Skilled trades labor mobility in Canada? Not so much!

John Gallagher, a 23-year old electrical apprentice from Waterloo, Ontario had hopes to work out West on a large oil industry project. He’d worked out West before on other projects, and with family members working on this same project, he wanted to join them.

The Curious Case of the Apprentice Electrician and the Labor Recruitment Giant
Gallagher applied to Ledcor last spring, the international recruitment firm handling the labor supply. At the time of his application, he didn’t think there would be any issues with either his provincial residency or his

John Gallagher had hoped to be hired by Ledcor as an electrician on the JACOS Hangingstone expansion project in Alberta.

apprenticeship status. However, Gallagher was thrown a curve ball by his Ledcor recruiter. “She said Ledcor has a policy of not hiring Ontario apprentices. When I asked why, she said it had something to do with the Ontario training authority or whatever. I told them I was so close to completing my Red Seal, by the time they hired me and I showed up, I would be a full journeyman.” The recruiter explained that the company didn’t want to deal with the regulations as they relate to Ontario, specifically the Ontario College of Trades (OCOT).

Gallagher then re-applied to Ledcor as a laborer on the same project just to get out West, with a plan to transfer to an electrician’s job when his Red Seal came through. A different Ledcor recruiter shot down that idea, despite his thousands of hours of apprenticeship. “My ROE had to say ‘Laborer’”, says Gallagher. “‘Sorry’, the recruiter said, ‘That’s just company policy.’”

There’s at least two sides to every story
Canadian Contractor took Gallagher’s story directly to Ledcor’s Canadian Head Office in Vancouver, and spoke twice to David Hoff, Vice President of Communications. Hoff looked into Gallagher’s situation and denied certification issues or any Ledcor corporate policies were the problem, although he offered no explanation why Gallagher was told that there were. “The client was simply looking to hire locally,” Hoff told Canadian Contractor. “In this case, with the level of work and the number of people available in Alberta, they no longer needed to bring in out-of-province workers. Probably most of the people who worked in the past on projects in Alberta were from B.C., followed by Atlantic Canada, then Ontario.”  Not anymore apparently.

A Pandora’s box of economics, regulatory gaps, and lobbying
It’s more complicated than just that, however. Hoff says there are long-standing problems with the concept of full labor mobility in Canada. Trade organisations lobby provincial governments to put hiring restrictions or regulations in place, particularly for provincially funded projects, or they lobby clients about who not to hire. “For example, the province of Ontario is very aggressive about keeping Quebec workers away from jobs there. The B.C. building trades are very aggressive about keeping people out of their province who don’t have memberships there. We’ve been told that on certain projects in Ontario that we [Ledcor] can’t hire anyone from Alberta. In Saskatchewan, they used to backlist contractors who used out-of-province labor. Where you stand depends on where you live, so if you’re in Ontario trying to work in Alberta it seems unfair, but if you’re an Alberta worker it’s OK. It’s two sides of the same coin. Unfortunately, a carpenter, an electrician, or a plumber can’t just get in a truck, drive across the country, and expect to get work anywhere.”

And Hoff is right, Fort McMurray’s clean-up and re-building being a case in point. Local building organisations were adamant that local workers who had lost their jobs and homes as a result of the 2016 fires should be given hiring preference for the clean-up and re-building over anyone out-of-province.

What’s the solution?
One step would be improved regulation, Hoff says. “It’s the whole concept of labor mobility, and that’s something the federal government has to look into. But it’s primarily an area of provincial jurisdiction, at least for government projects. The private sector has a bit more flexibility.”

The other is economic. “When demand is high, clients are prepared to pay to bring in labor from other places,” says Hoff. “It’s all time and money. They might have to pay for someone out-of-province to fly back home once a month, for example. That can be a big additional cost. Right now with the condo boom in Southern Ontario, a lot of people are coming in from Atlantic Canada because there’s so much work. You usually pay a premium, but that’s in a boom cycle. Other times, if there’s enough labor locally, or the project is moving slowly enough, they’re not in a hurry. It’s a case-by-case, client-by-client decision.”

John Gallagher was fortunate. Although he had given notice, he was able to go back to his previous job with his Ontario employer and complete his Red Seal after he failed to get hired through Ledcor. And although he’s willing to concede that perhaps his Ledcor recruiters were not properly informed by their superiors when explaining the situation to him, the experience has taught him a valuable lesson about the nature of skilled labor mobility in Canada; Don’t count on it!

Have you been subject to non-hiring because of your provincial accreditation or residency?
Are you willing to share your experiences?  
Comment here, or email in confidence to
jbleasby@canadiancontractor.ca

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