The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Skills Canada Series - Season 3 - Episode 8 with Ian Howcroft
The CWB Association is thrilled to collaborate with Skills/Compétences Canada on a special podcast series. This year, we are excited to interview the Skills Canada Executive Directors from across Canada. Tune in as we explore their skills journey and commitment to promoting skilled trades in their provinces and territories!
Ian Howcroft, Executive Director of Skills Canada Ontario, discusses with us into how this province is transforming the perception and pursuit of skilled trades careers. Ian brings invaluable perspective from his 38-year career journey, transitioning from manufacturing advocacy to leading Skills Canada Ontario for the past seven years. Under his guidance, the organization has expanded to host Canada's largest skills competition, featuring 2,700 competitors across 77 contests and attracting over 40,000 visitors. But what stands out most is their innovative approach to reaching students wherever they are, with mobile trade and tech trucks equipped with welding simulators, 3D printers, and hands-on stations.
Website: https://www.skillsontario.com/
Follow Skills/Compétences Canada:
Website: https://www.skillscompetencescanada.com/en/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SkillsCanadaOfficial
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skillscompetencescanada/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/skills_canada
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skillscanada
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved, and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
What did you think about this episode? Send a text message to the show!
All right, I can check. Check, I'm good. So I'm Max Duran. Max Duran, cwb Association Welding Podcast, pod pod podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin. Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association podcast. This week we are doing a special run of executive director interviews for Skills Canada competencies. We are having interviews with executive directors across Canada, from coast to coast to coast. Today we have Ian Howcross Howcross. Wow, I got it good on the practice, but we're here from Ontario and how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing very well. Great to be here at the national competition. It's exciting to see all these young people from across the country competing, meeting new people and having a wonderful experience that will impact and change our lives.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, it's something that I find that's so wonderful about skills in general, especially the nationals, is that it's the competitors 100%, but the visitors, the staff, the members, the mentors, the NTCs, the PTCs, everyone coming together. How do you walk out of this without being completely invigorated?
Speaker 2:You can't. You leave with a great sense of purpose and great optimism for the future of the country when you see these young people and what they'll be doing for themselves, for their communities and for the future economy of the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know For yourself. How did you get involved with the skills community?
Speaker 2:Well, I started with a trade association, an advocacy group about 37, 38 years ago, manufacturing group and every, and I was with the uh, that group's Canadian manufacturers and exporters for almost 30 years, oh wow.
Speaker 2:And every year uh, most years we did a survey of the members. What are your priority issues, what are the top issues that are concerning you, that you're worried about, that you're dealing with, that you're challenged by and every year I was there one of the top three issues was a shortage of skilled workers. Yeah, and that still is the case.
Speaker 1:Doesn't it feel like we've been saying that forever? It has been it has been.
Speaker 2:When I first got there, the chair of our HR committee asked me to poll the committee, find out what the issues are so we can decide what our work plan would be. I did, came back to him and said the big issue seems to be a shortage of skilled workers. Back to him and said the big issue seems to be a shortage of skilled workers. He goes you know what? That was a big issue 10 years ago. It's going to be an even bigger issue 10 years from now. But all we do about that is talk, and I'm only chair for two years, so we're not going to make any difference in the skilled challenges that we're experiencing. Find something else for me to do in my two-year tenure and that stuck with me 38 years later. So I'm pleased to say that with all the work people are doing, the interest that is being generated, the more attention is being paid to it. We're doing more than just talking about it. Now we're taking concrete action and we're building skill solutions rather than just identifying skills challenges. So that was my introduction to the world of skills and I continue to be involved in it.
Speaker 2:During my entire tenure at CME, I was the lead on some of the national initiatives we did. I ran it for the Ontario division for CME. I was the lead on some of the national initiatives we did. I ran it for the Ontario division for CME. I was part of a national organization so we got together to deal with some of these national issues and public policy issues around. What do we do to build a skills culture in the country? We were focusing on manufacturing, but it crossed over all sectors, all sectors.
Speaker 1:yeah, Now, when you came in, how long have you been ED now I've been at Skills Ontario for just over seven years now Seven years. So when you came in seven years ago you had a fairly decent understanding of the trades. As working with CME, I'm sure you got introduced to a variety of not all, not all.
