Ottawa’s $6 billion ($4.4 billion) initiative for the skilled trades aims to ease a looming labor crunch, but it’s uncertain how much spending will go to mining — an industry already scrambling for electricians, mechanics and heavy equipment technicians.
Prime Minister Mark Carney last week outlined a five-year package to train between 80,000 and 100,000 workers in skilled trades. The program, called Team Canada Strong, includes $2 billion for paid apprenticeships, including up to $10,000 of a first-year stipend.
“Any government program that is put in place to help support the development of the skilled trades pipeline will help the mining sector — there’s no doubt about that,” Ryan Montpellier, executive director of the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, which tracks the labor market, said in an interview. “But this package focuses primarily on housing and infrastructure projects, and mining competes for the same pool of workers.”
The council, which is funded by industry and government, says the need for skills development is real and growing. Montpellier said employment in mining has risen by about 50% over the past five years, while the industry faces an aging workforce, with one in five workers now over 55 years old. About 250,000 workers are needed over the next decade in everything from engineers and geologists to skilled trades and production roles, according to council forecasts due out this month.
Critical skills
The council estimates that skilled trades represent 15% to 20% of Canada’s mining workforce, about 65,700 to 87,600 of the total the federal government has set at 438,000 in 2024.
The Ottawa program plans to provide $331 million to accelerate training and certification, including support for union-run training centres. It has $3.4 billion to encourage participation, including a $5,000 completion bonus and a $400 weekly bonus during mandatory in-class training, for a total support of up to $16,000 per trainee.
Ottawa said the plan aims to cut certification timelines in half by digitizing parts of the red seal process — the Canadian inter-provincial standard for many occupations — including online exams, digital records and a single national registered apprenticeship number.
This is important because mines compete directly with housing, infrastructure and energy projects for the same workers, often in the same regions, and while Team Canada Strong targets trades such as electricians, millworkers and heavy equipment technicians, mining could end up qualifying on paper but being squeezed out in practice if funding flows toward heavy construction pipelines without explicit support for mine construction and operations.
The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum welcomed the federal investment but cautioned that the payoff depends on implementation.
“The focus on supporting trainees to completion is an important step forward,” France Daviot, the company’s CEO, said in a statement issued on April 28. “Now the focus must shift to implementation and ensuring that these investments translate into a system that is more accessible, efficient and responsive to the needs of both trainees and employers.”
Support the union
The federal plan has been approved by several large construction unions, government officials said in an email response to questions. These groups include members working in the mining industry, such as the International Union of Operating Engineers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical and Ironworkers, and LiUNA Canada, the Canadian arm of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, a union of construction and industrial workers.
The department said more information about eligibility and how the program will be administered to specific industries will be published “in due course.”
Unlike mining-specific roles such as underground miner, driller, blaster or mineral processing operator, which companies and industry often train internally, many tradespeople move between sectors as wages and project schedules change.
That mobility is exactly what worries mine operators and contractors monitoring Ottawa’s housing and infrastructure agenda, Montpellier said. Even if the craft package increases the overall supply of trainees and passengers, the near-term effect may be increased competition.
Achieving red seal certification can take four, five or six years depending on the trade, meaning the pipeline won’t swell overnight. Meanwhile, projects that can provide steady urban work, predictable cycles, or quicker access to work hours can draw talent away from mining sites that rely on in-and-out flight schedules, remote camps, and long-distance travel.
Likewise, measures such as enhancing tax deductions on labor mobility and write-offs for travel, temporary housing and transportation costs could be beneficial to traders operating in rural and remote areas. Mines often stabilize local economies, but they cannot offer the same lifestyle as construction jobs in the city.
Sector incentives
Ottawa is also moving towards sector-specific workforce planning in parallel. Montpellier said the federal government has identified mining as one of six priority sectors for workforce “alliances,” backed by a separate funding package of more than $380 million aimed at supporting training, upskilling, mobility and skills recognition.
The Canadian Mining Association is working with Employment and Social Development Canada on a mining-focused coalition that the Department of Human Resources expects to launch later this year, bringing employers, educators, Indigenous organizations and workers together to address persistent bottlenecks.
“We need to get out there and talk about our industry and compete for that talent,” Montpellier said. “As Canada ramps up housing and infrastructure construction, mining needs to continue to compete — and perhaps compete more aggressively with some of these other industries.”
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