To the editor:
In response to Maurice Kellerman’s Feb. 20 letter to the editor, I agree that many of the trades careers are filled by supply model college certificates or just some one wanting a job. Look at our trades as roofers, cooks, horticulture and so on, now affecting carpenters.
The solution is not more municipal permits in order for them to do the work. The real issue is B.C. in its disrespect for the trades has dropped all the compulsory trades.
A municipal permit only means a licensed trades person pulls the permit but any one can do the work. Under the former provincial compulsory trades, only licensed trades persons and real apprentices can do the work, by order in counsel.
Just look to the east of us in Alberta and the growing list of compulsory trades in great numbers. We all heard the saying of supply and demand, well after World War II the colleges started training in the trades with little respect for the demand side. The supply model does not drive the need but the industrial needs should drive the supply.
The colleges just see their need to train more, and the student numbers and fees dictate the sizes of the supply model leaving the industry out.
Now we have students with no jobs from the supply model or just cheap labour.
Maurice made one mistake though and that is he said he did his apprenticeship at the Okanagan College. Maurice should have taken more credit not only for his apprenticeship but those he trained. Maurice didn’t do his apprenticeship at Okanagan college. Maurice take a look at your apprenticeship agreement it will be with an employer, the same as the apprentices you trained. Do not cut yourself short and do not give credit to those who promote a supply model that is taking resources from you and your family.
On a bright note, no matter what our political stripe is, we should be happy with our federal government of the day for bring the industrial apprenticeship back to the industry. I just hope they have the determination so as not to capitulate with the many college presidents setting their hair afire and saying the world is going to end, in hopes to continue delivering a failed supply model system.
If things do not change the trades will soon be like a industrial arts degree. Look at our provincial ITA web page and you will see they say apprenticeship is a college program. That is not just semantics, it’s a fundamental shift to a supply system where the employers are left out.
Patrick Roy,
Kelowna
