First Nations in B.C., even on non–First Nation residents of B.C.

Take the mountain caribou. The Peace was told that they would be consulted, not knowing there was already a plan in place. When there was protest, government came back and said: “Okay. We’ll listen again.” They went back and imposed the original plan. That was listening.

Then we’ve got the FOI requests. The FOI fee. Listening, listening, listening. Then, two minutes later, the fee comes down.

Deputy Speaker: If I might draw the member’s attention, we are on Bill 4. Thank you.

E. Ross: Yep, that’s right. We’re on Bill 4. The previous member talked extensively about engagement with First Nations on Bill 4. I’m pointing out it didn’t happen.

I’m also pointing out that this work is not new. It’s not innovative. If you had talked to First Nations like your UNDRIP bill said in first place, the 203 First Nations, you would understand this is not new. This is not groundbreaking.

I look forward to further discussion on this. I look forward to committee stage, and ultimately — I know we’re thinking long term here — I’m also looking forward to the regulations that will come out later on to see if it matches up with some of the comments that were made by the member from Langley and members of the NDP government.

With that, I will conclude my comments and take my seat.

S. Furstenau: I rise today to speak to Bill 4, the Skilled Trades BC Act.

Before speaking to the legislation directly, although it is related to the legislation, I want to take a moment to remind the House of the issue that got me into politics in first place, which was professional reliance. This was a similar deregulation that happened in the early 2000s to what this bill is addressing.

Several years ago a permit for contaminated soil was granted to a company to deposit five million tonnes of that soil at the headwater of Shawnigan Lake’s drinking watershed, which is not only an important ecosystem but the source of drinking water for thousands of people.

I won’t belabour all that followed: the secret profit-sharing deal between the qualified professionals and the company dumping the soil, the advocacy that pushed me to run for CVRD and then later as an MLA, the professional reliance review that was a shared policy priority under the confidence and supply agreement with the members opposite. I am including the Minister of Environment.

The problem with professional reliance wasn’t that the professionals — such as a professional biologist, engineer or forester — weren’t being professional, but they were being paid by companies to approve their resource development plans, plans that they could also legally profit from.

As outlined in several reports, including the 2016 Auditor General report, on compliance and enforcement in the mining sector, there were significant weaknesses in compliance and oversight measures. As a result, public safety and trust suffered.

[4:50 p.m.]

The members can all recall the Mount Polley mining disaster where millions of cubic metres of toxic tailings effluent flowed into the lakes and streams that function as water sources and sockeye spawning ground in the Cariboo region.

At the root of the professional reliance problem was that government wasn’t doing its part to protect public interest. Under the Professional Governance Act, government took steps to do so by ensuring that qualified professionals meet certain qualifications for the jobs they do, and if evidence comes out that they should not be charged with approving a mine or a waste dump, for instance, they will be penalized.

I’ll point out, however, that the work of restoring oversight compliance and putting public safety at the centre here in B.C. is far from over, as evidenced in the bill we are debating today. I hear regularly from constituents and from people around the province who are distressed that flagrant violations of regulations continue and that there continues to be something of a Wild West culture.

I need only point to a property in south Shawnigan where the landowner, without permission and without permits, has created his very own water-ski lake. Here we are, well over a year later, and there appears to be no consequence for multiple violations of bylaws and laws at every jurisdictional level.

I shall turn my attention directly to Bill 4, the Skilled Trades BC Act. I am encouraged to see a focus on certification. When a member of the public calls on a skilled tradesperson, they should rest easy, knowing that tradesperson is qualified to do their job safely and responsibly. Tradespeople should be able to rely on that certification standard that is consistent across the country.

That’s why I’m pleased to see this legislation creates a framework for SkilledTradesBC, a Crown corporation, to establish and enforce certification programs for skilled trades. Tradespeople deserve the stability and confidence in their professions and their eligibility for good-paying jobs that utilize their skills. The public deserves the confidence that goes along with the certification program.

There are, however, two worrying trends I’ve noticed in this legislation, and they exemplify the problem with pendulum swings and bypassing of legislative oversight. This legislation is replacing a previously existing certification program for skilled trades that was repealed in 2003, when the official opposition sat as government. Now with a majority of their own, the government is replacing it.

Majoritarian governments often do one thing, and then the next majoritarian government undoes that thing and does another thing. This creates instability in our province. There will be skilled tradespeople certified under this program that have not been certified in 20 years but were certified before that. Going back and forth creates confusion and administrative burdens and uncertainty. It demonstrates to the public that government can be fickle, not responsible.

I went back in the records and looked at the news re­ports that came out in 2003 and 2004 regarding the repeal of the previously existing program, and these are some of the quotes: “Organized labour hates the new program. Small and medium-sized businesses like it. Some employers within construction don’t. And many simply can’t figure out the government’s motives or whether this will improve training.” From the Province, 2003.

Another quote: “A series of town hall-style meetings around the province earlier in the year to talk about the proposed changes quickly became contentious, with police called out to restore order at the first session.” Vancouver Sun, 2003.

Plus ça change. Does this sound like good governance: sowing confusion and distrust?

[4:55 p.m.]

This process appears much better than the process 20 years ago, I will grant that. This legislation was announced in the summer of 2021. A stakeholder advisory working group was consulted, and two public engagements, one specifically focused on engaging First Nations, were held prior to the tabling of the bill before us.

The fact that we’re in this situation remains frustrating. Where is the stability, the assurance that a new government, in three years, won’t entirely scrap this program? Skilled tradespeople and the public deserve better than that.

Ultimately, majoritarian governments often create these circumstances. They produce pendulum swings. Around the world, in contrast, countries that have proportional representation — and, therefore, commonly have minority governments — tend to have more stable policies that are climate policies and more stable financial markets.

This leads me to my second point — legislative oversight. We have a majority government in a democratic system that relies on first-past-the-post to elect our representatives. As elected representatives, as legislators charged with safeguarding democracy, we need to work together to produce the best possible results for British Columbians.

My colleague Saanich North and the Islands and I have spoken to this quite a bit lately. We may only have two votes between us, but that does not absolve us from our responsibility to hold government accountable to the highest standard. Just as having 57 votes does not absolve the government caucus from working with their colleagues across the aisle.

Our Legislative Assembly has select standing committees, including a Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations. The committee has not yet been struck this session. In fact, the last work this committee did was in 2019 under the minority government, when they released a report on transportation network services in B.C.

It is a permanent, all-party standing committee. This committee could be given the function of reviewing Crown corporations, such as SkilledTradesBC. This committee could provide insight into best practices, informed by collaboration between parties and by submissions from stakeholders. This committee could also provide essential oversight.

There are several places in the proposed legislation be­fore us that provide oversight to the minister. For example, clause 11 requires SkilledTradesBC to formulate three-year strategic plans and submit them to the minister. This report must include information regarding fiscal planning and the consideration of recommendations made by stakeholders and Indigenous people. The minister gets to see the plan and sign off on it.

I think a question that we should all be asking ourselves right now is: how do we build more trust in government? Shine a light on processes, and reduce partisanship. Have the all-party committee be the body to which the Crown corporation reports. Have all of the reports be presented on the record and publicly available. Have the committee ask questions on the record about the fiscal planning, the decisions and the outcomes of the Crown corporation. It is, after all, a public body, and our expectations should be that it is publicly accountable.

I’ve already spoken to the issue with pendulum swings and the direct impact those changes have had on this particular sector. Why not set out that the strategic plan should be tabled before the parliamentary committee for Crown corporations?

With advice and expertise from all parties, we could move forward collaboratively. Not only would a diversity of ideas be heard, but when leadership changes, when government changes, as it inevitably will in a democracy, a new government would be much less likely to turn around and undo everything because they had a hand in the oversight, as a part of the all-party committee, and are aware that they participate in good and meaningful policymaking.

There is so much more that we could be doing. I’m thrilled that there will be certification for tradespeople. It is consistent with other policies my colleague and I have supported. It provides stability and certainty. But the way that this policy has come to be, the way that we as legislators move through this building and allege we are working in the best interest of the public, there we have some work to do.

[5:00 p.m.]

For my part, if more oversight was provided by this legislation to the committee and the Legislature, I’d want to emphasize a need for evaluation, data and measured effectiveness. We can talk as much as we want about evidence-based policy-making, but pendulum swings are evidence of the opposite.

I would want assurance that the outcomes of this legislation will be monitored with effective data. I’d want to know how the first trades to be brought under the new system experience the certification process, how it can be made better. I’d want to know how to make the trades more inclusive, whether or not anti-racism training will be a required aspect of certification training.

I do not know. I do not know because so much is left up to regulation, because so much is under the purview of the minister. The work of this Legislative Assembly, which is to provide oversight and ensure the government is being held to account, is diminished each time. Enabling legislation leaves so much of the regulation-making to be done behind closed doors, out of sight of this Legislature and the public.

I honestly believe that if we had more opportunities to work together, to be collaborative, if we saw less of government treating its work like an exercise in communications control, we could produce, together, better outcomes, more stable outcomes, more lasting outcomes for British Columbians.

Hon. M. Mark: It is my honour to stand in these chambers as the former Minister for Advanced Education, Skills and Training.

