As mining exploration ramps up in the Ring of Fire in northwestern Ontario, the construction industry in the region awaits busy times.
Along with the expected building construction boom, there will be bridges, roads and power infrastructure to build plus “a whole range of unprecedented development,” says Don Bernosky, vice-president, Regional Workforce Development (RWD), at Confederation College in Thunder Bay. “It could be as big as the Sudbury mining basin or the whole Timmins area.”
Meeting the demand for a skilled workforce will be challenging. For training institutes like Confederation College, it is good news that mining companies are still a few years away from construction.
That gives the college “limited time” to develop appropriate training programs for building, says Bernosky. With nine campuses in northwestern Ontario, Confederation is the only community college in the region. It offers apprenticeship training in carpentry, electrical, motive power trades, and construction trades.
In conjunction with the multi-billion dollar Ring of Fire developments, there are 12 potential mining projects around Thunder Bay, he says.
“We’ve been meeting with the (mining) companies, the government and local communities to establish a plan for the development of a future workforce,” points out Bernosky.
The first step is to identify the scope of work and schedule for each major project, he says. Training initiatives will target a wide range of industries, starting with the construction trades.
The training model is not new to the college. For the development of the Meno Ya Win Health Care Centre in Sioux Lookout, RWD teamed up with the construction trades and the Sioux Lookout Area Aboriginal Management Board to supply identified labor needs from the community to build the hospital.
“Some of the people we trained for that project went on to pursue careers in construction,” Bernosky points out.
The hospital is among a number of examples where the college has worked closely with the community and developers. It has never, however, taken on a training agenda as big as the Ring of Fire.
One of the key’s to the college’s success at meeting the skilled workforce requirements is that it gets plenty of advance notice about a planned development and its scheduled delivery, Bernosky emphasizes.
Harold Lindstrom, manager of the Construction Association of Thunder Bay (CATB), sees the college’s model as innovative.
For the rest of this article, please go to the Daily Commercial News and Construction Record website: http://www.dcnonl.com/article/id51570