VIEW Winter 2023 Canada Post Mail Publications Agreement Number: 40609661 The voice of the Canadian Tooling & Machining Association LEVEL CTMA, industry, and government connect with future workers UP! 5 CONTENTS WINTER 2023 ON THE COVER 9 Level Up! to connect with future workers FEATURES 12 More than 180 gather for CTMA’s AGM & Dinner MEMBER PROFILE 18 Sandvik Coromant: The Cutting Edge CTMA HEADLINES 19 CTMA membership continues to grow 21 New members accept welcome plaques 23 CTMA members receive behind-the-scenes tour of J.P. Wiser’s in Windsor INDUSTRY NEWS 25 XL Tool Inc. celebrates 30th anniversary 26 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS 12 UP FRONT 6 A Message from the CTMA president 7 A message from the CTMA government relations chair 2318 Winter 2023 Published For: The Canadian Tooling & Machining Association 140 McGovern Drive, Unit 3 Cambridge, Ontario N3H 4R7 Tel: (519) 653-7265 Fax: (519) 653-6764 marketing@ctma.com www.ctma.com The contributed articles presented in this magazine represent the opinions of the authors and the interviewees. Their inclusion does not directly or implicitly denote concurrence by the Canadian Tooling & Machining Association. Articles were selected for inclusion based on the issues and views of interest to the industry. Published By: Matrix Group Publishing Inc. 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ON THE COVER: CTMA and members Armo Tool Ltd., Archer Precision Inc., ATG Industries Inc., Pegen Industries, Pilot Precision, and Lee Valley/Veritas were on-hand for the Level Up! career fairs in London and Ottawa. 96 UP FRONT I WANTED TO PROVIDE YOU with an update of ev- erything that’s been going on behind the scenes at the Canadian Tooling & Machining Association (CTMA). Reflecting on another amazing Annual General Meet- ing & Dinner, which hosted more than 180 attendees, including manufacturers from across the province, teachers, staff from Ontario Council for Technology Education (OCTE) and Support Ontario Youth (SOY), school board representatives, apprentices, etc., it re- ally provides perspective on everything we are doing as an Association. The highlight of the event, as always, was our Annual Apprentice Awards. It was great to see representatives from universities in attendance, to see firsthand the difference we are making. OUR TEAM IS DOING GREAT THINGS! After sitting back and truly being inspired by Michael “Pinball” Clemons, to then being entertained by the amazing Richard Janik, we really had a chance to get some serious networking done with all levels of our Association and many of our members. Julie, Sarah, and Robert continue to put together an amazing AGM and it gets better every year. I truly encourage you to come out to next year’s event, which will also celebrate the Association’s 60-year Anniversary, and really get an understanding of what the CTMA is all about. ON TRACK For those who were unable to attend the event, here are some things you missed: Our Career-Ready program is in full swing, and we are on track to making another 250 students full-time apprentices with the funding provided by our Provincial Government. Through this program, the CTMA is also putting new equipment in 40 high schools to inspire youth at an early age and encourage them to start a career in the skilled trades—right out of high school. I can’t really say too much, but myself, Robert Cattle, and Ray Buxton recently made a trip to Toronto to visit the office of Ontario Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, Monte McNaughton, to review the hard work the CTMA has been doing regarding this program. They were truly impressed—almost in awe of what we were doing with the funds; so much so that they strongly encouraged us to put in another submission for 2023/24. You will want to be a part of this. Ray Buxton is now our government relations chair and has made great progress understanding the issues with immigration within Canada. He has confirmed the complexity of the system and confirmed a huge backlog federally to get any trades people into the country to support manufacturing. We have great connections with government provincially and work with several bodies to keep opportunities open federally, as well. Ray is doing a great job and we are stronger in this department than we have been in a long time. There are countless reasons to be a member of the CTMA, and I haven’t even mentioned the Annual Wage and Business Survey, which is one of the reasons many members join, as it’s a great benchmarking tool. Another reason to join is due to the amount of work that we put into apprentices. We all have a moral obligation to keep our manufacturing sector alive in Canada and this is the best way to ensure we do that. If you have a shop of aging trades people, it is imperative that you train apprentices for our trades to be successful, or maybe even retire someday. If you don’t have an apprentice, you need one. If you have one, get two. If you have two, get three… and, so on. The CTMA is growing, and we want you to be a part of it. We can help! ❙❙❙ Chris Hergott CTMA President XL Tool Inc. They were truly impressed— almost in awe of what we were doing with the funds; so much so that they strongly encouraged us to put in another submission for 2023/24. You will want to be a part of this. Amazing things are happening at the CTMA! You should be part of the action! JUNE6,2023 Comecelebrate: Comecelebrate: CTMA'sAnnualGolf CTMA'sAnnualGolf Tournament Tournament 25thAnniversary25thAnniversary Detailscomingsoon! www.ctma.com7 UP FRONT It has been a busy year for government relations activities at the Canadian Tooling & Machining Association (CTMA). Our great team is constantly working with all levels of governments on issues related to our apprenticeship and Career-Ready programs. However, the volatile times we live in have also presented us with additional, compelling needs to lobby various levels of government. These included U.S. protectionist policies, COVID-19 border restrictions and closures due to protests, helping Ukrainian skilled refugees, and supply chain disruptions—to name a few. Whenever an issue arises that has the potential to affect our members’ businesses in Canada, we have responded. Given the ongoing skilled labour shortages in our industry, our focus in 2022 has been on petitioning to reduce the barriers for our members to bring skilled immigrants to Canada, quickly and efficiently. The CTMA has been instrumental in creating an aggressive agenda for this and has worked with the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, as well as taking a leading role within the Canadian Manufacturing Coalition to push for immediate changes. We have also been active in lobbying directly to the Immigration Ministry to streamline the immigration processes as follows: 1. The elimination of the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) for those National Occupational Classification (NOC) job categories recognized by the federal government as being in short supply. 