ACA Workforce Recommendations

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

• Government work with industry to ensure restricted activities and corresponding wages create professions of choice within the skilled trades
• Greater recognition of prior learning to facilitate apprentices changing their trade specialization
• Adding trades training capacity and more flexible delivery methods for Alberta’s post secondary institutions
• Reinstate period exams for quality assurance via a provincial standard

ACA was able to share your concerns with Skilled Trades Minister Madu in a consultation April 18th. Following this meeting Minister Madu committed to reinstating period exams beginning this September. ACA was also able to share on April 18th recommendations to:

• Make school boards accountable for offering trades related programs
• Dedicate funding for trades related programs in Alberta’s K-Grade 12 education system
• Make it easier for tradespeople to teach trades at the K-12 level
• Add career counsellors familiar with the trades

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

• Ensure high wage construction occupations are eligible under the Federal Skilled Trades Program
• Allow Trusted Employers to obtain work permits that apply to more than one worksite and allow for regional or sectoral Labour Market Impact Assessments that cover multiple employers rather than each employer required to submit
• Modify the International experience Class program to allow foreign apprentices in their final two periods to complete their studies in Alberta and add these grads to the Canadian experience Class immigration stream