Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the members of the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today.

My name is Finn Johnson, and I'm the director of government relations and communications for the Carpenters' Regional Council, an affiliate of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. The UBC represents nearly 75,000 members of the carpenters' union in Canada, working across a wide range of sectors within the skilled trades, including carpenters, drywallers, millwrights, scaffolders, concrete formworkers, pile drivers and many more professions within the construction industry. Our members are at the forefront of building and maintaining the critical infrastructure Canada relies on, including energy projects, hospitals, schools, mining projects, homes and more. Our union also prides itself on delivering industry-leading training at our 42 training centres across Canada.

Canada is at a critical juncture in our country's development. To meet our economic potential, we need to build. This is an area our members know more about than most. By fast-tracking these projects, we will be creating good jobs for working people. When unnecessary red tape holds up construction projects, our world-class workforce is underutilized, sitting on the out-of-work list with the inability to contribute their skills to what Canada needs—infrastructure development and housing.

Beyond tradespeople, nation-building projects have the potential to be mobilized to grow Canada's workforce, leading to career opportunities for workers that didn't exist previously in regions where these projects are happening, including in rural and indigenous communities. As new projects begin, our union engages in targeted outreach within the communities where the work will take place, ensuring that the benefits of these developments are directly felt by local workers and apprentices. We have a proven track record of this, including partnering with Saugeen Ojibway Nation on our building futures program for work in Ontario's nuclear sector and through many other programs like it.

Canada is anticipated to face a severe labour shortage in construction over the next decade with 20% of the existing workforce retiring. Tackling this issue will require us to break down barriers for out-of-province workers to access this work. We're called journeypersons for a reason. Careers in our industry require us to travel for work.

Many people don't believe there is a labour mobility problem in construction, given the nationally recognized Red Seal standard. However, that only applies to those who have completed their apprenticeship and passed their Red Seal exam. This does not encompass those who are still completing their apprenticeships or aren't within a registered apprenticeship program.

Our union has already broken down interprovincial barriers for all the technical training we deliver at our 42 training centres, so if you're doing a scaffolding course, no matter where you are, it's the same curriculum. However, for safety training, each province still requires workers to meet its respective standards prior to beginning work after moving from another province, even when that individual has an up-to-date certification for the exact same training. This means lost wages while waiting for courses, paying third party training fees and repetition of existing knowledge.

One of our members, Craig, is a journeyperson carpenter from Ontario who moved to Fort McMurray for a project. Although he was fully certified to work in Ontario when he moved, and Ontario's safety certification standards are among the highest in the country, he was still required to complete four eight-hour courses before starting work in Alberta. These courses cost him hundreds of dollars in addition to the lost wages he incurred while waiting for certification over that one-week period.

The solution isn't simply adopting the lowest common denominator for safety training across provinces. This would create a race to the bottom, as some provinces don't actually mandate safety certifications to work on job sites. The requirements are entirely employer driven. We want a race to the top, with the national safety standard being the gold standard. A harmonized national health and safety framework will create a mobile, efficient and safe construction workforce.

We are in support of Bill C‑5, and we look forward to continuing to be part of the conversation as Canada reduces barriers to labour mobility for construction workers and accelerates timelines for shovel-ready projects, which will create good jobs for our skilled trades workforce.

Thank you.