I have to say, once I learned about the trades…. It’s not very intuitive. If you didn’t grow up with tradespeople in your family, you don’t automatically know what a red seal is. It’s not entirely clear what an apprenticeship is, what a journeyperson is. So there was certainly a lot to learn. I want to share that with viewers, because maybe you didn’t grow up with a red seal in the family. But once I understood the value of who these people are, I have to say that I fell in love with the trades.

We’re not allowed to wear props in the chambers, but the Industry Training Authority does important work. Their job is to help people get across the finish line. That’s what this bill is all about. That’s what this legislation is all about. This legislation is about helping people cross the finish line. As the Minister of Sport now, something that I’m very passionate about is saying: “It’s not how you start; it’s how you finish.” It’s about: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

When it comes to red seals, what we heard from the member for Langley talk about is that we have a challenge with our skilled trades. We have people entering. They get to level 1, but do they get to level 2? Do they get to level 3? Do they get to level 4? Going back to understanding what the trades are all about, how do you get your apprenticeship? How do you get your training as a red seal? On the job. On the site. You want to build a bridge? You don’t build a bridge from a book. You don’t build a bridge from Zoom. You’ve got to get out there on the field. It’s hands-on.

When I heard the member for Skeena talk about…. You know, there are some remarks that the member had mentioned that I think are quite offensive, quite frankly. I’m going to say they’re offensive because I’m also First Nations, and I’m very proud to be First Nations. You know what? We are the innovators. We are the engineers. Our longhouses — we’re architects by nature. We built our cars out of trees. We were born apprentices. That’s how you teach, right? That’s how you teach. You teach by doing. You teach by learning.

For the people at home that don’t understand the value of a red seal, these are people that build our province. They are people that build our roads, our schools. They install things. They fix things. Thank you to the electricians. Why? Because we’d be in the dark without them.

[5:05 p.m.]

The question that I went out to the industry with was about: do you think that when we build things, when we build this province, should it be done by skilled people, yes or no? Yes or no? Can I get a yes or no? I think yes. I think we need to have skilled people. I think we need to have red seals building up our province. How do they get that experience? On the job site.

What happens when you give a family a red seal? This is what I’m going to talk about with the member opposite from Skeena, who talked about paternalism — you know, natives and jobs and not wanting trades and how the NDP has come in here with our brilliant old ideas. When you give people that opportunity, you change a life. When you give people the red seal and that sense of completion, you give them self-determination.

I know. I’m the first person in my family to graduate from high school, to go to college, to go to university. That’s not bragging. For other children, that’s just a natural birthright. It’s a natural pathway to get educated. Why wouldn’t we want people to be educated? Why wouldn’t we want people to be skilled?

I raise that question rhetorically because of the risk. Do you want the lights to be wired by unskilled people? I’m going to get, hopefully, a no in this these chambers. You want skilled people. It’s about safety. If you understand the red seals…. My daughter took the IT program with the Industry Training Authority to be a chef. Chefs are red seals. Let’s get a hand. Let’s clap for the red seals is what I’m saying.

Really, I just want to take a breath, because I’m so passionate about the Industry Training Authority. But I have to correct some of the notes on the record from the member opposite, like that the NDP came in here to invent the lightbulb. Please don’t be so offensive. What I expected from the members opposite, from the official opposition, from the B.C. Liberals…. That’s what needs to go on the public record.

In 2003, the year my daughter was born, the B.C. Liberals dismantled the trades-training system. That’s what they did. For the record, for people that don’t know about completion and certification, the only province in this country that didn’t have compulsory trades, mandatory trades…. Guess who. Thanks to the B.C. Liberals. They dismantled the system. Why? I have no idea. I looked everywhere. I asked everywhere when I was minister. I dug deep. I asked for reports.

I’m so glad that the member for Langley talked about the McDonald report, which was commissioned by a very formidable leader, Jessica McDonald, who talked about the importance of the trades that we should think about, that we should consider. The government, back in the day, had the opportunity to bring back the compulsory trades, mandatory certification, so that we can have a skilled workforce. They had the chance, and they didn’t take it.

This is a choice that I’m proud that we’re making. I’m glad that this bill is in here. This isn’t a partisan issue. That’s the other thing I want to correct on this table. One thing I was proud of is that I bring people along. I’m going to talk about paddling together.

There were representatives from many parts of this sector that sat down and told us what their concerns were. Hey, that’s how you make good decisions. Good public policy comes from sitting down and having discussion. Let’s address the concerns.

To me, the question is, and it will always be: should our province be built by unskilled people? Give me one good reason why we would want that. I never found one. Why would we want less red seals in this province? I never found one.

When we talk about a skills shortage now in this province….

Interjections.

Hon. M. Mark: Now I’m getting the heckling from the members opposite. The leadership race about the Liberals coming in here and mocking the NDP about the skilled trades and how we don’t care about building up this province…. You know, this idea of prestige for the red seals…. I remember the member from Langara asking: “Who’s directing this? Who’s driving this?” There’s no political agenda here.

I want to ask the members opposite: what do the members opposite have against red seals? What exactly do the members opposite have against a red seal? The last time I checked, that red seal is so prestigious. It’s so important. You want someone to fix your car. Don’t you want them to be skilled? When I drive my most precious cargo, my daughters, I want a skilled professional to be making sure that I’m in safe hands.

[5:10 p.m.]

If someone is going to fix my gas fireplace, guess what. I want a skilled professional who’s got a red seal to do so. So I want to pause for a moment, and I want to thank the red seals. I congratulate my colleague. Again, it’s not how you start; it’s how you finish.

The Minister of Advanced Education has brought this bill into these chambers. I hope that everyone supports it, because this is the right thing to do. I look forward to hearing more of the debate.

I’m going to go back to Skeena — I’m jumping around here — because there were some remarks from Skeena that I take offence at. I take offence at someone who is Nisg̱a’a, and if I hear any heckling from the members opposite about Nisg̱a’a…. I’m Nisg̱a’a, and the member opposite, from Skeena, represents that village and other villages — Kitsumkalum, Kitselas. I was up there as the minister. Guess what people are proud of. Being in the trades. Guess what they’re proud of. Going to the college for the new trades building.

The members opposite, who I invited, when I was the minister, to come to openings for trades building recognize how important the trades are, because we need a skilled workforce. So the partisanship can come in here and the heckling can come in here, but at the grassroots level, it’s all about people. Every red seal I’ve met…. I’ve never met a red seal who wasn’t proud of their trade. I’ve never met a red seal who wasn’t proud that they crossed the finish line. That’s what this is about.

I don’t need people that say: “Hi. I’m so proud. I went to university. I got through the first year, second year and third….” That’s important, and I recognize that some people don’t always cross the finish line. But a lot of people mostly talk about getting to the finish line.

What we are talking about here in terms of bringing change is this…. We’re trying to address this myth that was often shared with me when I was the minister. People would say to me: “I have two kids. One is smart. They became a lawyer. The other one became an electrician.”

I always thought it was funny that people would be so smart, so judging towards red seals. We can ask anyone in these chambers…. Go and try to find a skilled red seal electrician. They’re hard to come by. But I’m telling you, what they’re making, their family income, their bottom line, what they’re doing for the economy — win, win, win. Red seals represent a win. They represent a win for the economy. They represent a win for the people.

I want to correct the record. There was some assumption that the NDP is ramming this through and not consulting with Indigenous people. Wrong. Here’s the report. I know we can’t use props, but consultation was done. I’m really proud of the work that I started as minister, because there was a problem that we’re fixing. The problem started with Kevin Falcon, the now leader.

The members opposite are going to talk about the new leader — the blast from the past who is now the new leader — who came in, who is going to correct all of the wrongs or maybe bring back…. Maybe he will bring back more cuts with the core review, because that’s how we got here. In 2003, they dismantled. It’s a sign of what the B.C. Liberals think about red seals. It’s a sign of what the B.C. Liberals think about training people, getting them across the finish line.

We’re correcting those wrongs, and in the end, our communities are going to pay for it. We’re going to have better communities. We’re going to have skilled communities. We’re going to be able to build our homes faster — and all of those things because people are going to have red seals.

As I close, I had thanked the red seals for the work they’re doing. I think this bill is going to help with our economy. People are our economy. I think kind of the loop, going back to the cultural value that the member for Skeena had mentioned about becoming apprentices…. The only way to become a journeyperson is to become an apprentice. How do you get that training on the job?

We have a duty to train the next generation. I believe we have a duty to train up the best of B.C. For that reason, I’m so proud of this bill. I look forward to hearing the debate.

R. Merrifield: Usually I’m the passionate one. I don’t know if I can match that enthusiasm and passion, but I definitely will give it a go.

I’m going to start off by just acknowledging that there is a massive labour shortage. We’ve all known that it’s going to get bigger, that the number of one million job vacancies in the next decade is not a shock. In fact, it’s expected.

[5:15 p.m.]

I’ve also been in the construction industry for over 20 years, and similar to the minister, I have worked alongside many red seals, many apprentices, many workers. I’m probably the only one who sits in this House while having a pink hardhat and high-vis vest in my trunk at home at all times. I can tell you definitively that there is a massive shortage of construction workers, that there is a massive shortage of all workers and that this lack is one of the contributing factors towards the cost of construction and the lack of housing affordability.

