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Private Members' Business

National Framework on Skilled Trades and Labour Mobility Act

2026-04-23 Sitting 109 Showing 1–3 of 3

A bill to create a national framework for recognizing skilled trades and making it easier for skilled trades workers to move between provinces. During the debate, the Liberals talked about the need for this framework and how it would bring back respect for skilled trades, while the Conservatives accused the government of ignoring the needs of trades workers and the Bloc questioned the need for the bill.

Official Hansard ↗

Garnett Genuis

Conservative 5:30 p.m.

“You say you respect trades workers, but you cut their grants on page 217 of the budget. When Conservatives tried to restore those grants, you voted against it. Why did you join the Liberals to block our effort to help trades workers?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I wish we saw more respect for trades workers from the government. Sadly, in the last budget, the government chose to cut trades workers off from access to student grants. It is on page 217 of the budget that people who go to private institutions, which generally includes trades workers, as trades programs are not offered at universities, are cut off from student grants as a result of a decision made by the government. The Conservatives put forward a motion earlier this week, on Tuesday, asking the government to reconsider this policy, and the member who put forward the bill that is before us and who just spoke about respecting trades workers, voted against our motion that sought to give these grants back to students. I want to ask the member why he joined the rest of the Liberals in opposing our effort to get grants back to people in the trades.

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Garnett Genuis

Conservative 5:45 p.m.

“The government messed up. They should fix their own mistakes, not make us pass a bill to make a plan to fix them later. I want the government to stop attacking trades workers. The government says it wants to help workers, but then it made a rule to give less money to students who go to trade schools. That’s not fair. Some schools got an exception, but not trade schools. Conservative MPs said that was wrong, but all the Liberal MPs voted for it, even ones who said before that it was wrong. Talking about making a framework isn't the same as actually fixing the problem. The government should stop saying one thing and doing another.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the bill that the Liberal member has brought to us is an interesting one, because in many respects it feels like an admission of failure on the part of the government. The Liberals have been in power for more than 10 years. They have repeatedly ignored the needs of trades workers and treated trades workers, as well as the work they do, with utter disdain, and now a member of the Liberal government is saying that maybe it should have a framework to try to fix some of the problems confronting trades workers, including problems around labour mobility. I will give the member credit insofar as his speech identified very real problems that are making things more difficult for trades workers trying to get certification, trying to move, trying to find jobs, etc. However, I think it is important to observe that the government did not need a private member's bill compelling it to introduce a framework in order to solve these problems. The government could simply have acted to solve these problems that are, in many respects, of their own making. The government also could have proposed the framework without having one of its members propose a bill to require it to present a framework. Fixing these problems is within the power of the government, and the problems are ones that have emerged from the actions and failures of a Liberal government that has been in many respects negative and disdainful about the people who build this country. Instead of fixing the problems, the government got one of its members to propose a bill that calls for the development of a framework that is kind of directed toward pushing the government to solve problems that, at the end of the day, the government should solve itself. I appreciate the identification of the problems, finally, but what we would really like is for the government to change policies in order to reverse bad decisions it has made that are bad for trades workers. If we look at the history of the government, we see that there are repeated instances of criticism and disdain for our hard-working trades workers. Most notable was when the former prime minister said that major projects in this country require a gender analysis because male construction workers' coming to towns to build things might have gendered impacts. The former prime minister never spoke about the gendered impacts of people in suits' showing up. Instead he was purveying negative stereotypes about hard-working men and women who travel from home to build the projects this country needs. He talked about how we should not be known for our resources but should instead be known for our resourcefulness. This was constant negative discourse from the former prime minister about hard-working trades workers. Maybe we could have hoped that the negative discourse would change with the new Prime Minister, but things have gotten even worse under him. In particular, in the last budget, a policy was announced that effectively singles out people in certain vocations, including trades workers, to no longer be able to access student grants. Page 217 of the last federal budget explains the dynamic. It says that students at private for-profit