CALGARY - Federal Employment
Minister Jason Kenney says a chronic shortage of skilled trades workers,
especially in Alberta's oilsands, can only be solved by a major influx of
carpenters, electricians and welders from outside of Canada.
Kenney was at an announcement in
Calgary Friday, introducing one of the first new workers who has received
escalated permanent resident status under the new Federal Skilled Trades
Program.
The program is aimed at people who
want to become permanent residents based on being qualified in a skilled trade.
To apply they must have work experience in a specific trade and meet several
other requirements.
Kenney said one of the challenges
facing Canada is that young people are not going into the trades and its
creating an "acute shortage" of electricians, welders and
boilermakers.
"Because Canada has always been
a country of immigration we believe we can use our immigration programs much
better to attract tradesmen who have practical skills and can literally help us
build our country," he said.
"We see some of the most acute
labour shortages in the construction trades in the Athabasca oilsands region
because we're talking about multibillion dollar mega construction projects
there. We simply do not have enough qualified trades people in Canada to fill
those labour needs."
The minister said the scarcity of
quality workers stretches across the country from the oilsands to huge
commodity projects throughout northern Canada and iron ore developments in
Labrador.
"According to different
industry councils, we're looking at shortages of hundreds of thousands of
construction trades people in the next decade," he said.
"We need to make sure we have
an immigration system that instead of bringing medical doctors here to drive
cabs brings electricians to work as electricians."
Paul Lyttle, an electrician from
Northern Ireland, was in Canada on a working holiday program when he applied
through skilled trades program.
"Our old immigration system was
dysfunctional. It took us sometimes up to 10 years to process an application
for someone to immigrate to Canada," said Kenney, the minister of
Employment and Social Development.
"Paul
is a living example of how our new system is actually working because we
managed to process his application and admit him as a permanent resident in
about three months time."
