Province set to remove barriers to business, Mulroney announces in Georgina

Reforms to skilled trades welcome news to GTTI that has college bid on the table with province

Yorkregion.com
October 31, 2018
Heidi Riedner

The Making Ontario Open for Business Act will cut massive layers of red tape strangling businesses and create much needed jobs, York-Simcoe MPP Caroline Mulroney told a receptive audience at the Georgina Trades Training Inc. (GTTI) Friday, Oct. 26.

Cutting the 380,000 regulations on the province’s books is the main element of the PC government’s Bill 47 -- Making Ontario Open for Business Act -- which also repeals elements of the Liberal government’s minimum wage scheme with one that freezes it at $14 per hour until 2020, at which point it will rise with inflation.

Mulroney called current regulations inefficient, inflexible, out-of-date and significant barriers to business operations, growth and investment.

"Once Canada’s engine of growth, Ontario businesses are struggling to compete under the burden of the 380,000 regulations that ballooned under the previous Liberal government. That is almost twice as many as in British Columbia."

The Act also makes changes to Personal Emergency Leave rules, allowing workers to take up to three days for personal illness, two for bereavement, and three for family responsibilities.

“Government should get out of the way and let people forge their own path to success,” Mulroney said. “It needs to step back and clear that path to provide conditions so that people can succeed. That is what Bill 47 is meant to do.”

The Act also opens new opportunities for skilled trades by reducing the journeyman-to-apprenticeship ratios.

“There are people who want to build and they don’t have access to the labour force they need because there are too many impediments to being able to develop apprenticeship programs and hire skilled labour,” Mulroney said.

“This opens up jobs for those interested in the skilled trades by reducing journeyman-to-apprenticeship ratios at one-to-one and winding down the complex, job killing bureaucracy at the Ontario College of Trades.”

Reforms in skilled trades training are welcome and “long overdue”, GTTI chairperson John De Faveri said in response to Friday’s announcement.

 “Over our 12-year history, we have been advocating for improvements to the system that will not only promote trades training, but also eliminate the red tape experienced by employers with the current apprenticeship program.”

The centre, located on Baseline Road in Sutton, hopes to position itself as an accredited training facility for skilled trades, with an application and meetings with the province garnering positive feedback to date.

The GTTI's proposal hopes to address an expected 250,000 shortfall of workers in the next four of five years in the construction trades alone, while bringing a potential $8 million in spin-off economic benefits to the municipality.

Despite the province axing three university satellite campuses slated for Markham, Milton and Brampton last week, Mulroney said she remains “hopeful” she can make the case to the minister and to the government why the GTTI’s college bid would be different.

“As York-Simcoe MPP, I am a big advocate of this project and I’m going to continue to advocate for it since it fits very well into the mandate this government has set for itself,” Mulroney told The Advocate.

Mulroney said the GTTI has a strong team and proposal.

“The work they are doing here is the kind of work that our government wants to support. Our announcement today shows our government is looking for more skilled workers of the type GTTI trains."

Combined with the other elements of the Act, Mulroney said the changes are going to help Ontario get back to work, help people invest in themselves and their skills, feed their families and develop their communities.

“When I speak with workers, tradespeople, farmers and other small businesses in York-Simcoe, they tell me Ontario has been moving in a direction that threatens our communities by squeezing jobs, workers and many young people out of the economy. We are reversing this troubling decline in our communities with a smart and responsible approach to making Ontario open for business.”