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By Curtis Galbraith

Apprenticeships Expanding

Province introduces new apprenticeship and skilled trades legislation

Apr 14, 2021 | 5:30 AM

The province is upgrading the legislation that governs skilled trades and apprenticeships.

The new Skilled Trades and Apprenticeship Education Act would be an update on the current policy that is 30 years old.

Grande Prairie Regional College interim president Glenn Feltham served as co-chair of the Skills for Jobs Task Force that came up with the recommendations the legislation would put in place.

“We made recommendations on a future skills agenda, core principles for apprenticeship education, strengthening apprenticeship, expanding the apprenticeship system to other careers, strengthening governance, aligning funding and incentives.”

Feltham says the new legislation also includes what he calls “building parity of esteem.”

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“Such that apprenticeship-based education is understood to have as much value, merit, and worth as other post-secondary credentials.”

He adds the new legislation was also a key recommendation.

“Existing legislation provides a significant impediment to advancing Alberta’s apprenticeship system. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to expand the apprenticeship education model, and to advance parity of esteem, under the current legislative regime.”

In the release announcing the new legislation, the province quotes BuildForce Canada which projects Alberta’s construction and maintenance industries will need 65,000 new workers in the next ten years. This would be to both cover growth and replace the more than 40,000 current employees who would be retiring over that time.

That same release says the province registered 7820 new apprentices in 2020, down from 11,627 in 2019. The economic downturn has been the main factor in a 35 per cent drop in the number of registrations over the past half-dozen years.