Speaker 2:Did you have much of a learning curve transitioning to that you know for-profit environment, where you know it's industry-based, to now more of a community CSEME was a not-for-profit advocacy group.
Speaker 1:Skills.
Speaker 2:Ontario is a not-for-profit skills promotion organization, so that wasn't a tough challenge. But you're learning the business, you're learning the issues, you're continuing to look for the relationships you need to be able to move things forward. And what are the programs we're offering? What are the programs that we need to offer and how can we learn from what's being done across the country with all the other member organizations in the Skills Network family, and it's a great organization to work with, because everybody is passionate about what we do, they're interested in what we do and they want to make sure that they're sharing their successes so that others can learn and benefit from what we're all doing across the country.
Speaker 1:Well, and you brought up something that's a question that I had slated is that every province has to rely on their and territory has to rely on their sponsor network. They're the people that support them, the people that are advocates for them, or even, just, you know, community partners. Ontario is no different. You know, I've heard lots of barriers for some of the territories lack of industry, lack of partners, because it's more isolated but Ontario doesn't have that issue. You're kind of like the hub. You know of so many things in Canada. So how do you manage the sponsor networks? How do you manage having the funds, because, I mean, it's a huge team that you bring every year. So how do you work with that?
Speaker 2:Well, we have always had great support from the Ontario and federal governments and I have to recognize and applaud particularly the Ontario government because they've really increased their support for skilled trades and for the promotion of skilled trades and we've increased our partnership and what we're doing with them. So we depend on them significantly for what they contribute and the way that we work together. But also, when I got to Skills Ontario, my board said we want to have a more diverse revenue stream. We have to make sure that we're growing in the areas we need to grow and we need funds to support that. So we've been building partnerships with all the colleges, with school boards, with manufacturing companies, construction companies, service companies, technology companies, to make sure we're covering all sectors of where skills are needed and how we can bring them into engagement with us.
Speaker 2:So I view myself as the chief relationship officer. How do we get out there and make sure people are aware of what we're doing? Relationship officer how do we get out there and make sure people are aware of what we're doing? And I have to say we've had great success, great interest with the business community, with labor unions, with the others that we're talking with. We have about a thousand volunteers that work with us to deliver our programming. We have about 45 staff right now, which is significant for a nonprofit organization in Ontario, but we couldn't do what we do without the thousand volunteers and those who are committed to working with us, helping us to build the organization. We probably have over 200 partners as well that come out. Some provide us with direct funding, some provide us with in-kind support and services Consumables.
Speaker 2:Consumables. Yeah, we need that. We have our competition at the beginning of May and it's the largest competition in the country. We have over 2,700 competitors in 77 contests. We had just over 40,000 visitors, I think, this year, and it's an enormous undertaking and the costs are significant and without those volunteers coming out and helping, us set up it couldn't happen. So we really appreciate the volunteers that we have, the partners that we have and the two biggest partners, the federal government and particularly the Ontario government.
Speaker 2:So we've done very well and I think we're seeing a difference. We're making a difference because I think people are focusing on yeah, these are good careers, these are excellent opportunities for young people. We still, I think, need to do more with parents, because some parents are still we want you to go to university, but I think more parents are saying well, we know people that did go to university and they're still looking for work or a career.
Speaker 2:And so more parents are saying, hey, maybe we should look at that skill trade career, that technology career. And so more parents are saying, hey, maybe we should look at that, that skill trade career, that technology career. So so I I do sense a real change in attitudes and we're having a lot more interest and we're seeing a lot more positive results from from what we're doing. Like we had record numbers of competitors this year and record numbers last year. So that shows me there's, we're, we're, we are getting into the, the, the right mindset of of, of students, of teachers, uh and and this year of this, our third year, I think of hosting a conference for guidance counselors. We have, we have 450 guidance counselors come out to uh have a focused uh day long program which also gave them the opportunity to tour the career fair, to tour the competition site, uh to look at what we're doing in some of the other conferences.
Speaker 2:We do a young women's conference, we do an Indigenous FNMI conference, we do one for entrepreneurship. So it's a great opportunity, great experience and again to see, like here, all those young people excited and passionate. You can hear me talk about it, you can look at videos, you can look at pictures, but when you come to it, as you see here and as you see at ours and the others across the country, it has that wow factor.
