Promoting excellence in the skilled trades

The many ways that IHSA plants the seeds of safe work among budding powerline technicians.

For the past several years, IHSA has been a proud supporter of the Skills Ontario Competition, an annual event for learning tradespeople to demonstrate their knowledge and practical skills in fields ranging from baking to landscape design to sprinkler fitting.

One of Skills Ontario’s most prominent showcases is its powerline technician (PLTN) contest. Sponsored and hosted by IHSA, it sees pairs of post-secondary students undertake tasks such as reading a schematic and making a job plan before performing pole-top rescues, replacing defective crossarms, raising and installing transformers, and more.

In 2024, IHSA also organized the Skills Ontario Competition’s first contest for arborists, who were evaluated on skills such as knot tying, limbing, and accurately throwing ball lines.

“It’s always a pretty big attraction,” says Alain Leger, Manager, Powerline Apprenticeship and Training at IHSA. “We set up outside the venue’s front doors and there are competitors climbing poles and using chainsaws for two days straight, so it’s hard to miss.”

IHSA’s presence is just as significant inside the venue. In addition to overseeing the PLTN competition’s indoor events, IHSA health and safety consultants offer hands-on demonstrations and insights about the trades to elementary and secondary school students—thousands of whom attend the Skills Ontario Competition each year to learn about the varied career options offered by the trades.

The trades are for everyone

Events such as the Skills Ontario Competition work to promote the trades on a mass scale by showcasing the unique talents of young people who are learning to be carpenters, graphic designers, IT network administrators, welders, powerline technicians, and more. These jobs are both fulfilling and potentially quite lucrative.

“The trades are for everyone,” Leger says—and they’re important to everyone, too. After all, skilled tradespeople are responsible for building and maintaining much of Ontario’s critical infrastructure, including the province’s power generation, transmission, and distribution system.

As Ontario continues to shift from fossil fuel energy production to renewable sources, there is a significant need to upgrade and expand the power grid to meet increased demand for electricity. With that comes a greater demand for skilled workers in the electrical utilities industry, including the powerline technicians that IHSA helps to train.

High health and safety standards

IHSA is one of only four Training Delivery Agencies approved by the Province of Ontario to offer powerline apprenticeship training. The four-level program provides participants with theoretical and practical instruction on how to effectively complete the many job tasks that will be required of them once they’re out in the field.

Of course, due to the high-risk nature of electrical utilities work, health and safety is always a top priority. At Skills Ontario, IHSA’s expert trainers and consultants judged competitors not only on how well they performed their work, but also how safely they performed it. Did they identify all hazards? Did they use their tools and personal protective equipment properly? Did they follow the requirements of the Electrical Utility Safety Rules and Utility Work Protection Code?

“Because these are college kids, we judge them in the same way and to the same high standard that we evaluate our own apprentices,” Leger says.

A collaborative effort

In fact, IHSA trainers may have already evaluated those “college kids” on their respective campuses—as part of a fruitful partnership between IHSA and institutions such as St. Clair College in Chatham and Cambrian College in Sudbury, which offer diploma programs for aspiring electrical utilities workers.

Eligible students at Cambrian, for example, have the opportunity to take their Level 1 and Level 2 PLTN apprenticeship through IHSA in between completing their coursework and beginning a co-op term with an employer. St. Clair students can do the first level of IHSA’s PLTN apprenticeship as part of their program.

IHSA’s collaboration with St. Clair College dates to 2013. With Cambrian, the partnership goes back even further.

“Our powerline technician program started in 2006, and IHSA has been involved with it from the start,” says Kim Crane, Chair of Cambrian College’s School of Skills Training. That involvement includes contributing learning materials and personal protective equipment for the college program and sending trainers to Sudbury to conduct the PLTN apprenticeship. IHSA staff also sit on two of the college’s committees that help guide its program and advise on its curriculum.

“And we keep doing more things together, offering more opportunities,” she says. “Over the last 20 years, we’ve had several changes in leadership at Cambrian. But everyone who’s come in or taken on a new role has immediately seen the benefits of the partnership—and we continue to support it and look for ways to grow it.”

Crane notes that Cambrian typically gets approximately 300 applicants to its powerline program, which has a 24-student capacity. These numbers speak to young people’s interest in the trade (particularly in Northern Ontario); they also show the success of the college’s collaboration with IHSA.

“Students know that they get more from the program because of our partnership,” Crane says. “Employers, utilities, and contractors all over Ontario seek out our graduates because they’re job-ready. I strongly believe that has a lot to do with the partnership that we have with IHSA.”