Month: February 2022

By Chris Gardner, President, Independent Contractors and Businesses Association

With the construction industry facing an unprecedented labour shortage and supply chain pressures, the provincial government has seen fit to make it even harder for people to enter the trades.

Bill 4, recently introduced in the Legislature, renames the regulatory body that oversees apprentices in B.C. from the “Industry Training Authority” to “SkilledTradesBC”. It’s a name change that will cost taxpayers significant dollars in rebranding, but won’t add a single new apprentice or new training space at any of our trades or technical colleges.

The rest of Bill 4 sets B.C. on the path of “compulsory” trades – a system that will make it more difficult for young people to start a career in the trades, all in the name of improved quality and safety. It all sounds great, but the devil really is in the details of this misguided change in policy.

Simply put, Bill 4 is wrong-headed and it won’t work.

B.C.’s trades training system is overwhelmed – there simply is not enough training spaces to meet demand. So much so, that the wait lists to get into classes are generally a year, and sometimes two or three years. The result is that it can take nearly a decade for an apprentice to complete a red seal designation and get their ticket. It’s a breathtaking breakdown of our trades training system.

What’s the point of compelling young people entering construction trades to register as an apprentice if by doing so they are condemned to years of wait lists to get their designation? It is simple math – to increase the number of Red Seal tradespeople, we need to invest in more training spaces.

We also need more modernized training delivery models. Using technology to deliver some components of trades training will also help deal with another chronic challenge – for many trades, there is only one school offering courses and it’s located in the Lower Mainland. Not great if you are a young construction worker living on Vancouver Island, in the North, or in the Interior.

The sad part of this saga is that construction contractors have been clear on what needs to be done, but as is typical of government, once a “we know best” mentality sets in, the dialogue stops and the lecturing starts.

The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA) is the single-largest sponsor of trades apprentices in B.C. Further, ICBA’s open shop members sponsor 82% of all trades apprentices in B.C.

We know what prevents young people from seeking their Red Seal designation and it’s not a Crown agency’s name – it’s lack of spaces and the absence of modern training delivery options. Yet the ideas and new approaches to training embraced by contractors doing all of the heavy lifting when it comes to trades training have been ignored.

Bill 4 offers no new training spaces, no training schools outside the Lower Mainland, and no new delivery models.

To make matters worse, the government is mandating the ratio of how many apprentices can be supervised and trained by a ticketed tradesperson on a job site. The government will spend millions of dollars hiring new inspectors to visit job sites with enforcement powers, looking to penalize contractors not abiding by ratios that make no sense on a job site. This is the kind of mind-numbing bureaucracy that adds confusion, complexity, and cost. How about this novel approach to the trades training challenge in B.C.: hire instructors, not inspectors?

The cascading effect of all the red tape associated with new rules and regulations like these significantly erodes affordability by slowing the number of people entering the construction workforce and making it more expensive to build homes and infrastructure.

Government should be encouraging young people to enter the trades by investing in new training spaces, enhancing how training is delivered, and giving flexibility and choice to contractors and workers.

The modern workforce is changing fast, yet Victoria wants to turn back the clock to a bygone era of a one-size-fits-all approach for trades training and at a very steep cost to workers and taxpayers.

The real answers are out there if the government will simply listen and learn.

Each week, ICBA’s Jordan Bateman reflects on what we’ve learned as we participate in ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program. This program is free for all ICBA members – check out icba.ca/wellness for details.

I was reading through the three Toolbox Talks attached to this month’s theme of Respectiful Workplaces, and I was struck by this piece, looking at the difference between Impact and Intent: 

Someone’s intent is what they think or feel during an action or  conversation. It’s usually the reason or motivation behind the situation. Someone might explain their intent by saying, “Well, I said it that way because…”

Impact refers to how that action or conversation makes the other person feel. They might bring up the issue of the impact by saying, “It seemed like you were…”

It can be common for someone at work to offend another person without meaning to…

No matter what, it is the impact, not the intent, that is most important at the end of the day.

This is really the pivot point in mental health, isn’t it? The intent of how we treat one another isn’t as important as the impact it has on the other person. We can be flip or joking or razzing good-naturedly, but if it hurts someone else, it’s serious – no matter our intent.

The lesson here is to stop and think for a quick second – will this quip hurt anyone? Am I being funny, or mean? The road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say – what’s the impact of my words on the people around me?

ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program is helping more than 50 companies, and thousands of construction professionals, better understand mental health. The program is free for ICBA members — see icba.ca/wellness.

Each week, ICBA’s Jordan Bateman reflects on what we’ve learned as we participate in ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program. This program is free for all ICBA members – check out icba.ca/wellness for details.

It makes sense that someone who is being harassed or mistreated at work would be more likely to say they have poor mental health (three times more likely for men, twice as likely for women, according to the materials we’re studying this week in our ICBA Wellness learnings).

But even the act of witnessing bullying affects people negatively. “Researchers from the UK have found that even without being direct victims of bullying themselves, staff who observed harassing behaviour had decreased work-related wellbeing, including feeling more depressed.”

 This makes sense. We’ve all been in situations that made us uncomfortable or brought up feelings we had considered long-resolved. Humans, by nature, are empathetic creatures – we put ourselves into other people’s stories and consider how they feel.

Toxic workplaces are caused by toxic people; it stands to reason that respectful workplaces are therefore built by respectful people. This is a choice we all must make, every day, to look out for one another – and for our own mental health.

If you someone being mistreated, speak up, and reach out to the target.

ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program is helping more than 50 companies, and thousands of construction professionals, better understand mental health. The program is free for ICBA members — see icba.ca/wellness.

The following are statements from Chris Gardner, ICBA President, on the BC Budget released Feb. 22, 2022:

• This Budget ignores the stark reality faced by everyday British Columbians: life is less affordable than ever. We need a commitment from politicians to rein in spending, taxes, and red tape, and find ways to reduce the burden on job creators to make BC more competitive.
• It simply takes too long to approve infrastructure – Canada ranks #64 in the world in the time it takes to approve a construction project. Since 2017, the Government has decided to tax and regulate our way to affordability, it’s not working.
• While capital spending is at record highs, it is being artificially inflated by the BC Government’s reliance on CBAs which cuts 85% of construction workers out of projects.  This means on megaprojects like the Pattullo, Broadway subway, Cowichan hospital, and BCIT trades training centre, workers are denied opportunities and taxpayers are paying more. The Government needs to adopt a fair and open procurement system – every construction worker in BC deserves a fair shot at taxpayer-funded infrastructure.
• Nothing in the budget accelerates the Massey Tunnel replacement or funds a new Taylor Bridge in the northeast.
• Nothing in the budget will alleviate the chronic wait lists that workers face getting into apprenticeship courses – it shouldn’t take nearly a decade to earn a Red Seal designation in a construction trade.
• Nothing in the budget will help businesses deal with the acute shortage of labour that is rippling through our economy.
• $125 billion in debt by 2025 is a breathtaking number – there is simply no willingness by this Government to face the financial realities of this historic spending.