Speaker 2:It really makes an impact on people who come to it, Because I invited some of my old colleagues from some of the manufacturing members that we had and they'd come out to it and they said I have no idea it was so big. I had no idea it was so impressive. How do I hire those young people who have the skills that I'm looking for? So it's great to get them engaged and get more and more companies involved in developing and working on those skills solutions, rather than just saying what are we doing? We don't have the skilled workers we need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, when you look at the requirements that we're going to need with our skilled workforce going forward and this is something we've been talking about for 30 years and we didn't do much about it till about 10 years ago, when we actually got scared, which was probably 50 years too late Like, if you start looking at the cycles, not only do we need to bring in the workers, not like, not only do we need to have this the workforce translate into real labor, we also need to glamorize the trade so that we don't have this problem again.
Speaker 1:We should have never stopped sending kids to trade school. That should have never been a thing, and we should learn from that mistake, because we it's they're so adjacent, there's not a defining line between academia and trades, and that people need to get that out of their heads. Yeah, you can become a welder and a doctor. There is doctorates of welding engineers, like I mean, you can pursue one and end up over here and vice versa, and and that's and that's what we need. We need that kind of partnership going forward.
Speaker 2:yeah, I couldn't agree more. And what we try and do is, uh, open's eyes, open people's minds and open opportunities for people who are looking at what educational pathway should I take and how does that lead to my career pathway. And we've had, as I said, the good fortune to have a lot of partners. We have a staff that goes into the schools. Last year we did over 2,000 presentations in the school system. During the year, we hold conferences and trade and tech days around the province for girls and young women, for indigenous youth, for other underrepresented groups to get to. We do some for parents, which is great because that's a market we do, and we want to do more with guidance counselors and other educators. So there's a but there's, I have to say, there's more receptivity to that message now and when we go into the schools there's a lot more interest. And I want to say one other thing that we're doing right now is we know some schools and some people didn't necessarily have a what we used to call a tech class in the school.
Speaker 1:Right, right, so we Don't put those back in?
Speaker 2:They are, but they're expensive and it takes time. So we developed a trade in tech truck, so it's a mobile unit Nice, so we can take it to the school so students can see what it's like to drive a crane or a bulldozer or a dump truck. We have a welding simulator, we have painting simulators, we have auto stations, hydraulic stations, safety stations, 3d printing.
Speaker 1:A little bit of everything. A little bit of everything.
Speaker 2:A little bit of everything and that went really well. So we've built three more of these mobile units. So there's great interest in that and again that was done through the partnership with the Ontario government. What we're trying to do is again get that experiential, try a trade opportunity young people, so they can see what they want. Now some people might say, no, it's not what I want, which is fine. But what we're trying to do again is open eyes so that people have the full array of opportunities open to them so they can make that educational decision and that career decision. It's great when somebody wants to change their careers later, but if you get that information to them sooner, perhaps they could get on that track much sooner, if that's what they want to do.
Speaker 1:It might have happened already. Yeah, I feel in a lot of ways, covid was a bit of a reset for that, because it really put the focus on the fact that the trades don't stop. It's not. Uh, trades aren't optional. Right, trades are. Trades are necessary. There. There's a lot of things that became very optional during a global crisis. Right, like getting certain aspects of life just were not important anymore. But but plumbing, electricians, welders, water management these things never stopped being important.
Speaker 2:And it was highlighted too, we had a shortage of PPE during the pandemic, so we need to manufacture that. You need the workers to go into the manufacturing facilities to do that, but you need the millwrights, you need the machine operators to keep all that equipment going.
Speaker 1:You need the auto folks to keep the trucks going. And then Power needs to come in.
Speaker 2:Water needs to run, yeah, so I think that the pandemic, negative though it was, it did highlight these are important jobs and people realize, hey, we need to have that done. We can't get by without having a skilled workforce. And it also highlight the fact that the demographics are we're seeing more people going to be retiring than coming in right now.
Speaker 1:It's already starting. We have to deal with that.
Speaker 2:So we want to make sure that young people are aware of these opportunities, particularly those from the underrepresented groups. Our director of competition is a millwright. She was a gold medal winner for Skills Ontario. She was a silver medal winner for Skills Canada, skills Competence Canada. She worked for a big auto parks company in Ontario. Then she worked for one of the school boards doing manufacturing and construction for them, and she was always a volunteer with us.
