16 PRINTACTION · may 2015 printaction.com

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miSSinG aCtionPlan red seal trades can access $100 million

in new Federal apprenticeship loans By Victoria Gaitskell

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C anadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on January 8, 2015, visited the British Columbia Institute of Tech-nology and Vancouver Com-munity College on Annacis

Island in Delta to announce the official launch of the Canada Apprentice Loans program. These loans, similar to the ones already available to college and university students, are expected to provide an esti-mated 26,000 apprentices registered in Red Seal trades across Canada with ac-cess to over $100 million annually.

Promised in the Federal government’s Economic Action Plan 2014, the new loans are available for up to $4,000 per period of technical training to help cover the costs apprentices typically incur dur-

ing technical training, including educa-tional fees, tools, equipment, living ex-penses, foregone wages, and support for their families.

Harper considered this news so im-portant that he brought along no fewer than eight of his Parliament Hill col-leagues to help him deliver the message: Jason Kenney, then Minister of Employ-ment and Social Development (the portfolio actually responsible for the new loans); Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Minister of National Revenue and MP for the col-lege’s own riding; Minister of Industry James Moore; Minister of State for Sen-iors, Alice Wong; Senator Yonah Kim-Martin, and MPs Nina Grewal, John Weston and Dan Albas.

Similar press conferences took place through January with Transport Minister Lisa Raitt at Sheridan College in Oak-ville, Ontario; Tim Uppal, Minister of State (Multiculturalism) at Keyano Col-lege in Fort McMurray, Alberta; and Jason Kenney again at Assiniboine Com-munity College in Brandon, Manitoba.

Canada’s new Apprentice Loan pro-gram actually forms part of a larger Fed-eral initiative under way since at least 2007 to help those already apprenticing to complete their training and to encour-age more Canadians to pursue a career in the skilled trades.

Related measures include 500,000 government-issued grants worth nearly $700 million, Employment Insurance benefits, tax credits and deductions for apprentices; and an Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit for their employers.

Trade certification in CanadaI was initially encouraged when the Ap-prentice Loans announcement came less than a month after I had written an article in PrintAction’s December issue about the efficient apprenticeship system that helped transform Germany into a world-class manufacturing economy. The sys-tem is being leveraged by some of the printing industry’s largest printing-press manufacturers. With over six years of ex-perience as a recruiter, I am convinced of the increasing difficulty faced by Can-adian printers when trying to hire skilled

operators because of the growing short-age of job candidates with these skills.

Yet a thorough review of the terms for Canada Apprentice Loans shows that, to be eligible, apprentices must be registered in a Red Seal trade, a designation be-stowed by the Red Seal program operated by the Federal Red Seal Secretariat, a branch of Employment and Social De-velopment Canada.

The Secretariat’s current list of Red Seal recipients comprises 57 skilled trades, including bakers, bricklayers, carpenters, electricians, gasfitters, heavy equipment operators, ironworkers, ma-chinists, painters, plumbers, sheet metal workers, and truck mechanics. But printing-related functions are nowhere to be found on the list, making both printers and their apprentices ineligible for the Federal apprenticeship benefits outlined above.

In Canada, developing an apprentice-ship program requires the trade to be certified by a Provincial or Territorial Ministry of Training, Colleges and Uni-versities (MTCU), which is the branch of government responsible for apprentice-ships. After reaching out the Ontario MTCU, Linda Mackay, Manager, Issues and Media Relations, explains in an e-mail: “An apprenticeship trade means that the majority of training takes place in the workplace. There is usually a theor-etical training component typically deliv-ered at an Ontario college of applied arts and technology. There must be broad in-dustry support to develop an apprentice-ship program.”

Additionally, each province and terri-tory in Canada has its own regulatory body in charge of examining and certify-ing journeypersons trained in MTCU apprenticeship programs by issuing Cer-tification of Qualifications (licenses, es-sentially). These regulatory bodies are diversely named and include, for example, the Industry Training Authority in British Columbia, Apprenticeship and Industry Training in Alberta, the Ontario College of Trades in Ontario, or the Centre ad-ministratif de la qualification profession-nelle in Quebec.

To establish an apprenticeship pro-gram, therefore, a trade must be designat-ed by both the MTCU and the regulatory body of a particular province or territory.

If a trade has demonstrated broad-enough industry support to become designated for apprenticeship and certifi-cation by both the MTCU and regulatory body in at least five provinces or territor-ies, the trade can then ask one of the regulatory bodies to evaluate and sponsor

during a press conference at the British Columbia institute of Technology, stephen Harper announces the large-scale Canada Apprentice Loan program is now “open for business” for red seal trades.