The speaker before me talked about the lights in this building. I can honestly say that the lights need to be on in every single building and that electricians, which is one of the trades that’s listed on this compulsory trades list, are necessary for construction. So although the member for Langley has determined that it will not affect the cost of construction, I would argue otherwise. Whether it’s a rental, whether it’s a condo, a townhouse, a duplex or a single-family home, everything is more expensive because of the lack of labour in construction. This bill is going to further exacerbate that.

The NDP government’s compulsory trades bill here is about ideology. It’s not about results. So much is left to regulation. I have honestly more questions than I have answers. It does nothing to enhance trust.

Furthermore, this bill is a stick. It’s heavy-handed. It adds bureaucracy to a system that is stretched and needs more workers, not less, needs less barriers to entry. Compulsory trades legislation and redesigning our industry training authority alone won’t be enough to incentivize, educate and hire the number of British Columbians that we need to fill our gaps in the labour market. Time is of the essence.

I did note that the member for Langley was reading from the B.C. Chamber of Commerce 2018 document. I noticed, also, that he missed out certain sentences that I’ll read into the record. “While many of the general goals of the 2003 revisions have been achieved, including increasing the overall number of apprenticeship registrations and completions….” Well, that’s because, as we see, the number has gone from 16,000, back in 2003, to over 40,000 in 2018. The number of apprenticeships has increased.

Another quote from the same document: “Significant increases in program registrations and certifications have been achieved.”

I also want to use, actually, from what I would consider a greater authority on red seals — i.e., red seal Canada…. They conducted a study that actually compared voluntary versus compulsory trades. From the document: “The most commonly designated trade is construction electrician, which is compulsory in ten jurisdictions.” Further on down: “Apprentices in compulsory trades are more likely to have less than a high school education or some post-secondary education and less likely to have completed high school education only.” That is great news.

What happens to those that haven’t completed high school? What happens to those that don’t have post-secondary? Further on down: “More of those in compulsory trades encountered work-related obstacles — working conditions, lack of work, problems with co-workers — during their training.” So another obstacle to them becoming certified.

Further on down in the document: “One of the main questions of interest in this study was whether designating a trade as compulsory has any impact on apprenticeship completion or on labour market outcomes. The above results suggest it makes no difference to completion status but hurts labour market outcomes.”

[5:20 p.m.]

I agree that we need more skilled trades and apprentices, but this bill is the wrong way to get that result. We need to remove barriers and increase accessibility. How could this government miss the mark with creating a bill on something that we actually agree would be a great outcome — more trades?

Well, we’ve consistently seen a concerning trend with this NDP government, where they ram through legislation and policy without proper consultation and without consulting the appropriate groups and organizations who have the best knowledge on how these decisions will impact the province and its industries.

Whoever should we consult with on a bill about compulsory trades? Well, I don’t know — perhaps the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C., the ICBA?

Why? They sponsor more B.C. apprentices than anyone else and, get this, the second-highest number of female and Indigenous apprentices. What do they have to say? How were they consulted in this process? Well, they actually claim: “Government failed to engage in broad industry consultation. The contracting community, including ICBA and the majority of construction associations, was…not at the table.”

Renaming an industry, the Industry Training Authority, to SkilledTradesBC? It’s a name change that’s going to cost taxpayers significant dollars in rebranding. Anyone who has been in business knows that those are significant dollars. But it’s not going to add a single new apprenticeship or new training space at any of our colleges.

B.C. trades training system is overwhelmed. The knot­hole to getting more trades is not willing employers, who want to have apprentices on their sites. It’s not willing employers, who would love more red seals. It is not willing employers that are in the way. What is in the way? Oh, wait. Could it be that we need a bill that will make it compulsory? No.

What is in the way is the lack of training spaces. That is the knothole. The wait-lists to get into classes are generally a year, sometimes two. It’s not unheard of to have students up on the wait-list for up to three years to get into a class. The result is that it can take nearly a decade for an apprentice to complete a red seal designation to get their ticket. Not for lack of want or trying. Simply because of the length of time it takes to get into the system and have a training space available. It is a breathtaking breakdown of our system.

One of the appeals of trades that’s attracted young British Columbians has always been the availability of jobs and the relative ease and speed at which someone can get certified and enter the workforce with a great-paying job. These are amazing paying jobs — some of the best, which is why they are so attractive.

Now you’re going to tell — and I won’t even say millennials — Gen Z they’re going to have to wait two to four years to get into a trade while rental costs for them are the highest in recorded history? And we want to delay a great-paying job for them? We want to tell them: “I’m sorry. No, you can’t work. You’re not certified yet.”

However are they going to get ahead? However will they achieve their dreams? Telling young workers they face ten to 12 years to complete their apprenticeship is a significant barrier to completion. It leaves young workers deciding that it’s just not worth completing the apprenticeship. I hate to say it, but I know. I have five 20- to 25-year-olds in my household. I know that it is devastating to their dreams.

[5:25 p.m.]

In essence, while we’re being accused of not supporting the red seals, I would say the opposite. We are so supporting, from this side of the House — the construction, the trades, the red seals — that we want no barriers to entry. We want them to be passionate about their roles and their jobs. We want them to love what they do every single day and not need to wait two to four years to actually get a training spot.

Why not just go to med school, then? Oh, wait. We don’t have enough of those spaces either.

Younger generations prefer flexible working models. We are training whole generations of them with our Zoomiversities and Zoom schools. We can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach with compulsory trades forced on them.

Then there are the 55-year-olds who have been working in their trade for the last 30 — I don’t know — 40 years. How are they going to be grandfathered in? I don’t know. Give them a year to enroll in an apprenticeship? Oh, wait. The wait-list is at least two. So 38,000 of the jobs are due to retirements in the next eight years and 73,000 by 2029. Well, this bill will make sure that 38,000 of those retire early, because do you think a 55-year-old that’s probably earning six figures is going to take a little time off to go and get their apprenticeship and then their red seal?

What are the actual effects of this bill? Well, we have got increased costs. But do we have increased wages? No. We don’t, as noted in the red seal study. But what else do we have? How about the impact on ethnic minorities, immigrants, English-as-a-second-language or the Indigenous? How about those in rural and remote locations? How are they going to enter schools and become trained?

Let’s talk about single parents. How are they going to travel from rural areas to urban areas to take their apprenticeship training? For many trades, too many trades, there is only one school offering apprenticeship training, and it’s located in the Lower Mainland. These programs are offered through our post-secondary institutions. How is this going to work for those that are far away from those institutions?

For example, as we heard earlier, the only ironworker apprenticeship courses are offered at UBC. Drywall, commercial painters and glaziers — well, there’s only one school, in Surrey. If you live outside of the Lower Mainland, that’s a significant barrier to entry. It’s a significant challenge, and in areas where trades, where skills are passed down from generation to generation, this a is huge interruption in the normalcy and how it’s done.

I know that the minister, before, actually indicated that she wants a skilled tradesperson working in her home or in a building. Well, news flash. There is a building code that everyone has to build to. There are so many checks and balances in all of these aspects that already exist.

Rural communities are facing the constant challenge of losing young skilled workers to the education and job opportunities found in our major urban centres. We don’t need other barriers to entry.

What was missing from this plan was training spaces. Oh, wait. It wasn’t a plan; it was just a bill that was a stick. We don’t have a plan for the labour force. We don’t have a plan for how things are going to be done.

When we were last in government, we had initiatives like the skills-for-jobs blueprint that aligned all of our training opportunities with the labour force that was required, to help ensure that some of our province’s most in-demand trades could still produce some of the finest-quality tradespeople that, really, can be found anywhere in the world today.

[5:30 p.m.]

Government must take meaningful action and take the necessary additional steps that come with this legislation — to create more spaces, to train, certify and employ skilled tradespeople. But without a jobs plan, this legislation and this government will further add to our shortage by just creating needless red tape, because the focus of this bill is on enforcement and compliance, not training, not plans, not people.

The ITA, or the new skills training B.C., is going to be hiring inspectors, but the government should be hiring instructors. Further, the government is mandating the ratio of how many apprentices can be supervised and trained by a ticketed tradesperson on a jobsite.

But wait. We don’t get to know what that number is. That’s going to be done through regulation. So who gets to decide that? Well, the ITA will be hiring inspectors who will be visiting jobsites with enforcement powers who will penalize contractors, not abiding by these new ratios that are done through regulation.

This is the kind of mind-numbing bureaucracy that does nothing more than add confusion, complexity and cost. It contributes to rising costs of construction by slowing the number of people available to work, which ultimately makes housing less affordable.

What can we agree on? I think everyone in this House can agree we value red seals. We value our workforce. We value our apprentices. We want more of all three of those. I think we can also agree that we share the common goal to increase our number of apprentices and to increase worker safety, etc. I think we can all agree that we need to create opportunities for apprentices and workers to have a clear path to a successful career.

B.C. is facing a labour shortage, and the trades are lining up to be one of the most impacted industries by this. The problem is that government’s changes are not going to deliver on these goals. The government’s proposals are actually going to drag young people with an interest in a trade into a triangle and a tangle of red tape. A major disincentive during a labour crisis.

As well, the changes are going to add additional costs on construction projects at a time when housing pricing and rental pricing are soaring to historical heights. As usual, this government knows the right words but lacks the right ideas on how to turn what we all value into concrete action. I’m not a politician. I’m a pragmatic legislator.

