The Legault government announced Monday a relaxation of the rules governing training in the construction field in order to remedy the labor shortage in this excessively regulated sector. The main construction union reacted in a manner that could not have been more predictable, by defending the achievements of a corporatism doomed to failure.
The housing crisis is widely discussed in the public debate in Quebec, but too little attention is paid to the policies that must be put forward in order to accelerate construction starts and improve the supply of available housing.
According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, at least 860,000 housing units will need to be built by 2030 in Quebec to restore affordability. It will take hands to make this chore happen.
However, construction is the same as most trades and professions in this aging Quebec. Here too, the shortage of personnel threatens to transform ambitious collective projects into lost illusions. Currently, Quebec estimates that there is a shortage of approximately 6,500 workers in the construction industry.
The Legault government is repeating the experience of accelerated training for beneficiary attendants by developing a paid study program of four to six months in construction. New professional study certificates will be offered for five trades: carpenter, tinsmith, refrigeration engineer, mechanical excavator operator and heavy equipment operator. The initiative could make it possible to recruit 4,000 to 5,000 additional workers by next summer.
Unsurprisingly, the FTQ-Construction reacted badly. According to its general director, Éric Boisjoly, the project will “cannibalize all other professions”. The president of the Federation of Education Unions (FSE-CSQ), Josée Scalabrini, agrees. She even fears that students will be pushed “from full training to half-training”.
These are ill-founded premises. As the Quebec Construction Association points out, active workers are not going to leave a job at $40 an hour for training at $25 an hour. The program is aimed at a different clientele, who could be tempted by an affordable career change. What’s more, Quebec has combined its program with an incentive for students in training to continue their studies. They could obtain a scholarship of $9,000 to $15,000 upon obtaining their professional studies diploma (DEP).
Unions raise legitimate health and safety concerns, but again, their criticism of the new program falls flat. In the professions targeted by the announcement, 89% of workers access construction sites without having followed even the start of training. It is better to focus on collaboration with employer authorities to provide continuing training on construction sites. Worker safety, non-negotiable, must be the subject of vigilance and unequivocal commitment from the management and union parties.
However, it will take more than an accelerated training program to make up for the delay in construction starts in Quebec. As part of an anonymous survey carried out among its members, the Association of Construction and Housing Professionals of Quebec identified the blocking of more than 25,000 homes in Quebec, the result of mixed problems linked to social acceptability and its hideous twin, the “not in my backyard”, administrative burdens in the issuance of permits and the political orientations of public decision-makers. This is a significant part of the problem.
The construction industry also lags behind Ontario in terms of productivity. Employer bodies are of the opinion that the decompartmentalization of professions would enable potential gains to be made by increasing the versatility of workers. They are also calling for the removal of barriers to regional mobility, an insidious phenomenon that has persisted for too long. These barriers in principle make it possible to stabilize jobs in the region, but they are used to preserve the private preserve of construction unions, as the work of the Charbonneau commission has amply demonstrated.
The Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet, will have to demonstrate great determination to complete his reform aimed at decompartmentalizing professions and facilitating the recognition of acquired knowledge and skills. Women, candidates from immigrant backgrounds and members of the First Nations are under-represented in the construction trades. This is an issue that calls for action.
The FTQ-Construction withdrew from the consultations led by the minister, which is completely deplorable. Construction unions can no longer simply express reservations on questions of training, skills or integration and slam the door when they feel their prerogatives are threatened.