“To our knowledge, the ministry has not been approached by this sector...”- Linda Mackay, MTCU

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their request to become a Red Seal trade. This request is made to the Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship (CCDA), the group responsible for administering the Red Seal Pro-gram operated by the Red Seal Secretariat. If successfully granted to the trade, the Red Seal endorsement enables certified journeypersons in the trade to practise anywhere in Canada where the trade is designated without having to pass further examinations. It also entitles both em-ployers and apprentices in the trade to the Fed-eral apprenticeship loan benefits.

In the quest for trade designation, both Fed-eral and Provincial civil servants have assured me that no one particular group is entitled to repre-sent a particular trade. Either employers or employees can approach their local provincial or territorial authorities to initiate the process. As things now stand, in addition to printing’s ab-sence from the Red Seal list, the Ontario College of Trades confirms that no trades specific to the printing industry are currently designated in Ontario, the Canadian jurisdiction with the lar-gest concentration of printing companies. Mackay adds that: “To our knowledge, the ministry has not been approached by this sector about developing an apprenticeship program.”

What went wrong?Why does printing not appear on the lists of

designated Ontario and Red Seal trades, especially considering that Canada is home to so many print-ing trade associations, most of which advertise not only the better-ment of the industry but also gov-ernment advocacy (either on their own or through a parent organiza-tion) as cornerstones of their mandate?

The sole national association, the Canadian Printing Industries Association (CPIA), based in Ot-tawa, was founded in 1939, 13 years before the founding of the Red Seal Program, also in Ottawa, in 1952.

The numerous provincial associ-ations showing evidence of recent activity in various other spheres include: British Columbia Printing & Imaging Association (BCPIA), The Northern Alberta Printers Association (NAPA), Printing and Graphics Industries Association of Alberta (PGIA), Saskatchewan Graphic Arts Industries Associ-ation (SGAIA), Manitoba Print Industry Association (MPIA), On-tario Printing & Imaging Associ-ation (OPIA), the Toronto chapter of the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen (IAPHC), Association Québécoise de l’industrie de l’impremé (AQII), New Brunswick Printing Industries Association (NBPIA), Nova Scotia Printing Industries Association (NSPIA), and the Atlantic Printing Industries Association (APIA).

Additionally, from its founding in 2006, the Canadian Printing Industries Sector Council (CPISC) received substantial operating and project funding from the Federal government. This included $1.5 million and then $1.8 million in its 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 fiscal years, respectively. The funding continued until 2013, when the government cut funding to CPISC and all industry sector councils in-volved in the program.

In CPISC’s 2008 document (still extant on line), called Charting Our Course: The Skills and Technology Roadmap for the Printing and Graph-ic Communications Industry, CPISC described itself as: “A national forum that brings together printing and graphic communications in-dustry employers and employees, educators and representatives of unions and governments to create and implement innovative ap-proaches to skills development for current and future industry work-ers. In doing so, CPISC enables all players in the printing and graphic communications industry to work together in partnership to improve

the quality of the industry’s labour force.”

Besides the above document, CPISC’s other products included national skill standards lists, occu-pational profiles, labour market information, an online HR toolkit, and the Career Focus Program, intended to help companies attract new people to the industry. CPISC’s 7-year proceedings, how-ever, seem to have completely ig-nored the need to have printing formally recognized by Canada’s most basic Provincial and Federal structures for trades and appren-ticeships, the same structures on which the development and con-tinuation of a formally trained, skilled labour force depend.

Meanwhile, printing’s lost opportunities continue to grow: Since January, at least two Liberal Provincial governments, although frequently Harper’s political op-posites, have demonstrated re-newed support for apprenticeships.

In April 2015, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced a $55-million boost for her prov-ince’s apprenticeship programs, including an Apprenticeship En-hancement Fund that helps col-leges train more people more ef-fectively by investing in equipment, space, and technologies ($23 mil-lion over two years); a Pre-appren-ticeship Training Program that helps people considering a career in the skilled trades to develop job skills and work readiness ($13 million over two years); and a fund-ing increase for colleges and other recognized training organizations for equipment upgrades and in-creased lab time for apprenticeship sessions ($19 million over three years).

The Globe and Mail also reports that the British Columbia Liberals under Premier Christy Clark are linking 25 percent of their funding for colleges and universities to training for in-demand jobs in health care, engineering and trades; and plan to poll recognized trades regularly on which jobs are going unfilled.

If it will help correct the omis-sion of printing as a provincially and nationally recognized trade, I would be happy to share the list of helpful government and regulatory contacts I have amassed while re-searching this article to anyone who is serious about establishing print-ing as a Red Seal trade in Canada. Present and future printers need and deserve the practical benefits that would follow.

$4,000Amount of the interest-free loan that Red Seal trade apprentices can apply for per training period