Here is the conclusion. When you add cost and time without changing the outcome, you have nothing more than bureaucracy and red tape. This Bill 4 is a perfect example of nothing more than bureaucracy and red tape. It’s nothing more than a program, and — spoiler alert — this does not solve the problems that we actually have.

S. Chant: Before I begin my remarks, I would like to acknowledge I’m currently working and staying on the unceded lands of the Songhees, Esquimalt and Lək̓ʷə­ŋin̓əŋ-speaking people and that North Vancouver–Seymour, my riding, where I live, work and learn, is in the territory of the Coast Salish, specifically the Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish Nations. I continue to work towards collaborating with Indigenous partners in a variety of areas and value that partnership immensely.

I also want to acknowledge the efforts of Kate Korte, one of our interns, who has worked on part of this response.

Bill 4 is a long-overdue repair of a significant economic and infrastructure travesty that occurred under the former Liberal government. I fully support Bill 4.

[5:35 p.m.]

In 2003, in an effort to abolish red tape, the apprentice programs were dismantled, an action that had a long-term impact on many people in British Columbia. Not only were people affected but entire industries as well — construction, shipbuilding, automobile and others, all of which depend on tradespeople to fill job positions and provide quality work safely.

We know from the Labour Market Outlook that B.C. can expect to have a massive increase in job openings over the coming ten years, and the fruit of this bill will position us to meet that challenge. Economic stability is gained when the people of the province have jobs that are productive and well-paying — jobs that promote growth and allow families to live meaningful lives.

These are people who are building homes, bridges, hospitals, schools, as well as making sure everything is maintained and repaired, and they are a critical component of our society. These tradespeople lost a lot in 2003 — pride, prestige, wages, job security and portability, amongst other things. Now we are making this right, through establishing recognized training and certification programs that promote knowledge, expertise, health and safety and that incorporate mentorship.

Before 2003, B.C. had 11 designated compulsory trades. The Liberals did away with the mandatory skills trade certification at that time. If workers wanted to get certified, they had to go through a voluntary credentialing system that was not necessarily standardized and that did not have wage attachments.

There have been many reports of apprentices being unable to progress, so that their wages did not need to be increased. In the trades, apprentices had to figure out for themselves how to navigate the system, all while working in an industry without any certification. There was no longer an expectation that their work would be overseen appropriately by an experienced journeyman.

The effect of the 2003 decision was felt almost immediately. In the next five years, apprenticeship completion dropped by 30 percent. The Liberals also cut supports to the skilled trades system by taking away support staff jobs for the apprenticeship programs. Their do-it-yourself model left workers without support and set B.C. apart as the only province without mandatory skilled trades certification requirements. This in turn diminished the ability of tradespersons from B.C. to be employed in other prov­inces or countries.

This bill is adding additional apprenticeship advisers and investing $5 million so that more tradesworkers can start an apprenticeship or upgrade their skills. Instead of B.C. being the only province without a certified trades system, the Skilled Trades BC Act will ensure that we have one of the best trades training systems in the country.

In the years since, people in the trades have not stopped working. Every day in this province, people in the trades continue to keep our homes heated and our lights on, yet thousands of B.C.’s skilled tradesworkers have been practising a trade without any recognition of the skills, knowledge and experience that working in the trades requires.

Without this recognition, these workers are often paid less. They have less stability and mobility within the workforce. This is particularly true for those in underrepresented or equity-seeking groups.

Skilled trades certification will ensure that workers are able to create a career for themselves in their trade. Their certification will be recognized throughout B.C. and allow workers in the trades to be more resilient in our province’s evolving economy.

It is clear the Liberals did not offer workers in the trades the recognition that they deserved. The Skilled Trades BC Act sets the record straight. Careers in the trades are critical, prestigious and valued just as much as other certified professions. Let’s think about nurses or teachers. It’s time that their importance is recognized and validated.

Additionally, the Skilled Trades BC Act is part of our broader commitment to ensuring that the trades system is welcoming and inclusive for any British Columbian that wants to pursue a rewarding career in a trade.

[5:40 p.m.]

In creating this legislation, the government held exten­sive public engagement and asked people in the very system what they would like to see changed. In the what-we-heard reports, Indigenous people made it clear they wanted to be consulted going forward and to be active participants in the changes ahead for B.C.’s skilled trades. That means that SkilledTradesBC will be required to consult with Indigenous peoples on the development and implementation of the strategic plan — not only consult but collaborate. SkilledTradesBC will also encourage Indigenous people to register in complete apprenticeship programs and support that work.

I recognize what the member for Skeena had to say. That has been thought about and taken into consideration. This is in line with the government’s commitment to the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples and represents our focus on ensuring the trades are welcoming and inclusive.

We also want to ensure that women are welcomed into the trades. More and more women are joining the trades since 2019. The ITA reports a 26 percent increase in women participating in an underrepresented area, which the ITA says are trades where women are less than 25 percent of registered apprentices. In the government’s consultation, women told us that the trades need to be a more welcoming space for women and that encouraging women to join the trades early in their educational journey could be a critical step.

The legislative changes proposed by the Skilled Trades BC Act are part of a series of actionable steps we are taking to improve and modernize the trades system. These steps include developing programs to address issues like bullying and harassment, which are, unfortunately, a workplace reality for some women, Indigenous people and other represented groups in the trades.

With 85,000 jobs on the horizon in the trades industry in British Columbia, there will be plenty of opportunity to go around. We need to ensure, however, that these jobs are welcoming and inclusive for our diverse population in B.C. A one-size-fits-all approach will not suffice, and neither will the voluntary model that the B.C. Liberals implemented.

The approach that we are taking is cognizant of the individual and regional differences in our province. We will ensure trades are welcoming while also increasing the opportunities for people in the trades to have a career that is resilient and successful. That is one of the things that the made-in-B.C. approach will accomplish.

My son-in-law Troy is a red seal–certified sheet metal worker who’s also certified as an HVAC mechanic. He is 23 years old — no, excuse me, 24 this month. He has been working since he graduated from high school, when he started his apprenticeship program with a recognized school, and has been working through. He does six weeks a year in the classroom, and the rest of the time he has been working on a job site that ensures his safety and ensures that he has the opportunity to work with people who he learns from and who help him to learn.

He is very fortunate. His father is a red seal–certified sheet metal mechanic. His father is part of that trade school he went to. That’s how he got there. He had connections and knew people and had been working towards this all through high school.

He’s making a reasonable income. He and my daughter are living in their own apartment, paying their own rent. They are able to have a life. He is making money that he is proud of. He is doing work that he is proud of, and he is able to work in a variety of places, should he so choose.

At this point, he….

Interjection.

S. Chant: I did hear that. I did hear that.

[5:45 p.m.]

What I’m saying is he had that opportunity, and it was made for him. The other part is that he’s a first-language English speaker. The program he went through…. If anybody was not first-language English, it was very, very tough for them. The supports were not in place for them. As a matter of fact, Troy was part of that support system, too, to help other people get through.

My niece’s partner is a red seal electrician, and we have a variety of family and friends that are in a variety of the trades. These folks were fortunate enough to be able to access and complete their training through union-recognized entities. They also were fortunate enough to be working in spaces that valued apprentices and were attentive to their learning needs.

I can tell you that’s not always the case. There are many situations where apprentices are not valued. There was safety oversight as they learned their hands-on skills, and there was a theoretical component that came with class­room time and experienced instructors.

Both of these young men, as I said, speak English as a first language, and both found the training to be challenging. Can you imagine trying to do this when your primary language is not English?

Something else that’s being addressed proactively is the certifying of skilled tradespeople who have been doing this work for many years. This act allows these folks a period of time to seek certification, either through training or through an assessment process that determines their technical skills and is not necessarily dependent on their language skills.

As a parent, I would've been thrilled to have a required apprenticeship program available as an option when my kids were finishing high school, something that provided a clear structure and framework for them to look at and use for planning and also something that would give them access to mentors and colleagues while gaining a set of skills or a trade that would give them economic stability that they could rely on.

We have acknowledged on a variety of occasions that B.C. has many people who move here each year from other provinces and other countries. This bill offers those folks a clear pathway to work, if they want that route. It also positions B.C. to better meet the needs of these people — to ensure housing is constructed, that buildings are built and maintained, that structures remain intact and strong or are built.

We need people who are well trained and available throughout our province. We also need to be able to rely on experts to fix our roads, our railways, our ferries, the vaccine fridges and so many other parts of the incredibly complex infrastructure that we use daily, especially in the event of fires, floods or other crises that disrupt and destroy lives, properties, lifestyles and supply chains.

I had the opportunity to talk to several young women who were part of the shipbuilding teams at Seaspan in North Vancouver. They knew that they represented a small number in their workplace, yet they were sure their numbers will grow. Now I can go back to these women and assure them that the way for women, as well as many other groups, to get into programs through trades training will now be strongly supported by their provincial government.

I am thrilled and really proud to support the Skilled Trades BC Act and see it as a significant step towards increased economic strength and meeting the ongoing trade needs of our future British Columbia.

D. Davies: Happy to be taking my place today to add my remarks to Bill 4, the Skilled Trades BC Act.

I recognize, certainly, my colleagues before me and a couple of…. I’m very glad the member for North Vancouver–Seymour’s son Troy found success in a program that was set up under the previous government. As well, I’m truly glad to hear of a number of family members in the trades. We all agree, every one of us in this House does agree, that we need to be supporting our trades. We know that we need tradespeople.

