London Community News
Thursday, September, 20, 2012
OCOT will protect apprentices
(Letter from Pat Blackwood, Vice-Chairperson Ontario College of Trades)
In your article of Aug. 23 about the Ontario College of Trades (OCOT), it is only telling one side of the story, and quite frankly has been fueled by misinformation.
The OCOT will serve in its intended capacity to increase advocacy and improve training for trades people and apprentices that will serve to protect consumers.
The college would allow trades people to come to the table and help govern their own industry, rather than the coalitions opposing the college, who would rather have a bureaucrat at Queens Park regulate the trade.
In their own argument against the college, vice-chair Susan McGovern claims that contractors will have to lay off apprentices because they are violating the ratios that govern these apprenticeships by law.
This is one of the reasons there is a need for a self-governing body, to protect apprentices from being abused and taken advantage of by contractors, who do not properly indenture them, and who do not train the apprentices according to the current regulations TQQA.
Apprentices find themselves, three or four years down the road, not being able to complete their apprenticeship, as they were not properly registered in the first place. These same contractors hold themselves out as being qualified, yet are not properly certified themselves. Yes, I can certainly see why this association is opposed to the college.
To say that the OCOT is an $84 million tax grab is just untrue; our budget for 2013 is $20 million....
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