The Ontario Federation of Labour welcomed the opportunity to participate in the 2007 Review of Compulsory Trades undertaken by Mr. Tim Armstrong. We agreed with the intent of the Review in so far as the province wanted to promote apprenticeship registration, completion, competence and safety, and to enhance the overall skill level of Ontario’s workforce. Armstrong’s Report, published in April 2008 made a variety of recommendations, among which was a suggestion to establish a trades governance body.
At the time, the Ontario Federation of Labour supported the concept, primarily as a means of ensuring that the decisions made by employers and organized labour within the trades would be implemented. However, we also knew that in order to move forward with an effective body, the lingering structural problems created by the previous Conservative government in the late 1990s must be addressed.
Unfortunately, Bill 183 fails to address the Mike Harris legacy and offers a model that appears far too complicated to enhance the implementation of decisions and far too oriented on disciplining trades workers to be effective. We are concerned that the structures envisioned by Bill 183 as drafted will be: top-heavy and top-down; unaccountable; lacking a sufficient degree of expertise in the skilled trades; immediately mired in jurisdictional disputes; and bogged down in bureaucracy. As a consequence, Bill 183 will fail to establish an effective governance structure that could promote authentic trades and apprenticeship training in Ontario.
The Harris Legacy: Fragmenting the Trades
In the late 1990s, the government of former Premier Mike Harris decimated the legislation that governed trades and apprenticeship training: the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act (TQAA). The majority of trades were removed from the TQAA and