institutions, which includes vocational schools where many trades workers learn their trade, would no longer be eligible for grants under the federal student loan program. This means that if someone studies any program at a university, no matter how labour-market relevant it is or is not, they can get those grants. However, if they study at a vocational institution to learn a trade, regardless of how urgently our economy needs those workers, they cannot get those grants. University students get the grants. If students are studying in the trades or for other critical skills at vocational institutions, they do not get the grants. This was the policy of the Prime Minister in the last federal budget, effectively singling out these occupations, including trades workers, to be denied student grants. This policy is going to exacerbate existing shortages in these critical areas, because it sends a message to young people that the government is going to support them more if they go through the one door than if they go through the other door. In fact what we should be doing is trying to magnify the signals of the labour market to young people. We should be offering, as Conservatives proposed, more generous student grants to students who are pursuing studies in in-demand fields. Instead, the Liberals are discriminating based on the institutions that students apply for. Just today, the government announced some further details of this planned policy. It announced some exceptions for certain kinds of vocations that people might study for at private institutions. The exemptions are better than nothing. We have done a lot of advocacy around this work and it feels like we are pushing the needle a bit. The exemptions were for nursing, dental hygiene, early childhood education and paramedics. It should not be a policy of exemptions. We should just eliminate in general this discriminatory policy that the government has proposed. What I notice about these exceptions is that none of them apply to trades workers. Therefore, the government's policy continues to be that if someone is studying to become a tradesperson, and in many cases that training is offered at private institutions, then they cannot get a student grant. It is mind-boggling to me, in this time when finally even the Liberals are paying lip service to the fact that we need more trades workers, that they are still pursuing a policy that attacks trades workers by denying grants specifically to those who are pursuing careers in the trades. The Conservatives have been doggedly pursuing this issue. We are defending trades workers, defending those who are trying to pursue critical skills at vocational institutions. In many cases, these are skills that are simply not offered at public or not-for-profit institutions. We have pushed this issue at the human resources committee and we were able to get the human resources committee to adopt a unanimous report encouraging the government to reconsider this policy. Even Liberals on the human resources committee at the time voted in favour of asking the government to reconsider this policy. Then, this week, we put the motion before the House of Commons on Tuesday, and every single Liberal member voted against our motion to reconsider this policy. Every Liberal member present voted in favour of this Liberal policy to discriminate against trades workers and others pursuing vocational training at private institutions. The member who sponsored this bill and just spoke about the importance of trades workers voted in favour of the Liberal policy and against our motion to reconsider it. The Liberal member who put forward this bill earlier this week voted in favour of denying funding to students specifically and uniquely in the trades at private institutions. The member for Markham—Unionville, who previously as a Conservative worked with me on this issue, called out the Liberal policy change for being systemically discriminatory because of its attack on those studying traditional Chinese medicine. He called this Liberal policy discriminatory and then, after he crossed the floor, he voted in favour of the policy that he said systemically discriminates against his own community and others. It is pretty baffling, to say, “This is systematically discriminatory against the community that I represent, and now I am going to vote for it.” Every Liberal member of the human resources committee who initially voted in favour of this motion to reconsider the discriminatory Liberal policy reversed their position when the motion came to the House. It is unbelievable. We have this situation of “say one thing and do the exact opposite”. There are members in today's debate, I am sure, eager to pay lip service to the value of trades while attacking trades workers by targeting them with the removal of funding through these student grants. They cannot deny it because every one of them voted for it. Not only did they vote for the budget, but we had a stand-alone vote on this discrimination against trades workers. Every Liberal who was present, including the sponsor of this bill, voted in favour of that discrimination. They cannot get away with saying, “We are going to attack trades workers. We are going to insult them. We are going to deny funding that is available to every other stream, but then we are going to have a framework to study trying to fix these problems in the future.” It is time for the Liberals to put their money where their mouth is on this issue, to put actions behind words. The Conservatives will always stand with, and stand up for, the hard-working trades workers who built this country. It is a pity that the Liberals are attacking them while hypocritically pretending to care.

