August 22, 2011 – The Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship (CCDA) says it aims to further promote the use of the Red Seal through its 2009-2012 Strategic Plan. According to the council, the province of Quebec has actively participated in the Red Seal since 1971 and currently has 36 Red Seal designated trades–it does not, however, use the Red Seal exam as the final certification exam, but rather uses its own exam for provincial certification.

The CCDA said it has undertaken an analysis of Quebec’s assessment processes to see if it could be considered as being equivalent to the Red Seal assessment process in the hopes of promoting the Red Seal among Quebec workers and employers.

To pursue this analysis, the CCDA has constituted a working group which, over the past two years, has developed a draft framework that sets out the guiding principles and conditions to be met in order to grant equivalency, it said. According to the CCDA, this framework was tested within a research project using two trades from Quebec: bricklayer (Commission de la construction du Québec), and electrician (ministère de l’Éducation et de la Solidarité sociale). An independent firm with expertise in evaluation performed the analysis and concluded that the framework is rigorous and that Quebec’s assessment processes for the Bricklayer and Electrician trades are equivalent to the Red Seal assessment process, it added.

As a next step, the CCDA has announced it will now conduct an analysis to evaluate if the examinations used by Quebec for the bricklayer and electrician trades are equivalent to the Red Seal examinations. This analysis, scheduled for the summer and fall of 2011, is to be inclusive and allow for the participation of subject matter experts drawn from industry and provincial/territorial representatives from each jurisdiction that wishes to participate, it explained.

Following completion of the research project, the CCDA will be seeking feedback from stakeholders, both within and outside of Quebec, in the fall of 2011 before making a decision on whether or not it should authorize Quebec to issue the Red Seal endorsement using its own certification methods, it continued.