2. Prioritizing and reducing the processing time of Temporary Foreign Workers. 3. Easing the process for Skilled Temporary Foreign Workers to move to permanent residency. 4. Active advertising by the federal and provincial governments to encourage needed foreign workers to apply to Canada. CTMA’s comments in this regard were included as part of the federal government’s report on immigration, which was released at the beginning of November 2022. We do see evidence that the government is listening to our messaging. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has announced increased immigration levels with focus on high- demand skilled workers. In its recently published Strategic Objectives for Asia and the Americas, there are initiatives by the Canadian government to encourage skilled workers to consider Canada. Earlier this year, the CTMA also submitted a strong petition to Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) in support of machinists and toolmakers being on ESDC’s list to ensure continuing eligibility for the immigration fast track program. This year, the CTMA was asked by Innovation, Science & Economic Development Canada (ISDC) to participate in a review of the National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure. In subsequent meetings, we discussed several points, including the need for skilled and trained personnel, supply chain disruptions, and secure and reliable communications/internet infrastructure. Our input from a quarterly round table will be used to map government policy and initiatives around these subjects. As always, working to change the direction of governments is a slow and very repetitive process. It’s not always possible to get 100 per cent of what the CTMA and its members would like to see, but we have made progress. The more we do the more the CTMA becomes recognized as a professional and responsible advocate for manufacturing businesses, by both the government and the media. Over time, this will only help make our message resound louder in the halls of power in Canada. ❙❙❙ CTMA is being heard at the provincial and federal government level! Ray Buxton CTMA Government Relations Chair We do see evidence that the government is listening to our messaging. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has announced increased immigration levels with focus on high- demand skilled workers. In its recently published Strategic Objectives for Asia and the Americas, there are initiatives by the Canadian government to encourage skilled workers to consider Canada. Helpsupport&encourage skilledtrades! Sponsorshipopportunitiesavailable!Contributions ofanysize,toeitheraward,areappreciated. Emailmarketing@ctma.com9 COVER STORY he challenges related to the recruitment and retention of tomorrow’s workforce are nothing new, and the discussion about what to do to fix the problem has been ongoing for years. Today, there are more than 360,000 jobs unfilled across the province of Ontario, and approximately 20 per cent of new job openings in the province by 2025 are expected to be in the skilled trades. When it comes to the manufacturing sector in particular, an October 2022 survey published by the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters notes that—for the second year in a row—more than 80 per cent of manufacturers are facing labour and skills shortages. In the report’s opening message Alan Arcand, chief economist, said, “These labour shortages are resulting in a wide range of negative impacts on the sector, the biggest of which are delivery delays, increased costs, and negative mental health impacts on current employees.” Chris Hergott, owner of Kitchener-based XL Tool Inc. and president of the Canadian Tooling and Machining Association (CTMA) is experiencing this first-hand. “Finding workers is the biggest issue currently impacting our business—we’ve got machines sitting idle, and it’s only become worse after the pandemic. Other companies are now offering big money to do jobs from home, like sales or programming, and we’ve also moved people to work from home positions. It seems to be a struggle to find anyone who really wants to get into the trades and it’s not just us, this is affecting everyone.” One of the long-standing issues has been getting schools and parents to recognize the value of a career in the trades, or even how much the trades have evolved over the years. As such, many students continue to be encouraged to pursue university-level degree programs over trades training, even though the trades provide a well-paying and rewarding career without the accumulation of massive student debt. Only by changing the perception of the trades in the minds of parents, educators, and the youth will the industry be able to start closing the workforce gap in the future. Fortunately, the efforts of industry to raise its profile appears to be paying off. “In the Kitchener area, we’re now starting to see in our high schools that the manufacturing classes are at capacity, and there are more kids wanting to get into manufacturing than there are seats in the classroom,” said Hergott. “The message that the trades are a decent career path, and not just a career of last resort, is getting out. But there is still a lot of work to do and we need to start focusing even younger than high school.” The Ontario government recently stepped up with a solution. Starting in October 2022, they began launching career fairs across the province to help prepare the next generation of young people for rewarding and well-paying jobs in the skilled trades. These fairs address labour shortages Level Up! By Paul Adair, Staff Writer to connect with future workers THANK YOU TO THE CTMA MEMBERS WHO ATTENDED THESE EVENTS! London: Armo Tool Ltd. Ottawa: Archer Precision Inc. ATG Industries Inc. Pegen Industries Pilot Precision Lee Valley/Veritas CTMA and Armo Tool Ltd. provided information on careers within the precision metalworking industry during the Level Up! Career Fairs in London, Ont. CTMA photo CTMA’s booth at the level up! Career Fairs were a success with help from some of our Ottawa-based members. In this photo: Robert Cattle, CTMA (left), Alex Mazerolle, Archer Precision Inc., and Anna Pisareva, Lee Valley/Veritas. Submitted photo CTMA’s booth at the London level up! Career Fairs were a hit, thanks to the robotic weld brought in by CTMA member company, Armo Tool Ltd. CTMA photoNext >