[5:50 p.m.]

We know that there is a shortage of our skilled tradespeople — more than 80,000 expected just over the next seven years. My question is, and it’s been brought up by numerous people already: how does more red tape, more barriers, more time to achieve get us to that point? Again, we all agree in this place that we need this, but we have very different ways about getting to that place.

I really do look forward to committee stage on Bill 4, as there will be numerous questions to try and clarify what has already been pointed out — a lot of regulation that is in this bill and a lot of questions in this bill.

The member for Langley earlier mentioned…. I’m glad they mentioned this. My riding, along with my colleague Peace River South also…. We have Site C in our riding. We are the upstream of LNG Canada, a liquefied natural gas facility. We’re the NG in LNG, is where we are. The number of trades that we have up in our area right now is a lot. The member for Langley, rightfully so, pointed out the number of people that are required to fulfil those jobs.

Even before Site C and LNG Canada’s projects came along, the number of trades…. I wouldn’t say more, obviously, but I’m certain a per capita rate…. We have a lot of electricians, a lot of pipefitters, gas fitters, instrumentation, people that work in the oil and gas industry, people that work in the forest industry, which we have a lot of up in the northeast. We recognize there is success in our trades. We value. Some members on the other side imply that we don’t value our tradespeople. We absolutely value our tradespeople and recognize the need for more.

The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture was having a very exciting time during her remarks. I appreciate her excitement around the trades. I share that. I’m not jumping around. I don’t jump around much. But she made it sound like it’s a free-for-all. Nobody’s trained. You just have everybody building houses or just anybody fixing your car. That’s not the case.

We have a building code in place that protects how things are built. Electricians — you have to have your electrical certified. Your pipes have got to be inspected. My colleague from Peace River South is a pipefitter. Mind you, I understand it’s possible that under the new rule, you would have to go back to school. That should be fun for you.

There are a lot of things that we have now put in place of trying to achieve the same goal that is being put in place by this act that are actually going to do the exact opposite, which is trying to get people into the trades. So again, I do want to say that I share the excitement, but the reality is that we need to act right now to get people into the trades. Putting up barriers in front of this is not the way to do it.

In fact, it was interesting when the Minister of Advanced Education did her opening remarks on this bill. One of her lines was, and I found this really interesting, that this was a response to COVID-19 recovery. We’ve seen the possibilities, or the very likelihood, that it’s going to take someone eight, nine, ten, 12 years now to get a trade. I’m hoping we’re not in COVID recovery in that time frame, because we’ve already seen the incredible lineup. There are not enough seats right now in our institutions. The lineups are long just for people to get into the trades.

[5:55 p.m.]

If you add on these layers of red tape now, what is that going to do for the wait times and the time from having an individual who wants to go into the trades to be a red seal journeyperson? The government needs to be training people right now — training, certifying and getting these skilled tradespeople employed. They need to be creating those spaces.

Again, I do look forward to committee stage and the ability for us to ask questions to find out how these things look to get us there. I also do look forward to hearing what next week’s budget might include around trades in supporting this act. What does that look like? It is going to take money.

Speaking of money and red tape and barriers, we are expecting this legislation and this government to bring in 150-ish people to do oversight. They are going to be travelling around the province making sure ratios are followed. What’s the cost of that? Shouldn’t that money be going into opening up more seats in our post-secondary institutions? That’s where the money should be going. That’s where our focus needs to be going — getting people into the seats.

Up in the northeast, as in other places around the prov­ince, many of our high school programs have dual-credit trades programs that are intertwined into and married between the high school and the post-secondary institution to get these kids in. It’s been a very successful program. I’m really worried about these programs. I hope we hear different, but I’m really worried that these programs are going to be threatened or changed to something that is not going to be encouraging our students to go into the trades programs.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

These programs have really allowed a great opportunity to have kids stay in their communities, go out, get the experience they need and, in many cases, get trained up, take their certifications and become red seal tradespeople.

A couple of speakers ago my colleague from Skeena had mentioned around the point of folks in his community having to travel to Vancouver, which is where most of the…. From the sounds of things, it doesn’t matter what trade you’re going to be going in. It’s going to be happening in the Lower Mainland somewhere.

The barrier that that creates for someone who lives in a small community…. I don’t talk to First Nations. I’m just drawing that parallel. It’s also in my community. You take someone who possibly lives up in Fort Nelson or in Fort St. John, for that matter. They have to now travel down to the Lower Mainland to attend whatever the institution is to get their certification.

I even know what it was like when I went to Vancouver for my own post-secondary school. I did have support from my family, but many of these people don’t have that support. They’re from a marginalized population that may not have that support financially to go to Vancouver, and we know it’s not cheap to be staying in the Lower Mainland.

Those will be some questions that I will be asking and looking forward to hearing some of the answers.

I mentioned a moment ago about these ratios and what that might look like. We are hearing a 2-to-1 ratio. Well, that doesn’t even replace the attrition piece of peo­ple just retiring. I also do recognize, in the legislation, that there is a piece in here that does say that there is some flexibility around the ratios. But again, it’s by regulation. Who’s deciding that? What are the criteria around changing this?

[6:00 p.m.]

If someone is working on a site up in the northeast and it’s a very simple task, what does that supervision look like? Do you have to have a red seal journeyperson supervising the apprentice pulling wire through the frames? Again, so many questions to be asking.

This ties in with affordability. I know there was a discussion earlier that it won’t. But from the looks of things, I cannot see that this legislation here is indeed going to be increasing the number of people that we need in the trades, so that is going to pass the cost down, at the end of the day, to the consumer, who is going to have to pay more money to get that red seal electrician to do X, Y, Z. It’s another slap in the face of affordability, really.

Also, interestingly enough, I’m not sure what this…. Again, I didn’t have time to go through the entire bill in the short time that we had. What does this look like for the homeowner? Many homeowners right now, to help save costs, do wire their own house, and then they have an electrician come in. Are there going to be impacts to how that rolls out?

Again, I find it hard to believe that — with more regulation, more red tape, more barriers in front of people, in front of our young people especially — to go from being interested in a trade to becoming a red seal tradesperson can be expedited in any way, shape or form with more red tape, more bureaucracy.

In fact, this seems to be a running theme — I would say a problem — with this government — that more government is the answer on everything. “Let’s just have more government. We’ll get more government, and that’ll make things better. What could go wrong?” We’ve seen it not just here in British Columbia but across the country, across the world where these big, inflated bureaucracies do the exact opposite of what we all want to really attain.

Today in my local newspaper, the Alaska Highway News — I think it was also run in a number of other newspapers across the province — there was a really well-written op-ed done by Chris Gardner with the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association. I think there have been a few little references. In fact, I was going to read this out, but maybe I’ll leave one of my colleagues…. They can read this out into the record. I think it’s only a couple of minutes long, but it is well written.

This is from an organization that probably trains more than any one organization in the province — our tradespeople. Incidentally, they weren’t consulted — surprised.

He makes a lot of the points that I’ve touched on. They’re very critical of Bill 4. It all comes down to: how do red tape and bureaucracy make things quicker, more efficient, better, safer or anything? Those are going to be some of the questions that I’m going to be asking in committee stage. Some of the things that I’m sure we have…. My colleagues across the way are going to hopefully shed a little bit of light on some of these.

I am happy that we can all agree in this place that we do need to be encouraging people to get into the trades. I’m encouraged by that. But we need to do it the right way. We need to do it the way that’s going to get….

[6:05 p.m.]

We have a massive gap coming at us — 80,000 people short in the trades alone. I think it was one million people over the next decade of just a labour shortage. We need to fix that now, not over the next ten to 12 to whatever years it might be.

We need to be looking at that now, encouraging people to get trained up, having the openings, having the spots and having the flexibility to get as many people trained up.

Deputy Speaker: Member for Vancouver–False Creek.

B. Bailey: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s the first time that I’m seeing you in the chair. Congratulations. It’s lovely to see you there.

I’d like to begin by just countering some of the points I’ve heard some of the members opposite make that need a bit of correction. To begin, the member for Kelowna-Mission mentioned a number of things. First, she said: “We need a plan. We must have a plan.” Well, you can probably hold your breath and count until that plan comes out. It’s tomorrow. The economic plan, a very important part of it, is addressing the issues that are being discussed here today. The training side is so important, and it’s definitely there.

The member also mentioned: “What will a 55-year-old do with only a year to transition into this new regime?” In fact, it’s five years for a person in that circumstance, which is ample time. And you might choose to retire, or you might choose to challenge the exam, but these are intelligent people that have been working in the field for a long time. I doubt very much that that exam is going to wreak fear on their hearts.

In regards to this feeding the labour shortage — again, a falsehood. It’s actually the driver. We’ll get into that a little bit more as we look at some of the numbers and the information that drove this decision.

In regards to the question of whether this will drive up construction costs — again, false. No, it won’t. For example, currently 98 percent of electricians are already certified. This has been designed carefully and intelligently and with a tremendous amount of consultation to ensure, in fact, that it does not contribute to additional costs in the construction area, an area that we all know is challenged by costs.

