Post #3919083

2026-07-18 19:57 UTC

PM Carney gets a lot of flack for decisions, but let's highlight a good one happening now. More support for skilled trades training. Honestly, the target here of 100,000 is probably too low. If you look at how much we truly need to get done, combined with the amount of skilled trades that are retiring in the next 15 to 20 years, we have a tremendous need here. There's a lot of talk about building new things. Data centers and housing and what not. But I actually think the bulk of the work is really going to be the maintenance of old things. Retrofitting boomer generation houses to meet modern needs (Electrical, HVAC, temp mgmt)Automotive retrofit over to EVsRenewing infrastructure built between 1950 and 1970 that was all slated to last for 50 to 70 years ... /1

Replies (1)

@gatesvp@mstdn.ca 2026-07-18 20:04

We can talk about Canada needing to build 4 to 5 million housing units in the next decade. But that number only makes sense if we maintain the 12 to 15 million units that we currently have. And the vast majority of those units will not be up to spec in 2035. Insulation, HVAC systems, electrical upgrades, etc. Building 4 million units of new housing to a new building code is relatively easy compared to retrofitting 12 million units to that code. Those retrofits are far more labor intensive, and require more training and experience as you're dealing with 100 years of evolving building codes. And those retrofits are equally if not more important than the new housing. I think it's hard to overstate the amount of infrastructure debt we're going to be paying off over the next 30 years. //

Open ##3919082