Province rolls out more truck training

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So many new professional truck drivers were hired from a recent class, the provincial government has added another cohort.

These students are part of a pilot program administered by the Central Interior Logging Association (CILA) and taught by O’Brien Training Ltd. and Taylor Professional Driving Ltd. of Prince George. The provincial government invested about $500,000 to put 30 initial aspiring truckers through the special program designed especially for the forest industry. The initial Forest Industry Readiness Skills Training class started six months ago and is now complete.

“One hundred per cent of the graduates are now out working in the industry,” said Pat Bell, Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training. “You can’t get better results than that, so we have committed to another round of funding.”

The announcement made Monday was for about $400,000 more to bring another set of new drivers through the course. CILA executive director MaryAnne Arcand said things were already looking promising for these students, and the first day of classes hasn’t even happened.

“We just had a meeting in Fort St. James and a company there told us ‘we’ll take three, let us know when they’re ready’” she said. “We have a new mill opening up in Terrace. We are focused, for this class, on the area west of Prince George – Burns Lake, Houston, Smithers. They don’t even know what they’ve got, but they are taking people on. They have job offers waiting even before they’re finished the training.”

One of those new students is Clifford Wilson who said he has spent the last 20-or-so years as a contract painter, and he needed some way to advance his living potential.

“It was something I’d been wanting for years but just couldn’t afford it,” he said, but this special funding made it possible to take this big step down a new career path.

“The wages for trucking are not as high as the [petroleum and mining sectors],” said Arcand, “but there is a work-life balance these students are considering.” Mostly the driving jobs offer a dependable income and allow the drivers to be home with their families more regularly than the natural resource jobs.

Parliamentary Secretary for Forestry John Rustad was also on hand for the announcement, adding that the forest sector in general offered careers more closely linked to communities than the long hauls to mines and oil patches.

“I think there are enormous opportunities in the forest industry...I think it is actually a great career path,” he said.

According to the B.C. government, the forest sector workforce in 2011 stood at 53,000 people. In addition to any new jobs that might be created, the government anticipates as many as 25,000 forest industry job openings by 2022 due to retirements.

“The B.C. government is making a concerted effort to align skillstraining programs with the economic needs of B.C. communities,” said Bell. “We have incredible economic opportunities in front of us, and we need to focus on our greatest strength – our people – to ensure they have the skills needed to fill B.C.’s jobs, and that our training system throughout the province is meeting their needs. A skilled workforce is, after all, the backbone of our resilient economy.”