John Curran
Northern News Services
Published Monday, January 7, 2008

FORT SMITH - A major review of Aurora College's trades apprenticeship training at the Thebacha campus in Fort Smith has resulted in one program being delayed and another suspended altogether.

The review - completed by the Alberta Apprenticeship Board, the Occupational Trade and Apprenticeship Board and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment (ECE) - found the tools and equipment available to students is woefully out-of-date, according to Tim Gauthier, the college's public and corporate affairs manager.

"The heavy-duty equipment technician program has been suspended," he said, adding he was unsure how many students would be affected. "It won't be delivered until we can get some new engine cutaways."

The cutaway units - which allow students to see inside the engines they're learning to service - were out of date thanks to changes in the NWT diamond mining industry, according to Gauthier.

"With the mines going underground that's meant a lot of new equipment," he said.

Word of the problems at Fort Smith came as a surprise to Cathie Bolstad, manager of public and corporate affairs for De Beers Canada's NWT projects.

"It's disappointing to hear," she said. "When people get back from the holidays, we'll need to find out what the implications are."

She said she was particularly shocked as the mining firm has just finished a very successful training partnership with the Fort Smith campus resulting in several trainees starting work as apprentices at the Snap Lake mine in recent months.

"Our apprenticeship policy at De Beers ensures that apprenticeships have our full support including work experience, and financial support to complete the educational component that is required off-site, but we can't develop a skilled workforce alone," she added. "We need the partnership of government through the availability of training programs, and this is certainly something we will be following up with Education, Culture and Employment on in the new year."

Chuck Heron, instructor for the heavy-duty equipment technician program, refused to say anything about the suspension of the program or the state of training materials at the campus.

The Fort Smith-based carpentry program has also been delayed until March from its scheduled start date of January, said Gauthier, adding that will affect three students.

"We need to invest $930,000 across the board in our apprenticeship programs," he said. "That will go towards the engine cutaways, new tools and a couple of new positions."

The college plans to work with ECE to figure out how to come up with that required capital injection.

"It's not like we've got $1 million lying around," he said.

For the 2007-08 fiscal year, the college's entire budget is $28.7 million.

The review also found the tool crib - the equipment storage area - was under-stocked and the tools it contained were out-of-date, he said.

"We'll be hiring someone to be responsible for the tool crib," he said. "That was a position we removed in the late 1990s."

The college is not concerned tools have been stolen from the crib.

"It's a matter of having someone to organize and maintain them and to be responsible for replacing them when they are damaged beyond repair," he said.

The Thebacha campus will also add a senior administrative position to oversee all apprenticeship training in the NWT.

"We expect that process will take a matter of months," he said. "There are a lot of things still to be determined."

The electrical, plumbing, gasfitter and oil burner mechanic apprenticeship programs offered in Fort Smith have all been re-accredited and will continue to be delivered without delay, said Gauthier.