Why Is Skilled Trades Ontario Making So Many People Angry?

This is another post in our series on regulators in Canada.

Skilled Trades Ontario (STO) is a Crown agency with three primary goals:

• Designing and administering apprenticeship programs

• Designing and administering certification programs for the 140 skilled trades with certifying exams

• Maintaining a public record of members in good standing of trades

In that capacity, STO is tasked with moving Ontario away from our over-reliance on a weakening white collar job sector. More than ever - and for many reasons - trades represent an employment trend with a future.

STO has existed since 2022 when it replaced the Ontario College of Trades (OCOT). What exactly was that all about? It seems that OCOT had long suffered criticism over its poor performance. In particular, they were consistently accused of overcharging for membership fees, delivering more bureaucracy than value, and leaning more into enforcement than support.

So how’s the new team handling things? Their most recent Annual Report (covering April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024) details $26.6 million in revenue, of which nearly $15 million came from fees. Only $129,000 was contributed by the federal government and the Province of Ontario kicked in the princely sum of $3,921. So they’re clearly not a drain on the public purse.

STO spent just shy of $16.7 million. $12.4 million of those expenses went to salaries and benefits and another $1.9 million was classified as “general and administration”.

The report acknowledges that they’re still an institution in transition. As of 2024, “STO’s enabling statute, BOSTA, includes sections that are not yet proclaimed.” 18 months later, we have no idea how much of that is still true.

But the real question is whether the quality of services actually being delivered by STO has improved. They claim to have issued 11,122 Certificates of Qualification with a 44.5 percent pass rate. They also claim to have connected with more than 220,000 clients through phone and email. Is the agency effectively achieving its mandated goals?

What are their clients saying? To find out, I used data analytics tools to analyze five busy threads from the SkilledTradesOntario community on Reddit. Those threads were all created in the past three or four months, so they’re all focused on individual experiences that took place long after the transition from OCOT to STO. In total, 113 different users participated in the discussions, so this wasn’t about just two or three grumpy people yelling into the internet void.

The mood was overwhelmingly negative. But because that’s something you’d expect for online forums, we’ll need to dive into the specifics:

Key Issues with STO and its Exam Processes

• Lax Verification and Standards:

  • Allegations of inadequate verification of hours/experience, exploitable translator rules, and inconsistent exam security.

  • Perception that unqualified individuals are obtaining licenses due to these gaps.

  • Calls for stricter verification (e.g., requiring paystubs, contracts, or employer existence checks) and standardized proctoring.

• Administrative Delays and Inefficiencies:

  • Unreliable exam administration, including slow booking, delivery, and results processing.

  • Poor communication, missing confirmations, and unclear roles between STO, Prometric, and CCDA.

  • Limited testing sites, particularly outside the Greater Toronto Area, paired with higher fees due to privatization to a U.S. provider.

  • Confusion over processes, leading to workarounds like checking spam, calling support, or escalating to public representatives.

• Privatization and Capacity Issues:

  • Frustration with privatization of exam delivery to Prometric, with many believing the Ministry-run system was more effective.

  • Calls to return exam delivery to the Ministry or expand testing capacity and locations.

  • Government underfunding and understaffing cited as contributors to bottlenecks.

Broader Concerns with STO and Government Policies

• Skepticism of Recruitment Efforts:

  • Government initiatives seen as performative, with heavy announcements but light on delivery.

  • Concerns about insufficient licensed journeymen to supervise new recruits, especially during a demand slump.

  • Perceptions that recruitment may flood the market with cheaper labor rather than improve conditions for existing tradespeople.

• Workplace Conditions and Pay:

  • Recruitment efforts deemed ineffective without addressing low wages and poor working conditions.

  • Significant support for unionization as a solution, with frequent comparisons of higher union wages versus non-union pay.

  • Mixed views on workplace culture: some note improvements, while others report persistent toxic environments and harassment, particularly for women in trades.

• Policy and Funding Challenges:

  • Policies like hour caps, grant removals, and loans seen as barriers to entry and progression in trades, conflicting with Ontario’s goal to grow the workforce.

  • Distrust in the regulatory/oversight model, with some fearing deregulation and others criticizing the old model as fee-heavy with little value.

Employer and Industry Responses

• Shift to Alternative Certifications:

  • Employers increasingly prefer Certificates of Apprenticeship (CoA) or union/in-house training due to greater trust in these pathways.

• Union Support:

  • Strong commenter support for unions as a means to address low wages and poor conditions, with unions seen as a counterbalance to systemic issues.

Proposed Solutions from Commenters

• Process Improvements:

  • Modernize exam processes with fully online systems, reliable platforms, and instant results.

  • Improve communication through clearer portal statuses and consistent exam delivery.

  • Expand testing centers, particularly outside the GTA, and enhance responsiveness.

• Stricter Standards and Oversight:

  • Implement higher standards and tighter verification processes to ensure qualified license holders.

  • Standardize proctoring to prevent exam inconsistencies.

• Policy Reforms:

  • Return exam administration to the Ministry or address underfunding/understaffing.

  • Reassess policies like hour caps and grants to support trades entry and progression.

  • Focus on improving workplace conditions and wages to make trades more attractive.

Minority/Positive Perspectives

• Some Positive Experiences:

  • A small minority report smooth exam sessions or acceptable timelines.

  • Some see promise in on-campus exam pilots or note improving workplace cultures, particularly for women in trades.

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I don’t think there’s any way to interpret that as a straight-A’s report card. Even adjusting for some of the exaggeration and bias that’s often associated with the anonymity of online discussions, Agency and government-level officials should probably be following up here.

In the meantime, here are some related posts that might interest you:

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