The member for Peace River North, who spoke last, raised a concern, a very fair concern, about: will this mean that people from other communities have to travel to the Lower Mainland? Is that the only place that training will be available? As someone who grew up in a small town, I share that concern. But I understand that there is, in fact, capacity in colleges throughout the province — for example, Selkirk and New Caledonia — where this type of training will be made available.

For Indigenous communities that are rural and remote, the ITA has actually had success with community-based cohort training. So there are ways to address those legitimate concerns.

These legislative changes are going to ensure that B.C. has one of the best training systems in the country. The modernized system is going to build on accomplishments over the last four years, and to do that, we’ll be investing in additional apprenticeship advisers to provide hands-on guidance to apprentices and employer sponsors.

On the training side, we’re investing $5 million so more trades workers can start an apprenticeship or upgrade their skills at a recognized post-secondary institution.

We’ll also be ensuring that apprentices and trade students have the most up-to-date facilities in which to train, something that the member for Kelowna-Mission raised, by providing opportunities for over 7,500 high school students to discover, explore, train and work in the trades and by increasing the successful participation of women, Indigenous people and underrepresented groups into the trades.

I want to speak a little bit just about my dad, if you’ll indulge me. I come from a family of tradespeople. My dad was a licensed automotive mechanic, a heavy-duty mechanic and a welder. His brothers are all talented tradespeople, as are many of my cousins up and down this Island.

I remember when, in 2003, the government of the day established the Industry Training Authority, the ITA, and introduced a modular model for trades training in British Columbia. Dad had worked in the logging indus­try as a specialized heavy-duty mechanic for many, many years and later taught at Malaspina College, which is now known as Vancouver Island University, in the trades department. He literally trained hundreds of heavy-duty mechanics who are working throughout our province today.

[6:10 p.m.]

This change really concerned him back in 2003. Well, in fact, that’s being polite. My dad was a redheaded Irishman. This change made him furious. Why? Because he saw it as government prioritizing business owners ahead of workers, and he worried that the results would be a decline of certified workers, slippage of good wages and a lessening of prestige that we hold for tradespeople.

He predicted it would lessen the desire of young peo­ple to enter the trades, and in fact he was right. The 2003 B.C. model is distinguished by deregulation of skilled trades and modularized training and certification. Today British Columbia is an outlier. We’re distinct from other provinces in our approach to apprenticeship training, and we’re the only province in Canada that does not require trade certification. The impacts of this B.C. 2003 model have now really come into focus as the demand for skilled trades and the need to replace an aging workforce have reached peak levels.

Overall, apprenticeship completion rates declined compared to the decade prior and relative to other jurisdictions. As my colleague the parliamentary secretary on this file has shared: “Lower average rates of completion for trades that are compulsory in other jurisdictions suggest that the absence of compulsory trades certification in British Columbia decreases the motivation for apprentices to complete.” So for the other side that is concerned about a labour market shortage, that’s a really important point. The result was a decrease in motivation for apprentices to complete.

Significant increases in program registrations and certifications have been achieved. But much of the increase can be attributed to a small number of trades and a subset of newly established subtrades which do not afford workers the same degree of mobility as nationalized, recognized red seal trades. Many of the established subtrades introduced to meet industry demands were eliminated due to low enrolment and poor training outcomes.

Certification in red seal trades declined significantly in B.C.: from 84 percent in 2001 to 2004 to 65 percent from 2011 to 2014. This decline is greater than that experienced in the rest of Canada and suggests fewer tradespeople in B.C. are completing the red seal certification since implementation of the 2003 model.

I want to highlight something I heard the parliamentary secretary say earlier today, which I found very tell­ing: that 75 percent of parents surveyed said they would be more likely to support their child entering the trades if it included red seal certification. Now, I know as a parent I wish my kids would listen to me all the time, but kids do listen to their parents sometimes. This is important, absolutely.

Trade deregulation and modularized training and certification have resulted also in a trade shift towards a higher concentration of registrations and completions in a smaller number of trades. This trade shift is on opposite ends of the pay scale, with highly paid industrial trades on one end and the service sector occupations with lesser qualifications on the other.

As a result of these failings of the prior system and the increasing demand in competition for talent we’re experiencing worldwide, we’re bringing back the mandatory skilled trades certification that was dispensed in 2003. The certification will occur in phases with ten initial trades: three electrical, four mechanical, three automotive. This will give workers and employers a year to either challenge trade requirements to earn certification through existing experience or register in an apprentice program.

Uncertified tradespeople will have the opportunity to challenge an exam to certify as a journeyperson, allowing uncertified workers time to access any additional support they may need, while continuing to work. Skilled trades certification means uncertified workers in selected trades will need to become certified or register as an apprentice to be legally able to work in the province. The system aims to facilitate training and to open doors for thousands of workers to be successful and have lifelong careers in the trades.

[6:15 p.m.]

The bill is needed to correct system failings. The risk to workers, the public, the environment and the trades training system are too substantial to leave to the industry to correct on an ad hoc basis.

Reinstatement will begin for the following ten occupations, chosen due to high existing demand for skilled workers: electrician, industrial electrician, power line electrician, refrigeration and air-conditioning mechanic, gas fitter, steam fitter and pipe fitter, sheet metal worker, heavy duty equipment technician, automotive technician, auto body and collision technician.

Twenty-five apprenticeship advisers will help workers to register to get certified and aid them with accessing support provided by the government, including financial assistance for child care, lost wages, travel and living expenses.

The new program is going to fill a gap left by the cancellation of the former certification system. Tradesworkers who are not certified are often paid less, and they have less regular work. Certification will help fill trade roles and build prestige around careers in the trades.

I’d like to bring in a voice from industry here, Adrian Scovell, president and CEO of the Automotive Retailers Association, who says: “There are many highly skilled automotive tradespeople in British Columbia, and they support changes in legislation with a system to ensure standards are maintained. A skilled trades certification system, including a process to ensure standards are met, will restore respect for trades, put skilled back in skilled trades and with it, respect for skilled tradespeople.”

It will also help to benefit workers by improving their skills and standard of living while maintaining existing high safety standards, benefiting employers and the public by minimizing labour disruptions.

I’d like to just take a moment to comment on this old stereotype that smart kids go to university and less smart kids go to college or trade school. I think everyone here agrees that’s silly. Tradespeople have demanding careers, and they require technical skills, interpersonal skills, management skills and so much more.

I’ll share with you that the smartest person I’ve known is in fact my dad, a mechanic. He had the highest grades for math in his high school in Nanaimo, and his teachers wanted him to be an engineer. He had an extraordinary mind that inherently understood mechanical things. He was a tinkerer, and he understood how everything worked. You would ask him any question; he could answer it. It was incredible. He had that amazing ability to teach — like, really teach. If you didn’t learn one way, he’d find another way.

He didn’t go to university as a young person — not because he wasn’t bright enough but simply because he was poor. This was in the ’50s, but today there are different reasons young people transition into trades or might choose to do so. This year the time to train and get into a well-paying, interesting career might take less time than many university programs.

I’m noticing in my own kids between the ages of 20 and 30 that they’re interested in careers where they can have a work-life balance. I know that many of my cousins — not all of them, to be fair, but many of my cousins — working in the trades have been able to achieve that.

We need to finally put that false, old narrative to rest: blue-collar is less valuable than white-collar work. It’s not us. It’s not what B.C. is about. Tradespeople are building British Columbia, and we need to value that work. I’m delighted to support this bill and to support the certification of all tradesworkers.

T. Wat: I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to speak on an important bill today.

Four of my colleagues from the Interior have already eloquently talked about our B.C. Liberals’ objective, our philosophy, and also pointed out the deficiency of this bill. Before I go into my own comments, I’d just like to respond to the previous member from Vancouver–False Creek, who said that it’s not true that the education and certification for compulsory trade is only found in urban centres.

Let me quote the ICBA report. The ICBA report says there is only one school in all of B.C. that offers the technical training required of power line technicians and refrigeration and air-conditioning mechanics, both of which are compulsory trades listed in this legislation.

[6:20 p.m.]

Examples of other trades with only one school offering instruction in all of B.C.: concrete finisher, bricklayer, mason, ironworker generalist and reinforcer, construction craft worker. For too many trades, there’s only one school offering apprenticeship training, and it’s often located on the Lower Mainland. For example, the only ironworker apprenticeship courses are offered at UBC. For drywallers, commercial painters and glaziers, there’s only one school, which is located in Surrey.

If you live outside the Lower Mainland, that is a significant challenge. But I’m not going to focus on the rural areas and Interior, because I’m from the Lower Mainland. I leave it to my more knowledgable colleagues from the Interior to talk about it.

I want to emphasize that members from both sides will agree that we share a common objective: to increase the number of skilled tradespeople, apprentices in our province. However, there are some points of disagreement on what the best practices are for achieving this goal. Although Bill 4 attempts to do that…. I’m sure the Minister of Advanced Education has all the intention to do good — and the same for all the members across the floor — but they don’t always know how to do it. It just falls incredibly short.

British Columbia is facing a massive labour shortage, and the growing gaps in the labour market are becoming more apparent under this government. Moreover, the trades are lining up to be one of our industries impacted by this shortage the most, during a time when our province is anticipating having more than one million job vacancies in the next decade.

The latest numbers from the B.C. Labour Market Outlook forecast a looming wave of retirement, with 38,000 workers in the construction sector alone retiring in the next eight years. It predicts that there will be 73,000 trades job openings by 2029. So when you consider the growing demand for housing, for child care spaces, for hospitals and for schools, all of which will require skilled tradespeople to complete, these numbers are incredibly concerning.

