British Columbia

Kelowna, BC – Today, the Hon. Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages of Canada joined leaders from Canada’s Building Trades Unions, Provincial Building Trades Councils, and workforce development partners SkillPlan, Future Skills Centre, Magnet, and SRDC to announce $5.5 million in investments supporting apprenticeships, and national-scale recruitment, assessment, and training to help underrepresented workers find well-paid careers in the skilled trades.

We have worked with the Future Skills Centre (FSC) for a little while now. There is something about their appreciation of what it takes for innovation to flourish that has been truly supportive of our approach.

In the context of a rapidly changing world of work, Canadians need access to better and more relevant labour market information (LMI) to make informed decisions while navigating the labour market. This project, through the execution of a number of randomized control trials, tested how best to inform, empower, and engage Canadians when it comes to making decisions about work.

This project examined what kinds of future skills and jobs will be needed, how the nature of the work is changing, what kinds of support and policies can aid businesses and workers alike, and how policymakers, educational institutions, and industry can both enable and smooth this transition. It studied three specific opportunities: zero-emission vehicles in Ontario, plant-based protein in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and mass timber in British Columbia.

In recent years, young people have faced difficulties in the labour market. Pandemic lockdowns impacted school and work for most young people, alongside accelerated technological change and the increasing prevalence of gig work (characterized by short-term, on-demand, and task-based labour) have all had negative impacts on quality of work for young people. 

Cellular agriculture is a suite of technologies to grow proteins indoors, with minimal or no use of live animals. Products have the potential to be local, reliable dairy and meat alternatives with low environmental footprints and can be produced in industrial, urban and rural spaces. This project engaged people working in agriculture and food sectors, NGOs, technology developers, entrepreneurs, social science and natural science researchers, educators, and students to explore the viability of a regional cellular agriculture industry in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

Stakeholders in British Columbia are exploring the potential of mass timber, an engineered wood product used as a building material, to drive economic growth in a number of industries. A thriving mass timber sector could help generate novel opportunities for many forestry communities (that are currently experiencing a decline), as well as help build sustainable housing in the province.

Autism CanTech! (ACT!) was a 6-month program for young people with autism to receive skills training and paid work placements in entry-level data management positions.

The world is changing rapidly and the way enterprises respond to those changes will have long-term consequences for economic competitiveness, social cohesion and environmental change.