Speaker 1:So we were able to recruit her.
Speaker 2:And when she told me when I started I was one of the only two millwrights, I think, in her class who were women and she said that 3% of millwrights were female. And she says good news is it's doubled percent of uh millwrights were female.
Speaker 1:And she says, uh, good news is it's doubled, but the bad news is that's still six percent, so we still have still terrible still have a long, long way to go.
Speaker 2:So these again are excellent opportunities that we're trying to highlight and make sure people are aware of that now, you mentioned a couple times about getting out across ontario.
Speaker 1:Now, ontario's big you got a lot of land and then once you get north of Sudbury it gets real remote right Now. How do you manage the logistics of trying to coordinate so many volunteers, so many people, so many like regional competitions that have to happen, that work towards this? How do you do all that?
Speaker 2:Through relationships, through partnerships and through organization. You're right, it is a huge landmass and there's still more we want to do. One of our focuses is doing more regional events. I mean, we have our big event in Toronto, but we also know that not everybody can come to Toronto, so how do we get out there? One of the things the pandemic made us pretty proficient at was offering virtual opportunities. So we had our FNMI conference in Toronto, but we also did a virtual version of that for those that couldn't get here. We're also trying to make sure we have staff around the province so we go and hold conferences in Thunder Bay, in Dryden, in Kenora. I was talking to someone from Timmins yesterday. They wanted us to come up to Timmins.
Speaker 2:We did a very large FNMI Indigenous conference in Sault Ste Marie a month or two ago. We had 1,300 youth out in person for that.
Speaker 1:We went to a regional in Sault. Ste Marie two years ago and we were amazed at the number of people.
Speaker 2:The interest is there and the demand is there, and the industry is there.
Speaker 1:There's lots of mines and manufacturing plants in the area.
Speaker 2:And we have great partnership with many of those companies. In Sault Ste Marie we did a round table with two of our new partners there. We have Algoma and Tenera Steel, and Sue College is a partner there, so we were talking about, you know, what can we do to better ensure young people have an awareness of the opportunities and how they, once they're interested? We also want to make sure how do we help them along their journey? Yeah, so it's good.
Speaker 1:Another piece of the puzzle, you know, in terms of getting everyone together is getting the school boards and the guidance counselors on board. That's been a struggle I've heard in a lot of provinces. We just like the CWB. We just held a Halton guidance counselor tour there. We also see that as an issue. But I think even further. One step further and you mentioned it once was the parents. You know, how do we get the information in front of the parents? How do we start breaking down those biases about these type of opportunities?
Speaker 2:And that's probably the hardest audience to get to, because you can go to the students and the schools, the educators the businesses.
Speaker 2:So it's harder to get to the parents. But again, during the pandemic, when people weren't necessarily working, we did a lot of parent outreach and engagement. We sent kits to families, we did family movie nights try to tie it to a movie that raised the issue of skills and we'd send them a kit to do. And we worked with one of the movie chains and sent movie codes so they could watch the movie and do that, trying to get parents aware of the issues.
Speaker 1:Was the welding from Star Wars in there?
Speaker 2:No, we weren't able to get that. That's on our list, but we haven't been able to do that yet, but it's on our list. So what we're trying to do is we invite the parents to come to our competition and to see it, and some do. And I think we're seeing more parents interested in this, wanting to learn more and receptive attitude towards this, Whereas before it was oh no, I think it used to be.
Speaker 2:I'm not interested in the skilled trades, and skilled trades are great careers for my neighbor's kids For others, yeah, and now it's hey, this is something I think my son or daughter might be really good at or interested in, so let's help them do that. And, as you say, it opens doors. You can become an electrician, become a welder, you can become a chef and slide into something, but do something else. That's why we were really pleased to host that entrepreneurship one, because some of the people want to start in this, but they want to start their own business and hire others and help others and we have, uh, one of our board members.