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Warren Steinley

Conservative 6:15 p.m.

“I want to make Canada a place where people see themselves being able to have a good job and raise a family in a home on safe streets. The Liberals are failing on that front. People are leaving our country because they do not believe there will be a job waiting for them after they get their education. Steel workers are scared those jobs are not going to be in Canada anymore. The Prime Minister failed on trade deals and tariffs. He cannot get the job done. We will put forward ideas and policies to grow the economy so that young people stay and see a future in Canada.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join this private member's bill debate around the national framework on skilled trades and labour mobility act coming from the member for Richmond East—Steveston. He made some interesting comments in his speech that I would like to address. He talked about there not being so many people leaving our country and going to the United States, which is blatantly untrue. I wondered what the numbers actually were for emigration from Canada to the United States over the last couple of years. I went to StatsCan, and it said that 120,000 people left Canada in 2025, with 2026 data suggesting this trend is persistent and largely driven by economic factors and high-skilled professionals moving south. On the key trends in rising migration, the number of Canadians leaving for the U.S.A. in 2025 grew by roughly 3% over 2024, marking four consecutive years of growth, according to StatsCan. This is where it gets scary and this is why we need to do more for our young people in Canada. Over half of these emigrants are prime-aged workers between 25 to 49, with professionals like engineers and scientists leaving at twice the rate of others. The U.S.A. remains the primary destination for Canadians relocating abroad. I think this hits at the heart of the problem when we talk about frameworks and ideas around what we can do to grow the Canadian economy. The Liberals talked about the one Canadian economy and made promises that we would have fewer interprovincial trade barriers by July 2025. Not much has happened on that front. My concern is they are not realizing there is a problem. There is a big problem with Canada losing its young, skilled workers. It is something we have to take very seriously. My fear, and this came out of the Liberal National Convention, is that to make sure young people do not leave Canada, the Liberals want to charge them $500,000 to leave Canada. How asinine is that? It is not about trying to make sure the economy is strong enough that young people want to stay, but trying to charge them a huge fee so they will not leave. A couple of the Liberals across the way are shaking their head. This was on the convention floor. They had a speaker come in who said that they should charge young people $500,000 so they do not leave this country. I would suggest maybe taking a bigger look at what has happened over the last 11 years in our country with these Liberals in charge. They put forward legislation and policies that basically killed our natural resource sector. There was the “no more pipelines" bill and the shipping ban on B.C. Then they were looking at other things like steel tariffs. Last year, the Liberals campaigned and won the election on having the guy who could get a deal done with Donald Trump. He has been an abject failure on that front. Canadians can see now that the Prime Minister is just an illusionist. It is all smoke and mirrors; he never gets the job done. The Liberals have not really managed to get one trade deal done in the year that he has been Prime Minister, and he has failed when it comes to dealing with Donald Trump. I met with steel workers of USW 5890 from Regina today. One of their biggest concerns is making sure they have enough money through the labour market development agreement to ensure they can get additional training. They are scared those jobs are not going to be in Canada anymore. When we look at a steel plant like Everest Steel, it is a natural resource company. If there are not natural resources being developed, pipelines are not needed. The Liberal government has failed on every front when it comes to getting something built in this country. Basically, we have not had a large project in a long time. They talk about the Darlington nuclear plant. That has been going on for 10 years. Their Major Projects Office has not announced one new project. There have only been reannoucements. When we look at why young people are leaving our country in droves, it is because they do not see a future. They do not believe they are ever going to be able to afford a house, because housing prices have skyrocketed. They do not believe there will be a job waiting for them after they get their education. That is why we have the big brain drain, as Statistics Canada has said. Can members believe that we are losing 120,000 people a year to the United States? Our country has all of the riches and all of the resources, and we cannot create an economy, because of the Liberals, that is an economic reason for people to stay in our country. That is something that lies completely at the feet of the Liberal government. We talk about having to do frameworks. I am lucky the member for Winnipeg North talked about being in the provincial government. I was in the provincial government with former premier Brad Wall. We brought forward the New West Partnership, an agreement that allows people more mobility when it comes to trade, so they can go between Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan. When the member said it was largely a provincial issue, he was right, but there should be leadership from the federal government when it comes to that. The Liberals always make these grandiose announcements, but they never follow through. That would be my one concern about this. There are timelines in here, but will the Liberals make the timelines? The timelines do not seem to matter to the Prime Minister. He is just another Liberal. The Prime Minister promised to have a deal done with Donald Trump. He promised to have a deal done by July 21, 2025. He made it a specific date. These are not my words that I am trying to hold him accountable to. He should be held accountable to his own words and his own standards. I think this was coined by the member for Winnipeg North, but the three Ts are tariffs, Trump and trade. On those files, there are three Fs. The Prime Minister has failed, failed and failed when it comes to trying to make deals and getting the tariffs removed. The steel tariffs are a very big deal in Saskatchewan. There is a lot of concern from the people who work at Interpro, which used to be Evraz. It was bought, so it is a new company. There is concern because there is uncertainty about how it is going to be able to do trade. There is a plant in Portland, so some stuff is going back and forth, but there is a fear right now about whether there will be more projects that use steel. For example, what projects are going to move forward that use Canadian steel? That is the other fear. In some of the projects that have gone forward, imported steel is being used, not good, made-in-Canada steel. That is another thing that was brought up to me in our meeting today. Lots of our skilled workers and tradespeople are younger people, and they need to have a vision of Canada in which they can see themselves living in this country. They want to have affordable housing. They want to have streets with less crime. They want to be able to buy a house and start a family. In another statistics report, we read that people are delaying having kids longer because they think that they cannot afford to have children in this current climate. We have the slowest growing economy in the G7. We have the highest food inflation in the G7. That is a made-in-Canada problem. The Liberals have tried to blame everything on others. My colleague from northern Saskatchewan, for some reason, asked if the Conservatives could stop a war in Libya. I think he got his countries wrong, and the guy gets a lot of things wrong, but what he can do is try to be someone who actually supports Saskatchewan and tries to get things done for Saskatchewan. When we are talking on the floor of the House of Commons, the Liberals need to look at the root causes of why young people are leaving our country, and we need to make Canada a place where people see themselves being able to have a good job and raise a family in a home on safe streets. That is why people are choosing to leave this country. It is all because of the policies being driven by this long-serving, 11-year-old Liberal government. There is nothing new about the Liberals from the last election a year ago. It is all the same policies. It is many of the same faces in the same places. They changed the guy at the top, who is very similar to Justin Trudeau in many ways. It is funny that no one mentions Justin Trudeau anymore. They seem to have amnesia when it comes to Justin Trudeau. The Prime Minister is just another Liberal like Trudeau, and his policies are causing young people to leave our country. As the Conservative Party, we have put forward ideas and policies to grow the economy so that young people stay and see a future in Canada. We will continue to put forward ideas that grow our economy and make Canada the best place in the world to live, raise a family and get ahead.

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