Tech tools Dover Bay students take delivery of e-instruction gadgets. PAGE 12 Literacy day Library offers events to entertain and improve literacy skills. PAGE B1 Playoff position Clippers look ahead to impact of weekend games. PAGE 3
Fog effects PAGE 7
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2013
VOL. 24, NO. 114
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Area facing skills shortage High number of trades workers expected to retire in coming years BY JENN M C GARRIGLE THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Motor vehicle mishap Paramedics check inside a Suzuki car as firefighters hook a chain to a fire truck to pull it clear to remove the female driver of a Honda Civic, left, following a crash at the corner of Fitzwilliam and Pine streets just before 5 p.m. Tuesday. Police said the Suzuki’s male driver lost control of the car – possibly due to a medical condition – which veered off Fitzwilliam Street and hit the driver’s side door of the Civic stopped on Pine Street at the intersection. Both drivers were taken to hospital. Const. Gary O’Brien, Nanaimo RCMP spokesman, said police were still investigating, but alcohol did not appear to be a factor.
Brechin-area house fire blamed on smoking BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
A bedroom fire has displaced five people from a rental house in Nanaimo’s Brechin Hill district. Firefighters were called out shortly before midnight Monday to a home in the 900 block of Brechin Road where they found thick, black smoke coming from a bedroom on the second floor. Crews managed to contain the fire
to the bedroom, but the house suffered smoke damage throughout the upper floor and water damage to a downstairs suite. None of the residents were injured, but fire investigators found no working smoke alarms in the upper suite of the house. Ennis Mond, Nanaimo Fire Rescue fire prevention officer, said he is again stressing to tenants and landlords the importance of having working smoke alarms in residences.
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Investigators determined smoking in bed was the cause of the fire. This is the second structure fire started by smoking in bed in Nanaimo this year following a fire started in a bedroom at a condominium complex on Wills Road Jan. 5. None of the tenants had insurance. All five were given 72-hours lodging and other help through the Community Assistance Program. photos@nanaimobulletin.com
Community-wide efforts need to happen across the province to address the looming skilled labour shortage. That’s the message that Kevin Evans, CEO of the Industry Training Authority – the Crown corporation that leads and co-ordinates B.C.’s skilled trades system – brought to a community dialogue on trades training at Vancouver Island University last week. Evans said economic forecasters predict a provincewide shortage of workers in the skilled trades industries beginning in a couple of years based on the number of workers poised to retire and increased economic activity. He said institutions like VIU play a vital role in ensuring skilled jobs go to B.C. residents, but more employers need to hire and mentor apprentices – only one in five employers who hire skilled tradespeople also hire apprentices. There also needs to
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be a shift in attitudes so students are encouraged to pursue trades careers – parents and youth have told the training authority there is a stigma attached to this type of work. “Somehow they’re second-tier career choices or the consolation prize for those who didn’t get into university,” said Evans. Three-quarters of job openings between now and 2020 will require some kind of post-secondary education and of those job openings, more than 40 per cent will be in the trades and technology sector, he said. A rewarding and challenging career is available to those who do the training and are willing, in some fields, to go to where the work is, Evans added. Byron Gallant, coowner of B. Gallant Homes and president of the central Island branch of the Canadian Homebuilders Association, said it can be a challenge for construction companies to take on apprentices. ◆ See ‘TRADES’ /4
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