Here in B.C., we need to put forward innovative solutions and initiatives. When we were in government, we introduced the skills-for-jobs blueprint to help fill the gap. It is good to see this government taking steps to ensure that some of our province’s most in-demand trades can still produce some of the finest-quality tradespeople that can be found anywhere in the world.

However, compulsory trades legislation and redesigning our Industry Training Authority alone won’t be enough to incentivize, to educate and to hire the number of British Columbians that we will need to fill the gaps in our labour market. We must understand that without a jobs plan, this legislation and this government will further add to our shortage by creating more needless red tape.

It is the duty of this government to take meaningful action and take the necessary additional steps that must come with this legislation to create more spaces — to train, certify and employ skilled tradespeople.

[6:25 p.m.]

The fear is that without taking the appropriate next step and securing additional funding for post-secondary and vocational seats, this will create bottlenecks and longer wait times for those trying to find a fulfilling career in the trades. The trades sector has always attracted young British Columbians due to the high demand of good-paying jobs available. However, we have seen a bottleneck due to limited spaces and wait-lists.

Here in B.C., individuals could get certified and enter the workforce with a good-paying job. But things have drastically changed, and wait-lists can push a three- or four-year program to nearly a decade, because we won’t meet our province’s labour timeline, and we’ll further disincentivize potential apprentices. The training of workers must be a top priority for this government, and they must understand that trades is an ever-evolving industry. There is a constant need to upgrade our training and curriculum to meet the needs of our trades industries.

If government is going to establish compulsory trades, they need to outline what steps they are taking to ensure that our post-secondary institutions will reflect the most up-to-date training or curriculum for our compulsory trades. Another important point to make here is that we need to ensure that the appropriate consultations are occurring so government can hear from industry experts.

We have seen a concerning trend with this government, where they ram through legislation and policy without the proper consultation with the appropriate groups and organizations who have the best knowledge on how this decision will impact the province and its industry. This lack of proper broad consultation is typical of this NDP government — not to listen and simply to come up with their own policy in a vacuum.

The autism funding hub is a perfect example of this government totally ignoring the input of the stakeholders and those that are affected. This lack of broad consultation has led to one rally after another, attended by hundreds of parents and service providers in front of our legislative building. This hub model simply doesn’t help the autistic children, and what does this government do? They didn’t even turn up. The minister didn’t even turn up at the Legislature to listen to the concern of the parents and the stakeholders.

The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C., ICBA, which sponsors more B.C. apprentices than anyone else and the second-highest number of female and Indigenous apprentices, claims: “Government failed to engage in broad industry consultation. The contracting community, including ICBA and the majority of construction associations, was simply not at the table.” Due to the lack of engagement and improper consultation, they have not taken into proper consideration the concern of the many industry leaders who will be impacted by these decisions.

Also, it is very important to point out that 81.5 percent of apprenticeship training in B.C. is undertaken by the non-union segment of the construction industry. The groups providing the overwhelming majority of apprenticeships are concerned that the changes in this legislation are part of a package to support stakeholders in the B.C. building trades, who only represent 13 to 15 percent of the 250,000 men and women working in B.C.’s construction industry. Although this government says they want to make life better for British Columbians, their actions say otherwise.

This bill will not deliver on the necessary changes needed to help our trade industry prosper, and this government’s proposals will actually drag young people with an interest in the trades into a tangle of red tape.

[6:30 p.m.]

This bill ignores the bottleneck we are seeing in B.C. today and also ignores the concern of industry leaders, who fear that this legislation will make it more difficult to recruit and train tradespeople. B.C. has to put forward initiatives today to ensure that our workforce can meet the demand for skilled tradespeople in the years to come.

Hon. G. Chow: Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I’m speaking to support this new legislation that will establish a made-in-B.C. system to train apprentices and modernize the Crown agency responsible for trades training. This new Skilled Trades BC Act lays the foundation to address our labour shortages and support and recognize the critical work that skilled tradespeople do in B.C.

In my recent visits to shipbuilders and aerospace companies in B.C., their number one issue is the lack of skilled trades that they can hire. As an engineer who worked with skilled trades for decades, I recognize the importance of the trades and the skills they bring to our industry and economy. In my career with B.C. Hydro, I worked with power line technicians, electricians, welders, mechanics, machinists and carpenters. They are professionals who are trained to do a job safely and properly, with expertise.

I had the opportunity to interact with the Industry Training Authority when it was established in 1997, helping to impart some background knowledge to the apprentices in the power generation industry. However, as the member from Langley and the Parliamentary Secretary for Skills Training pointed out, the training authority was eliminated in 2003. It was devastating for our apprentices throughout the province.

I am pleased now that the government is doing the right thing by bringing forward Bill 4, the Skilled Trades BC Act. Trades as a vocation have changed a lot since the blacksmiths’ days. Now with changes in technology, advances in materials and regulations regarding safety and liability, we need a comprehensive system to train and certify our skilled trades. I’m happy that our government is doing that.

I’m also very happy to say that in doing so, we have done extensive consultation, led by the ministry as well as by the member from Langley, who is the Parliamentary Secretary for Skills Training. We had two different sessions of consultation — one with the general public and the other one with the Indigenous community.

What I heard from that was that there was a general lack of understanding of what skilled trades are all about. Over three-quarters of the parents do not know what trades are all about. So they’re really unable to steer their kids towards the trades, which is, in some ways, regrettable because those could be good opportunities for a lot of their young people. They don’t need to just go to university and become traditional professionals. I think they could take up a trade, and as I said, trades have changed a lot because of changes in society and in technology.

[6:35 p.m.]

Certainly, my own experience in the Chinese-Canadian community is that it’s true that a lot of the parents don’t know what tradespeople do. As such, they steer their kids toward a certain direction. Some kids like it. Some kids don’t like it. But they don’t understand there are good-paying jobs, satisfying vocations that are more than just going to universities and colleges.

I’m very happy to say that we have done that consultation, and there are many items in the consultation that we should take note of. But I just want to mention that, because as we go forward, we need to have more young people train locally in British Columbia.

Really, that was a downfall of the previous government led by the provincial Liberals. I think they were encouraging the industry to take the low-hanging fruit, which is really to raid each other’s skilled tradespeople. That, of course, in the short term, is efficient in terms of your bottom line. But in the long run, it’s actually detrimental to our young people as well as to the long-term health of our economy. I think it’s very important that we do this now.

In terms of the Indigenous community, too, their young people are not really exposed to trades — probably less so than, say, the immigrant community, the Chinese-Canadian community that I talked about. That’s a separate consultation, and I know we will put emphasis on training those young people from the Indigenous community to take up trades. It’s a noble vocation. It’s a contributing vocation to our society.

With that, I’d like to thank the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training for bringing this forward and the Parliamentary Secretary for Skills Training, the member from Langley, for doing this groundwork, as well as the previous member who was also spearheading this work, the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

I’m very happy to support this bill. I thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Deputy Speaker: I recognize the member for Kelowna West.

B. Stewart: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s an honour to be here in front of you for, I think, the first time during this session. I look forward to many more.

I want to speak today about Bill 4. There is a huge importance that the province…. The industries that we’ve created here depend on skilled tradespeople.

It’s interesting when the government and the members opposite speak about the fact that we made changes back in 2003. There were a total of about 16,000 apprentices that were journeymen in British Columbia at that time. That number, over the next 16 years, grew 250 percent to over 40,000 apprentices in the province of British Columbia.

I’m proud of that record, but I can tell you that the then Minister of Advanced Education — the member for Prince George–Valemount and current Leader of the Opposition — said that we were not training enough people and we needed to do more.

I have to tell you that, having done a bit of construction and relied on tradespeople — whether it’s structural, steel tilt-up slabs, engineering, mechanical — there are a lot of things that I don’t know. I did go to college just to help bone up and be able to run the farm that I had, taking welding, both oxyacetylene and welding. I’m not qualified to be on the TMX. But if I wanted to build a pipeline, which I think is actually under construction right now, I am sure that there would be a lot of tradespeople of much better aptitude than myself working on that pipeline.

[6:40 p.m.]

I did have an opportunity in 2013. I became one of the honorary campaign chairs of the Okanagan College trades-training expansion. That particular project expanded trades training at Okanagan College on the Kelowna campus remarkably.

I had the opportunity to meet with people that had not only done projects, like Oscar Krueger of Krueger Electric, but Patrick Waunch of Rambow Mechanical and the owners of Boyd Autobody and Barry Lapointe from KF Aerospace and Ron Jacobsen, who actually made the lead gift on that particular project and was, at that time, the owner of the Jacobsen Cadillac GM dealership in the Kelowna area.

What I found when I was talking to these people is how much the community came together. They desperately wanted young apprentices, and they wanted to make certain that they could get journeymen. They couldn’t find them. I remember Patrick, in one of our meetings…. Patrick Waunch runs Rambow Mechanical. He said: “Why is it that we can’t get some of the gas fitting programs that are only available at BCIT?”

I did ask that question, and I still wonder today. I know, from some of the notes that I’ve been given, that there are many different trades programs that are only available in certain parts — Surrey BCIT. The situation is that’s not good enough.

