There were many numbers I liked in yesterday’s spring economic update, but one stood out as perhaps the most important of all (after the huge investments in the Canadian military, of course).
The feds are going to be investing almost six billion dollars over the next five years to recruit and train more skilled tradespeople.
The new nationwide recruitment and training effort that would see between 80,000 to 100,000 new skilled trade workers hired by 2030-31.
The new spending would provide wage subsidies, apprenticeship training grants, labour mobility tax credits, training bonuses, and employer incentives in an effort to boost the number of people we have working in these essential industries.
I am very pleased to hear about this investment, because without it we have no chance of completing many of the other things we want to accomplish.
If you want to make major infrastructure upgrades at military bases, and rejuvenate and expand transportation corridors, then your first investment has to be in the people who make it happen.
I have also heard over the past few years about a push to increase housing, but that can’t happen without tens of thousands of new skilled trade workers. We already have too few for the projects we want to accomplish now, which often drives up the cost through scarcity of labour and extends timelines.
The slogan “Build Canada Strong” is being used a lot these days. I was very happy yesterday to see that we are finally addressing the first word in that catch-phrase, because Canada can’t become stronger without the people who will build it for us.
I’m Paul Martin and that’s what I see looking Beyond the Headlines.