Speaker 2:Uh, she came uh from iraq as a teenager, didn't speak english, and the teacher said, hey, there's a hairstyling competition. And she said, uh, who wants to do that? She's put her her hand up. So she went, introduced her to that, she went through, became an apprentice, became a hairstylist, has her own hairstyling business now and employs apprentices, and it just changed her lives. And that's what we like to say. We say we promote skilled trades and technology careers to young people, but we changed our strategic plan to fashion a little differently, say we're changing lives and inspiring leaders through skilled trades and technologies. And that's what makes me really pleased when you see what what someone's done with their life through the skilled trades, through their exposure and engagement with Skills Competence Canada or Skills Ontario or one of the other member organizations across the country, it's just a great, great feeling and a great opportunity to continue to promote.
Speaker 1:I was looking at some memes on Instagram the other day because I saw a little bit of brain rot and you know, there's just been this message that's been rolling around with Gen Alpha and Gen Z We'll never buy a house, we'll never be able to own a car, we'll be in debt from birth to death. There's just this kind of messaging that's going around about how the youth won't be able to afford in the future. And I mean I don't love the cost of living increases, I don't love how expensive things are and how hard things are for our youth. I think that we did a poor job of setting them up, really. But on the other end of that, one of the memes I saw was these kids.
Speaker 1:There's a picture, a cartoon. On the left, these kids are like you know, they look like youngsters and they're saying you know, my future is going to be terrible, I can never buy a house. And on the right there's a kid wearing a welding helmet and said I'll be fine. You know and I thought about that, it's like these. You know, we got 500 competitors in this room. I bet they're all fine, you know what I mean and they will be able to do the things they want to do. And yes, maybe it'll be more expensive and yes, maybe the days of RSPs are gone and that the bubble of the eighties that was kind of a maybe a fantasy that we lived in, but they'll be fine, they'll be fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's the message we want to get out there that you'll be fine, or you'll have a best chance of being fine, if you have a skilled education, if you have a job that you can get into, a career that you can find and you enjoy that gives you that security.
Speaker 2:Many of them you know in the construction trade, some of the manufacturers. You have a pension. You have a good income, benefits. There's always going to be challenges. We'll have to deal with that. But you're better placed to deal with those challenges if you're a skilled worker. That's right. If you've got that, competencies that can be marketable and can help you move forward, no matter what's happening, because there's always going to be challenges.
Speaker 1:There's always going to be issues. I've gone through three global recessions now in my career as a welder. I never lost my job. You know, when I say that to people, it's like it's not a thing that happened in my world. I mean, the plant still had to run regardless. You know what I mean. And I think that that's maybe starting to hit home more now. Right, yeah, and especially as the boomers are going out and like I mean, my parents just retired and they felt like their whole life was a lie. You know, put your money into RSPs, put your money into GICs, invest, invest, invest every penny, because you're going to have this fantastic retirement and then they retire and nothing's worth anything that it was supposed to be worth. And it's like, you know, that wasn't the right message that we were pushing.
Speaker 2:But I think the right message is always going to be find a career that you can enjoy and find a career that's going to be marketable and will help you move forward and give security to yourself, to your family, to your community and help move things forward.
Speaker 1:Keep the chain going.
Speaker 2:And what's here, and the skill trades and technology careers are broader than most people think. You walk around here and you see things that people wouldn't even think are skill trades 2D animation. 3d animation some of the other ones that we do.
Speaker 1:We introduced this year cybersecurity as a new competition, and that's huge. That's the future right there.
Speaker 2:So last year we did drywalling, which wasn't a new career, but we hadn't had it, and I'm terrified. I'm a terrible drywaller, so we won't ask you to be a judge in that one. No, no, welding's my game and the year before that we added advanced and additive manufacturing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, which is up and coming.
Speaker 2:Well, it's been up and coming for a while now, but it's something that we want to make sure that our competition Well, and the colleges- have the courses, so you want everything to ladder into something, right yeah? And we want our programming to resonate with the students and give them the information that they need and the experience and the try-and-trade opportunities that will help them make those decisions. Yeah, need and the experience and the try trade opportunities that will help them make those decisions yeah.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about this event here in Regina. You know how many did you bring in. What was your team total?
Speaker 2:We have about 69 competitors and our total team is about 130 people and that includes the uh, the advisors, the supporters, the coaches for for the students, and we have about five uh five staff here, including me uh to to support the team and to help the team. That's a pretty big team. Yes, it is. It's probably the largest one, but we're from the largest province, I mean.
