ASPHALTopcs | Summer 2017 | VOL 30 | NO 2

In 2015, Conestoga College purchased
an asphalt paver to incorporate into
its HEO program.
want to work the long hours and they look somewhere else.
Marketing the industry and training people is an investment
and maintaining them is critical. As an industry, we need to
focus on mentorship and fostering loyalty, and that is done
through providing a safe work environment, competitive
wages and benefits and job security.”
Jeremy Andrews, 2014 Roads Scholarship recipient
and Contestoga College graduate, agrees that industry
mentorship will go a long way in recruiting and maintaining
a skilled and loyal workforce. Upon graduating from
Conestoga’s Heavy Equipment Operator Program,
Mr. Andrews joined Capital Paving in Guelph and is
a heavy equipment operator.
“Young people who are considering joining the industry
are facing a challenging situation,” says Mr. Andrews.
“They can either join an apprenticeship program, which
is quite expensive, or just show up on a job site and do
manual labour for the next five years until they are actually
put on a piece of equipment. So, if you don’t have the
money to do the apprenticeship program, you can get
discouraged pretty fast.
“Even if you have gone through a program, it can still be
challenging to get to do the work that you went to school
for. More mentorship programs would be helpful for those
who come on as manual labour on a crew and for those who
come through a program so that they can gain hands-on
experience and know that they will be able to do the work
they want to do.”
In addition to industry investing in mentorship programs, Reg
Legere, Conestoga Professor of Trades and Apprenticeship
for the Heavy Equipment Operator Program, says that it is
important to educate students on what they can expect in
the real world once they get into the job market. “Those
students who are just coming into the industry have to
understand that starting out, they are going to have to pay
their dues and may have to start out on the rake; really this
helps to foster respect and an understanding of the entire
paving process. At the same time, on-the-job mentors will
greatly help to get “green” workers polished and ready to
take on more responsibility,” explains Mr. Legere.
Conestoga College is one of the few colleges that has
a paver on site at its Guelph campus facility, and has
incorporated asphalt paving into its curriculum, thanks in
part to its partnership with the OAPC. “With the Roads
Scholars and Scholarship Program and having OAPC come
out to present to students and have that one-on-one contact,
the school sees that the industry is an invested partner, and
that is how we were able to bring in the paver in 2015 and
include asphalt paving into the program,” says Mr. Legere.
The symbiotic partnership between the colleges and
industry not only helps to recruit skilled workers into the
industry, but also benefits industry from a quality standpoint,
according to OAPC Executive Director, Vince Aurilio.
We need to focus on mentorship and
fostering loyalty through providing a
safe work environment, competitive
wages and benefits and job security.
- Ritchie
“Teaching best practices in asphalt paving in the schools is
a grass roots effort that benefits everyone,” says Mr. Aurilio.
“As we pass this knowledge on to the upcoming workforce,
they will be better equipped to help raise the bar in building
quality asphalt pavements.”
Better marketing of the industry, investment in mentoring
programs and industry/academic collaboration is a partial
key to resolving the skilled labour shortage. However, that
shortage is also due to Canada’s population demographics.
According to Statistics Canada, the nation’s population
growth by birth rate began to decline in the late 1960s
and by 1976, the fertility rate had fallen to fewer than
1.8 children per woman and remains consistent today.
Since 1999, population growth has consistently been
driven by immigration. Approximately two-thirds of current
population growth is the result of migratory increase, while
natural increase accounts for the remaining one-third.
“Because of our demographics, there are simply fewer
people graduating from high school,” says Stephen Speers,
Conestoga Chair of School of Trades and Apprenticeship.
28 OAPC | ASPHALTOPICS