Federal funding announcement supporting skilled trades education at Confederation College - (CJ Goater/Acadia Broadcasting)
Skilled trades courses at Confederation College are receiving a boost.
The federal government is investing $411,709 in the college’s Red Seal Trades Apprenticeship Enhancement Strategy.
“Canada is home to the smartest minds, the most talented workers and a strong education, training, and employment system,” said the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, Steven MacKinnon. “Building on these strengths will help us adapt to a changing global economy and get ahead. By investing in the skilled trades and jobs of the future, we are setting up workers and businesses to take advantage of every opportunity, while creating good jobs for Canadian workers.”
The college is using the funds to purchase new equipment for several programs like an electric vehicle, a remote welder, a diesel engine and more.
“We’re in the process of already procuring some of the wonderful pieces, items of equipment that we’ll use for teaching some,” said the Dean of the School of Engineering Technology and Trades, John Kantola. We’re going to have to wait till a couple months to receive it, but it’s very exciting for us.”
The new equipment is for the main campus in Thunder Bay, but satellite campuses across the region could benefit as well.
“Well, right now our focus is utilizing the equipment for the Thunder Bay campus and with the trades training that we deliver here, (but) 50 per cent of our students come from the region, here to Thunder Bay to study their apprenticeship programming,” added Kantola. So in a roundabout way, it does affect our community, but the technology that we see here (remote welder) can be wired up in such a way that it can be controlled and a person can access the robotic trainer from a remote location, so really there is possibilities that we could do things with regional campuses and so on and so forth.”
The possibilities for skilled trades education with the new equipment are endless, but the provincial government has not quite caught up when it comes to required education for electric and hybrid vehicles.
“The curriculum comes from, of course, standards that we have to follow through the Ontario government,” explained Kentola. “So there is a change happening through Skills Training Ontario, STO and following those standards, we are seeing a little bit of electrification coming through the automotive sector, but we’re really not sure at this point in time.
“That might be a spinoff to an entirely different trade of sorts, so until that time comes. We’re just, you know, privileged to have some of the leading-edge technology that will complement what we do, right.”
A total of 114 projects received funding alongside Confederation College.
