March 22, 2013 – The Canadian Building Trades says the federal government’s budget for 2013-2014—the Canada Jobs Grant, specifically—will allow an increase in the delivery of training and the capacity to access such training.

“We are very much heartened to see that the GOC [Government of Canada] has listened to industry and delivered on skills,” said Building Trades COO Robert Blakely. “The Canada Jobs Grant will allow us to deliver strongly needed skills in a much more timely way to the young Canadians who need those skills to access the best jobs in our growing industry.”

Blakely also noted “the anti-union and anti-training organizations who do not train workers and oppose investing in training will use high-flown phrases to talk about how the requirement to train is actually a disincentive to access skills training; this is a self-centred and narrow view. It is code for limited or no training because a highly trained person has job mobility”.

The Building Trades says it has over 300 “state-of-the-art training facilities” across Canada that will be ready to offer “first-class skills training” under these government programs.

The North America-wide BCTD AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labour – Congress of Industrial Organizations) coordinates activities and provides resources to 15 affiliated trade unions in the construction, maintenance and fabrication industries. In Canada, the BCTD says it represents 500,000 skilled trades workers.