OTTAWA’S FAILING HEALTH.

Labour Day usually results in a host of selfcongratulatory press releases from unions, all trumpeting their important role in ensuring Canadians do not toil away in factories reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ London. Rather than debate whether that would be the reality without unions, most Canadians are happy to give labour its day and enjoy the long weekend at a cottage.

However, when overstated union claims of their importance start to impact public policy and the economy, it’s time for Canadians to take notice.

Canadians were reminded of one such example when the prime minister highlighted in his Labour Day message a commitment his government made in the 2016 federal budget: A promise of $ 85.4 million over five years to support union- based apprenticeship training. While investments in apprenticeship training are critical to address the looming labour shortages in the construction sector, this particular investment completely ignores current employment realities.

The issue is simple: outside of Quebec, the vast majority of employment in construction is in the open shop sector, wherein union membership is not a condition of employment. For example, in Saskatchewan 15 per cent of the construction workforce is unionized versus 85 per cent in the open shop sector. In Alberta, less than 20 per cent of the construction workforce is represented by a building trades union. In New Brunswick, over 70 per cent of the workforce is open shop. These figures are consistent across the country, yet the federal government has chosen to give millions to union training centres.

This move could topple Canada’s entire apprenticeship system, which has been working well for decades. No open shop employer is going to send an employee to a union training centre, since those facilities are de facto recruitment centres that include union organization in the training curriculum. Meanwhile, without employers, the bulk of whom are in the open shop sector, there is nowhere for apprentices to work.

The warning signs for a potential boondoggle quickly become apparent, as unions will have millions to spend at their training centres, but nowhere for their apprentices to work.

This move by Ottawa undermines the existing apprenticeship t raining system, which involves cooperation between employers, provincial government bodies, colleges and training institutes. Furthermore, the current apprentice training model is 80 per cent on the job and 20 per cent in the classroom, which makes sense since workers learn more on a job site. ( Would you rather fly with an airline pilot who has learned to fly in a cockpit or one who watched videos about it in a classroom?)

Why then would the federal government seek to undermine this system by a) putting apprentices back in the classroom in union training centres and b) effectively shutting out 75 to 80 per cent of the skilled- trade workforce in the non-union sector from this taxpayer- funded apprenticeship training?

The answer has nothing to do with meeting the needs of Canada’s construction industry, which will have to attract at least 320,000 workers or face serious shortages in the labour supply in the next decade. As usual, it is instead strictly a matter of politics and unions trying to reverse their decades-long decline in membership.

In part to mitigate their loss in worker market share, building- trade unions have built lavish training centres and now seek to operate them with public funds, while indenturing apprentices to their organizations.

However, that cannot hide the fact that the introduction of union-based training would benefit only a very small percentage of both employees and employers. Using so much public money to support such a small portion of the industry is not fiscally prudent or responsible. It speaks more to ideology and political favours than to any serious consideration of labour- force needs and the economy as a whole.

With Canada’s construction sector being so heavily non-unionized, the unions’ success in lobbying for training centre funds is obviously an attempt to change that reality. Unions believe that these better- funded schools will give them a stranglehold over the apprenticeship system, which in turn will boost their membership.

Spending millions of taxpayer dollars to aid union recruitment efforts is not sound labour-market development policy. If the concern is really to ensure the Canadian economy meets its looming skilled- labour needs, policy decisions should reflect market realities, not political agendas. Even on Labour Day.