We are at a perilous crossroads — and the voices raising the alarm about Canada’s trades-labour predicament deserve more than polite nods. They demand action. The recent column in the Edmonton Journal by my friend, Naseem Bashir, is not a mere diagnosis of a labour shortage; it is a manifesto for the future of this country’s industrial backbone. As someone who has spent years deeply engaged in structural and civil engineering and project-management, I echo its urgency, and challenge fellow practitioners, educators and policymakers to move from concern to construction.
🚧 The structural vacuum — not just numbers, but loss of institutional memory
Yes: by the most conservative estimates, Canada faces a wave of retirements that will drain hundreds of thousands of skilled tradespeople from the workforce within a few short years. But this is not simply a demographic inconvenience. It is a loss of cumulative institutional knowledge, the experience, the judgment calls, the inherited understanding of what “good building” or “safe wiring” or “precise welding” means.
When dozens of veteran journeypersons walk off the jobsite for the last time, they take with them more than torque wrenches and tool belts. They take decades of tacit know-how — the kind that doesn’t live in textbooks or certificate programs but in hands, habits, and hard-earned respect for craft. Without a robust replacement mechanism, what we risk is not only a shortage of labour, but a collapse in quality, craftsmanship, and long-term reliability of Canada’s built environment.
Yes: by the most conservative estimates, Canada faces a wave of retirements that will drain hundreds of thousands of skilled tradespeople from the workforce within a few short years.
Unleashing latent potential — youth, diversity, and the de-stigmatizing of “the trades”
Why aren’t more young Canadians signing up? Because the incentives are crooked. For decades, we’ve taught the next generation that success = university degree; that “white collar” equals prestige; that manual work is a fallback, a last resort. That narrative is bankrupt.
But there is a way forward. The demand for skilled trades is not only real, it’s surging. Over the next few years, Canada will need hundreds of thousands of new Red Seal journeypersons if we are to meet infrastructure, housing, and industrial-development goals.
If we want to reverse the trend of youth exodus from trades: we must treat these careers as first-choice, not fallback. That means investing in outreach early, in high schools, in community centres, and confronting outdated prejudices head-on. It means encouraging women, newcomers, Indigenous people: all those under-represented currently in trades. According to recent analysis, an inclusive and diverse workforce is not simply morally commendable, it is essential.
Programs like Skills Canada, which expose young people to real-world trades competitions, or government-backed apprenticeships under Red Seal Program are a start. But they need to be scaled dramatically, with better funding, better awareness campaigns, and higher social status.
Why aren’t more young Canadians signing up? Because the incentives are crooked. For decades, we’ve taught the next generation that success = university degree; that “white collar” equals prestige; that manual work is a fallback, a last resort. That narrative is bankrupt.
Strategic imperatives: how we rebuild the pipeline (and safeguard the future)
I propose a three-pronged strategy, grounded in experience from the building and engineering world, that could transform talk into tangible impact:
- Scale up apprenticeships and make them accessible. Governments and industry must expand subsidies and training-slots. The long-standing underinvestment, in classrooms, mentorship, training labs, must end. Programs like Canada Job Grant and other federally/ provincially supported initiatives should be retooled to prioritize trades now.
- Promote trades as a viable, prestigious first choice. Through public campaigns, school curricula, community outreach, parading the pride, the pay, the social value of being a skilled tradesperson. Especially critical: present trades as modern, high-tech, and green. After all, many trades now interface deeply with digital systems, automation, and the complex infrastructure of a 21st-century Canada.
- Create inclusive pipelines deliberately targeting under-represented demographics. Women, Indigenous people, immigrants, youth from marginalized communities, these are talent pools we’ve under-harvested. We must create mentorship, scholarships, hands-on trade camps, and community-driven training programs. Inclusivity is not just a slogan, it is a necessary condition for maintaining capacity at scale.
If implemented with discipline and intention, these tactics could restore, even expand, Canada’s capacity to build, maintain and modernize infrastructure, homes, energy and industry.
Why this matters now: the cost of failure is too high
The stakes are nothing less than national resilience. Slowing or collapsing trades capacity will not only delay homes, hospitals, transit lines, energy projects, or industrial modernization, it will drive up costs, reduce quality, and erode public trust. For a country that aspires to meet climate goals, deliver affordable housing, build low-carbon infrastructure, and protect its heritage of craftsmanship, this would be a self-inflicted wound.
The column in the Edmonton Journal is right: building Canada means building up the trades. But more than rhetoric, we need concrete commitments, from business leaders, educators, unions, and governments.
We must act, now, because once those master carpenters, seasoned welders, and certified journeypersons disappear, they will not return. And once the pipeline runs dry… no statute of limitations will revive it.
Writen by our CEO, Devlin Fenton, and posted on LinkedIn here.