Carney government commits $6 billion to boost skilled trades

The proposed “end-to-end” strategy will support young people with funding for recruitment, wage subsidies for placements and apprenticeships, upgrades to training facilities, reforms to certifications and bonuses for getting certified.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne touted it as a “step change in terms of how we’re going to approach skilled workers” in Canada and argued it would pave the way for a “strong pipeline” of the workers needed to turn plans for nation-building projects into a reality.

“This is not just an incremental measure,” Champagne told reporters. “If you look in … the recent history of our country, I don’t think we’ve approached trades training in such a comprehensive way.”

Citing a “slow and challenging” process where opportunities run out quickly, employers are often reluctant to take a chance on inexperienced workers and trainees struggle “to make ends meet,” the update said the new program aims to halve the time it takes tradespeople to get certified to work across Canada.

It commits $2 billion over the next five years for recruiting and subsidizing entry-level placements for Canadians under 30, while matching employers with recruits and giving them up to $10,000 for apprenticeship salaries.

Another $331 million will go toward training, with an eye to introducing online exams, harmonizing apprenticeship numbers across the country — pending buy-in from the provinces — and boosting funding for labour unions to expand training capacity and get new equipment.

The biggest portion of the funding — $3.4 billion — will go to $400 weekly income top-ups for apprentices taking mandatory training classes to make up for lost wages, and a $5,000 bonus for those who obtain their certifications.

The government said it will push employers, particularly those who get major federal investments, “to do their part in recruiting and retaining trades workers” but did not outline how, or if it would tie other forms of federal funding beyond this program to any job commitments.

The program will also include a pathway for trades workers to go into the Canadian Armed Forces with a $250-million investment.

NDP Leader Avi Lewis told reporters it appeared to be a “promising” program and a “sizeable investment,” but said “the devil is really going to be in the implementation,” while urging the Liberal government to get weigh in from trade unions.

“There need to be hard strings on that money,” he added, making a reference to the Ontario Skills Development Fund controversy.

Canadian Labour Congress President Bea Bruske also called it “a smart investment in the future of our country.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, in a lengthy House of Commons speech largely critical of Tuesday’s fiscal update, slammed Canada for having the “lowest investment per worker in the G7,” but said nothing about the newly announced program.

In making the case for the massive public funding for the program, the government stressed the dire shortage Canada is facing when it comes to workers in skilled trades, arguing the country will need more than 1.4 million additional workers by 2033 — far more than this program aims to achieve.

“The need is urgent, but long training processes and financial pressures on apprentices contribute to low rates of completion,” the update said. “If nothing changes, Canada will face a persistent gap of more than 20,000 skilled trades workers per year.”

According to Statistics Canada, new apprenticeship registrations reached a record 101,541 in 2024, but the certification rate was only 19.9 per cent that year.