Speaker 1:BC, I think, was right behind you at 60. Yeah, they had a big team, bigger than normal, about 10 more than they normally bring, but it's great to see. I mean, you look at the Nunavut who has before in the past. I remember a decade ago one person would come and now they got 14. So you're seeing this organic growth of skills. But ontario is one of the og skills, right, they're one of the original group of skills members. Um, do you feel that there's still more room to grow like it should like? Are you hoping for bigger teams? Are you hoping for more trades?
Speaker 2:uh, involvement, I I think there's still great opportunities, uh, to grow our programming and to keep it fresh, as I say, so it resonates with the audience, our audiences, because we want parents, we want them to see it.
Speaker 1:We want to work with the educators.
Speaker 2:So we're always like what should we add? Ai is a big thing that's going to have a huge impact on everything, so what do we need to do about that? So we have to work with the school boards as to what are the competitions you think we need to do. We try and tie everything we do to the curriculum for the students to make it as it all ladders together. So it all ladders together as you say. So I think there's lots of opportunity. We're making efforts and making sure that we are as inclusive as we can be. I have to proudly say that our organization won a diversity award last night in Toronto.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, so we're really pleased with that programming that we're offering, because there's underrepresented groups, so let's build a pool of potential workers and we need them.
Speaker 2:We do so. Let's make it easier for people to get the information they need, to get the assistance that we need and what we want to do. And you look around at how many volunteers are here and across the country and people are only too happy to help, to share their experience, to share how they were successful, to share how they got over the challenges they were dealing with. We try and connect mentors and bring mentors in so people can see hey, that person did it, I can do it. And talk to people. Reach out, start with Skills Ontario, start with our website, but make some connections. Reach out. People are only too happy to help and they say what if you talk to someone who's not happy?
Speaker 1:Well, then, helpful, well move on to the next person, so that's good you found out that person wasn't somebody you can help.
Speaker 2:but most people are only too happy to try and help young people find themselves, find their career and move forward.
Speaker 1:Now, every province has their local industry, things that they do best within their province. You know obvious ones like Alberta oil and gas, saskatchewan ag. You know BC and their maritime shipbuilding. Now, what would you say would be Ontario's strong points in terms of their industry and how it relates to skills?
Speaker 2:Well, ontario is known for a big manufacturing. It's the manufacturing cluster for the country. It's across the country as well, a national organization I know it was in every province and territory but Ontario has the largest, densest manufacturing population. Construction is huge as well. Infrastructure is huge there. The service sector, you know we have a huge demand for the service sector and it's growing.
Speaker 2:Technology is a huge area as well, and even manufacturing is so large it's broken down. You have the auto sector, motive power, you have the other manufacturing aspects of it. So that's what we're known for. We have mining, though, in the north and there's a new focus on the ring of fire. How do we mine that and how do we process that and how do we deal with the upcoming economy and those upcoming opportunities that we have? So we, as I said, we have 77 contests and we try and add one or two each year to give everybody a sense as to what a skilled trade career could be, what a technology career could be. So it's something that's a journey for us to make sure that our programming is fresh and gets the message out, provides the assistance route for people to follow if they're interested in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now I'm back to the competition here with 69 competitors 60. Oh sorry, 60 competitors and 130 in total.
Speaker 2:you said yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, with that many people here, how do you keep them all pumped? Some of them have maybe never left the province, Some maybe have never flown. You know you've got a whole different variety of people at different levels. There's anxiety, there's nervousness, there's. How do you pull that all together and how do you keep everyone focused?
Speaker 2:Well, the staff we have are really great at supporting, encouraging and providing assistance to them. We have the 60 other people on our team that are there to coach and provide that assistance. We want to make sure that people are aware of what they should expect. Our competitions team has been great on that. If you've gone through our competition, it's similar to this one, so you're prepared for it. But you're right, it's a life-changing opportunity and experience for many people. I talked to one person I think it was in Vancouver. I said this is your first time in Vancouver and he said this is my first time on an airplane.
Speaker 2:And the person went on to win a gold medal and moved on to, I think, world skills, and it is great. So what we want to do is make sure people feel comfortable and they have the support necessary to do as well as they can do. If you've made it to Skills Competence Canada competition, you're already a winner.
Speaker 1:You've already excelled in the territory and you put your neck out there, which is very hard to do.