The bottom line is that we’ve got a province that has grown. I mentioned that increase of 250 percent in the number of apprentices. It’s grown by about 130 percent, continuing to grow. The fact is that we know that we have a desperate shortage of workers, and skilled workers especially, to build a province. We’ve got an aging demographic.

Actually, speaking about aging demographics, I guess the question really in the minds of linemen and other people like that is does it mean that if they’re maybe not quite at retirement, but they’re nearing that, are they going to have to go back to school? Essentially, they might have been working 25, 35 years working and doing jobs, stringing power lines, working…. Especially, actually, in this last little incident we had with the rains and the collapse of our infrastructure in the Sumas Prairie area, Merritt, etc.

We need these people to be available. I know people that are lineman for B.C. Hydro. They’re all over the province fixing downed lines because of ice storms or things that are like that. We are desperate to have these people.

What I am proud of is the fact that in 2005, again, the member from Prince George–Valemount, who was the Minister of Advanced Education at the time, announced with then Premier Gordon Campbell, that there was going to be a split in the Okanagan College. We were all aghast that, here’s this institution in Kelowna that was like 3,500 people, and we’re going to take that and we’re going to take half their campus and turn it into UBC Okanagan.

I’m happy to say that today…. Former president Jim Hamilton, the last time I was at the convocation, was talking about the success and the expansion, especially in the areas of health and trades. The fact is that the population, just in the Okanagan College network, is nearing 13,000 students from a mere 3,500 that was halved. Of course, UBC is also on that same trajectory. What it really tells you is there is a thirst and a desire for education.

We talk a bit about how this is going to make things safer. It’s going to make things better. Unless the government is willing to put vast resources into these trades training…. I say that meaning that we haven’t heard that. We know that the budget is coming out on Tuesday, but there is a need for increased expansion.

I am pleased with the investment in Okanagan College and UBC, but at the end of the day, what about the other community colleges around? What about in the Koot­enays? What about in the north — Northern Lights or some of the other colleges that are there? They’re desperate for teachers or people to train these people. What about the fact that we are building a gas line up to Kitimat to help supply Kitimat LNG? What about the other yet-announced opportunities here in British Columbia to take resources to market?

[6:45 p.m.]

Of course, many of the opposition — I’m not certain that they get the math. The fact that we’re like three or four days closer to Asia than any other place on the North American continent and that’s why Prince Rupert is getting an expansion in its port facility…. The bottom line is that what we really need to know is that places like Kitimat are going to continue to be built, because there is a huge demand. It’s a part of….

I’m not talking about Bill 4 so much but the fact that getting those resources to market will lower our carbon-intensive footprint. It makes a difference. I know the member opposite, who just spoke, talks about it. He’s been there. They run on coal. They run on all sorts of other dirty fuels, and we have an opportunity to change that. It’s a trade-off, but the reality is that we’re not going to do anything unless we have tradespeople.

We’re going to have a population that’s going to increase, and it’s going to come from all over the world. So are our trades training programs addressing people that are not…? Maybe their native tongue isn’t English. Are we training in other languages to make certain that they can understand all of the things that are in Bill 4, in terms of what is expected by the institutions, to make certain that they meet the standards, etc.?

I know that it’s important. English as a second language is our number one priority when people arrive here. We need immigration. We need people that are going to fill those jobs, and we need to make certain that they can get those jobs.

The thing about it is that it’s really important that if we’re going to change the rules and we’re going to go back to a system that was very slow and not responsive…. The fact is that we’ve created a dynamic system that has grown by over 250 percent in just 16 years. The situation is that we need to make certain that there is a parallel investment in the institutions but, more importantly, we don’t burden the institutions with things that are covered with people that are doing site inspections, the inspectors, etc.

By the way, I don’t know if you know this, but most municipalities are having a terrible time finding building inspectors at level 3, which is, I believe, the highest level. They can’t find it. The fact is that they have either been recruited…. So it’s slowing down the economy. We have to do more on that.

Is Bill 4 helping to address that? Is it going to the root of the problem? Is it really the fact that…? I think it’s the B.C. Building Trades, and I think that, if I’m not mistaken…. I know we spent a lot of time on this.

I mentioned that short jaunt, being in China for almost four years and trying to build a jobs plan that mirrored the economy. I know that I worked with people like Tom Sigurdson. Tom and I sat at the table talking about the jobs that his members of the B.C. Building Trades could bring to the whole idea of LNG and other projects, etc. But when the numbers come in, I know that the independent contractors of B.C. have significantly outperformed some of the unions that have been saying that they’re the ones to train.

I don’t disagree that they should have an equal opportunity. I think that B.C. Building Trades is fantastic, but they’re not the only people in town that need apprentices. It can’t be a one-stop shop for finding apprentices. We need diversity. We need people like Patrick Waunch from Rambow Mechanical, Oscar Krueger from Krueger Electric. They need people too, and they’re the small independent people that are making our economy run in our communities.

We’re looking at, I guess, 81 percent of the apprenticeship training in B.C. that’s undertaken by the non-union segment of the construction industry. That’s a pretty high number. The fact is…. I don’t think, if they didn’t need it, they would be doing it as well as they’re doing. Last year, I know the CBC offered over 1,100 apprenticeships and was the largest sponsor of apprenticeships, even though we’ve had CBAs in place.

We’ve had all sorts of reasons you have to come and work through that. The ICBA is still very active in terms of drawing people together to make certain that there is that fitting of the tradespeople, the contractors, to do the jobs.

I think everybody in this House knows. We talk about affordability almost on a daily basis. We talk about the fact that housing is in, well, crisis in the sense that we want higher densities.

[6:50 p.m.]

Well, you are not going to build higher density unless you’ve got people that are going to be able to build more than just frame construction, which is going to be take journeymen carpenters, electricians, etc. But we’re going to need people that are going to be able to help build 20, 30, 40 storeys high.

The member for Peace River North mentioned an article that was in the Alaska Highway News. The headline is “B.C. Trades Training System Is Overwhelmed and About to Get Worse.” That’s not a very positive headline. Some of the things that this article talks about:

“With the construction industry facing an unprecedented labour shortage and supply chain pressures, the provincial government has seen fit to make it even harder for people to enter the trades. Bill 4, recently introduced in the Legislature, renames the regulatory body that oversees apprentices…from the Industry Training Authority to SkilledTradesBC. It’s a name change that will cost taxpayers significant dollars in rebranding but won’t add a single new apprentice or new training space to any of our trades or technical colleges.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

“The rest of Bill 4 sets B.C. on the path of compulsory trades, a system that will make it more difficult for young people to start a career in the trades, all in the name of improved quality and safety. It all sounds great, but the devil really is in the details of this misguided change in policy.

“Simply put, Bill 4 is wrong-headed, and it won’t work. B.C.’s trades training system is overwhelmed. There simply is not enough spaces to meet demand. So much so that the wait-lists to get into the classes is generally a year, sometimes two or three years.”

That’s today.

“The result is that it can take nearly a decade for an apprentice to complete a red seal designation and get their ticket. It’s a breathtaking breakdown of our trades training system.

“What’s the point of compelling young people entering construction trades to register as an apprentice if by doing so they are condemned to years of wait-lists to get the designation? It is simple math. To increase the number of red seal tradespeople, we need to invest in more training spaces.

“We also need more modernized training delivery methods.”

We just came through with COVID. Look at how much we’ve adapted. Almost everybody here must know how to unmute Zoom by now. The bottom line is that we’re delivering classes through virtual classrooms, and I think that there is an opportunity for us to do a lot of that, especially in rural and remote parts of British Columbia.

“We also need modernized training delivery models. Using technology to deliver some components of trades training will also help deal with another chronic challenge. For many trades, there is only one school offering courses, and it’s located in the Lower Mainland. Not great if you are a…construction worker living on Vancouver Island, in the North or in the Interior.

“The sad part of this saga is that construction contractors have been clear on what needs to be done. As is typical of government, once a ‘we know best’ mentality sets in, the dialogue stops and the lecturing starts.

“The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association is the single-largest sponsor of trades…. The ICBA’s open shop members sponsor 82 percent of trades apprentices in British Columbia.

“We know what prevents young people from seeking their red seal designation, and it’s not a Crown agency’s name. It’s lack of spaces and the absence of modern training delivery options. Yet the ideas and new approaches to training embraced by contractors doing all of the heavy lifting when it comes to trades training have been ignored.

“To make matters worse, the government is mandating the ratio of how many apprentices can be supervised and trained by a ticketed tradesperson on a jobsite.”

Well, that’s certainly going to increase costs.

“The government will spend millions of dollars hiring new inspectors to visit jobsites with enforcement powers, looking to penalize contractors not abiding by ratios that make no sense on a jobsite. This is the kind of mind-numbing bureaucracy that adds confusion, complexity and cost.”

Anyway, I know that I’ve got many other things to say about getting people attracted into the trades. We need to start in high schools and make it so that it is the type of thing where we talk to students in schools, and we talk to their parents. That’s really where the bottleneck, the choke point is. We need to make it so that their parents know how good this profession is. I just looked online tonight. Many of the trades jobs are very high paying just in the starting point, and they want apprentices right now.

Noting the hour, I would like to reserve my right to continue but make the motion to adjourn.

B. Stewart moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Rankin moved adjournment of the House.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 6:55 p.m.