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Big pay, job certainty await trade apprentices
Pool demo underway HANNA PETERSEN Citizen staff
A Prince George landmark will soon be no more as demolition of the Prince George Four Seasons Leisure Pool began Tuesday. The pool first opened in 1970 and was the location where many people who grew up in the city first learned to swim. However, the building will now be demolished as its replacement, the Canfor Leisure Pool, is nearing completion. The city announced that crews will work on demolishing the structure from 7 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. on weekdays, and from 9 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays. Work is expected to continue into mid-October and downtown businesses
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and residents can expect disruptions during these hours. The city said it will work to minimize disruption by using water to minimize dust in the area, routing dump trucks through Canada Games Way and Seventh Avenue to access the site while keeping Dominion Street transit open. The city will also post detour routes on sidewalks if closures are needed. However, the opening of the new Canfor Leisure Pool has also been slightly delayed as construction is behind schedule. City staff are expected to be able to take possession of the pool later in October. Meanwhile, the Prince George Aquatic Centre will be closed from Sept. 6 to Oct. 2 for its annual maintenance.
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Four Seasons Pool, a downtown landmark for more than 50 years, will be demolished this fall.
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Steve Woods is looking forward to finishing his second year as a College of New Caledonia apprenticeship student in the heavy mechanical trades foundation program. Not only is he increasing his knowledge base to help him do his job, but there’s money riding on it. He’s in line for a hefty wage increase once he’s completed his eight-week-stint at the college and goes back to work in October. The 42-year-old Woods has always been mechanically-inclined and was pulling wrenches by the time he was 12. He started out fixing small engines, then went into the lumber industry and has been employed at Nechako Lumber sawmill in Vanderhoof for 15 years. He has years of experience as a heavy-duty mechanic and could probably pass the Red Seal exam needed to get his journeyman’s ticket, but he wanted to go through the necessary steps as registered apprentice. “A lot of people ask why I didn’t just challenge the Red Seal and coming here I’ve actually learned things I never would have learned just challenging a test,” said Woods. “First year, with air conditioning systems I had no idea how they functioned and now I have a very good idea how they work and I can actually
troubleshoot and diagnose them.” With most journeyman heavy mechanical technicians making about $50 per hour, a first-year apprentice earns 60 per cent of that, which works out to $30 per hour, and that will jump to $36 per hour after a second year of school and $42 per hour after the third year. Factor in overtime while short-staffed companies struggle to keep up with their busy workloads and those apprentices are going to be drawing significant paycheques that get fatter each year they’re in class. “Some of these guys get six or eight dollars (per hour) more, every time they go to school,’ said CNC heavy mechanical trades instructor Craig Hall. “It keeps going up, so they want to get their time in.” Students in the four-year apprenticeship program have 28 weeks of schooling to learn the theory and practical skills involved in keeping transport trucks, buses, excavators, loaders, skidders and feller bunchers in working order. They learn their trade in the classroom/repair shop at the Finning Heavy Mechanical Trades Training Facility at the Prince George campus. It opened in November 2020 after a $500,000 donation from Finning Canada, which provided the necessary tools, vehicles and equipment used to teach the students.
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TED CLARKE