Speaker 2:But it is nerve-wracking. It is as you say. It's the first time someone's been away from home, perhaps but they have a team here, they have a support system here, and that's what I like about the Skills Competence Canada competition. It's Team Ontario, it's Team Manitoba, it's Team Saskatchewan, team Nunavut, and they're supporting each other, they're helping each other. I love seeing those relationships build and some will be lifelong relationships that you have. You meet here for a life-changing experience and you meet people that will connect with you.
Speaker 1:You'll be on your cell phone for the rest of your life. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So we try and do all we can do to help support our team when we're here, and some of them are just living on excitement and energy right now as well, so it's great.
Speaker 1:Now, what about the first thoughts of Regina? I don't know if you've ever been to Regina, I've been here before, but I'm sure most of the people that you've brought haven't been. What are your first thoughts of our city?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a wonderful city. I've been really impressed with it. The people have been great, friendly, helpful. But what?
Speaker 1:I was most impressed with was the facilities you have here.
Speaker 2:I'm from Hamilton and I said we don't have facilities like this in Hamilton.
Speaker 1:This is the largest interconnected conference center in North America.
Speaker 2:I learned that yeah, and I was. When I was told that the competition was going to be here on China, I said do they have a facility big enough? They have the largest in the country. I didn't know, North America, the largest in the country. So it's an amazing facility, so it's been a very positive experience.
Speaker 2:I've been to Saskatchewan a few times in my former career in national organizations, so, but it's great to get them to come back and be here for a while and, uh, I hadn't been at this center before, so it's nice to see and experience that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how have you liked the?
Speaker 2:center. So far it's been great. It's uh, it's enormous. Uh, there's lots of parking we we noted that as well. The parking is great for the conference center, for the stadium, for the arena.
Speaker 1:It's a it's an amazing facility yeah, so now, coming towards the end of the interview, a couple questions just to wrap it up. You know, as a spectator now put on your spectator lens, you're walking through. You've been through, I'm sure, all the buildings and checked it all out. What are your top three that you like to sit and watch? Which three trades or competitions?
Speaker 2:do you like to watch? Well, that's an unfair question, because I like them all and I don't want to show favoritism, but no, I think the ones that I really like to watch are some of the culinary ones, because you watch something being created and everybody loves food particularly me. So that's one I like to watch. That's one of our most popular ones, and hairstyling is always good to watch too, because again you see something being creative and you know, robotics is always interesting to watch.
Speaker 2:that's up and coming, but you're just walking around the bricklaying and the landscape architecture they're all just fantastic to watch.
Speaker 1:Landscaping, baking and cooking and hairstyling have been like the top three.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm close, then that's good, that's good, but they're all fascinating.
Speaker 1:But only one person picked welding, which, oh, come on. Because you're behind the screens. That's right. That's right. Okay, and for the last question for yourself, knowing what you know through your extensive career trades adjacent and now working with the trades, with skills going back in time, you know, to being a young Ian and starting over, but you know everything about the trades. Which one do you pick to start your life over with?
Speaker 2:The one I would enjoy. Well, most would be probably in the culinary arts, and we have an app that we designed People could do an assessment of themselves, and it recommended two courses for me. One was working with youth and the other was culinary. Okay, and I enjoy that, but I don't think I would like the high-paced restaurant life.
Speaker 1:Private chef.
Speaker 2:I need that, or just I use cooking to relax and enjoy a nice meal, but I found out there's so many career opportunities and options available, but those are the ones that I probably would enjoy the most. I'm creating something and I do love food.
Speaker 1:So it fits my hobby Well. I hope you get out to lots of restaurants in Regina. We're famous for our restaurants.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was impressed with that too. I had a nice meal at a Japanese restaurant last night. Oh which one did you go to? I can't remember the name, but it's across from the Doubletree.
Speaker 1:Across. Oh Juan, yeah, the food was great. Best ramen in town yeah, it was great, it was fantastic.
Speaker 2:I actually had the udon, but it was close, it was great.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, max. I really appreciate you being on the show today. Thank you, it was great, really appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 1:And for all the people that have been following along with the episodes here, there's 13 total ED episodes here for Skills, so if you've stumbled into this one, make sure you catch them all. They're all fantastic. Learn Canada and all the great work that they're doing. We'll catch you at the next episode, so take care. We hope you enjoy the show.