Canada has finally begun to confront its housing crisis with the urgency that it so rightly deserves.
In Ontario, policy initiatives have signalled a renewed commitment to getting more homes built. Federally, there is growing recognition that increasing supply is essential to restoring affordability.
These efforts deserve praise. Policymakers have acknowledged the scale of the challenge and taken meaningful steps to address it. But there’s another reality we can’t ignore. None of these housing ambitions will be achieved unless we have the skilled workforce needed to build them.
Every housing target ultimately depends on the availability of carpenters, electricians, plumbers, bricklayers, heavy equipment operators and dozens of other skilled tradespeople. Without them, housing policies become little more than plans on paper.
That is why the findings of the recent report Are We Ready to Build Canada? A Behavioural Analysis of Canada’s Construction Talent Pipeline and Skills Training Policy should serve as a wake-up call.
The report was prepared for RESCON by Nathaniel Barr, professor of creativity and senior advisor, innovation at Sheridan College; Michael McNamara, professor of creativity and director of the Community Ideas Factory at Sheridan; and James K. Stewart, economist and a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute.
The report argues that Canada's apprenticeship challenge is not primarily an economic problem. It is a design problem.
That conclusion may seem surprising at first. For years, governments have responded to labour shortages by increasing funding, promoting careers in the skilled trades and creating programs designed to attract more apprentices. Those efforts have succeeded in one important respect: registrations have increased.
The problem is that completions have not.
The report highlights a startling statistic. Apprenticeship completion rates in Canada have remained stuck at roughly 20% of registrations since 2013. In other words, four out of five people who begin the apprenticeship journey are not completing it within the current system.
Imagine a university where only one in five students graduated. Policymakers would rightly view that as a crisis requiring immediate attention. Yet in the skilled trades, this troubling reality has persisted for more than a decade.
The implications extend far beyond the apprenticeship system itself. Every apprentice who fails to complete training represents a lost opportunity to strengthen Canada's workforce. Fewer certified tradespeople mean fewer homes built, longer infrastructure timelines and reduced economic productivity.
The urgency is magnified by demographics. More than 700,000 skilled trades workers are expected to retire by 2028. In construction alone, approximately 15% of the workforce is projected to retire by 2034.
While the labour market has temporarily eased workforce pressures, policymakers should not be lulled into complacency. Many workers have already left the residential construction industry because of current market conditions. When housing demand rebounds and construction activity accelerates, the industry could find itself confronting severe labour shortages.
The traditional approach has focused heavily on recruitment. The assumption has been that if enough people enter apprenticeship programs, completion rates will take care of themselves.
But the report challenges that thinking.
Drawing on behavioural science, the authors maintain that apprenticeship systems have been designed around unrealistic assumptions about how people make decisions and navigate challenges. Policymakers have often assumed that individuals will act rationally, remain motivated, overcome obstacles independently and persist until completion.
Human behaviour rarely works that way.
People face competing demands from work and family. They become overwhelmed by complexity. They struggle with uncertainty and self-doubt. They procrastinate. They abandon plans when obstacles appear insurmountable. These are not character flaws. They are normal aspects of human behaviour.
Behavioural science examines those realities and seeks to design systems that account for them.
That insight has profound implications for apprenticeship policy.
If apprentices are struggling because application processes are unnecessarily complicated, simplify them. If critical stages of training create bottlenecks, provide targeted supports. If participants lose momentum during long training periods, develop interventions that maintain engagement. If social isolation contributes to attrition, create mentoring programs that strengthen connections and accountability.
In short, we need apprenticeship systems designed around how people actually behave, not how policymakers wish they behaved.
This does not mean funding is unimportant. Continued investments in apprenticeship programs, labour market information forecasting and skills training remain essential. And governments should continue supporting efforts to attract young Canadians into the skilled trades.
But funding alone will not solve a problem rooted in system design.
Governments need to make apprenticeship completion rates a central performance measure. Success should not be defined by how many people enter the system. It should be defined by how many emerge as certified tradespeople.
The country is about to embark on one of the most ambitious building agendas in generations. Our ability to build more homes depends on our ability to train, support and retain more skilled tradespeople.
If we want to build more homes, we must first build a better system for the people who build them.
Richard Lyall is president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON). He has represented the building industry in Ontario since 1991. Contact him at media@rescon.com.
