Ontario today is facing a jobs crisis.  Our unemployment rate has been above the national average for five years, and we continue to fall further behind our peers.  Even with nearly 600,000 people unemployed in Ontario, we are facing a paradox as Ontario is also experiencing a skilled trades shortage.

The Ministry of Finance predicts that there will be over one million skilled job vacancies by 2021.  That means there will be one million jobs needing to be filled in the skilled trades, but we will not have the people to fill them.

That is why Ontario needs to modernize its 1970′s era apprenticeship system, which currently puts the priorities of union bosses ahead of new opportunities for young workers.

The Ontario PC Caucus has long championed a modern and simplified apprenticeship system.  Specifically, our plan would lower the ratio of apprentices to journeymen to one-to-one, which would create 200,000 new skilled trades jobs – from sheet metal workers to plumbers to electricians – over four years.

Under Dalton McGuinty businesses are required to employ three, four or five journeymen to train a single apprentice – a more restrictive ratio than almost all other provinces in Canada and many competing countries around the world.  Reducing the ratio will free up more journeymen to train more apprentices.  Those apprentices eventually become journeymen – and then they train apprentices of their own.  It is that simple.

Dalton McGuinty has not brought forward  a single new idea to create jobs since the recent election.  Instead he continues to cling to the failed ideas that put Ontario into this economic rut.  By contrast, the Ontario PC Caucus and I continue to put forward a practical and affordable solution to Ontario’s jobs crisis.

The Ontario PC plan to modernize Ontario’s apprenticeship system is good public policy, and it will be good for ensuring that talented young men and women in Ontario can make a career here at home.

A modern apprenticeship system is one idea I have put forward as our OntarioPC Caucus focuses on jobs and reining in government spending.  Now it’s your turn to share your ideas at my annual New Year’s Levees.

This year, they are being held on Sunday, January 8th at the Binbrook Memorial Hall (2600 Highway 56 in Binbrook from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.) and the beautiful Peninsula Ridge Estates Winery (5600 King St. West in Beamsville from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.).

The levees are free to attend and, as always, we are collecting non-perishable food items at both locations to help re-stock shelves at local food banks after an always busy Christmas season.