Celebrating Alberta’s Apprentices

Monday September 28th is Apprenticeship Day in Alberta. It brings to mind one of my favourite mottos: “Learn to Do by Doing.”

It is the 4-H Canada motto, but it also captures something fundamental about apprenticeship.

For centuries, skilled people have learned their craft by working alongside people who had already mastered it, learning the theory, applying it in the real world, making mistakes, improving and eventually becoming masters themselves.

This model is one of the oldest forms of education and remains relevant today.

Today, Minister of Advanced Education Myles McDougall announced that Alberta now has more than 81,000 registered apprentices, a provincial record. The province has also committed $100 million in 2026-27 to apprenticeship seat funding, which the government says represents a doubling of that funding over four years.

For Alberta business, those numbers matter.

We can attract investment, approve projects and talk about economic growth, however, eventually somebody has to build it.

Electricians. Welders. Millwrights. Pipefitters. Machinists. Carpenters. Heavy-equipment technicians. Instrumentation technicians. And many others. These skilled workers turn capital, engineering and ideas into operating businesses, infrastructure and productive assets.

That is why the Alberta Business Alliance views apprenticeship as much more than an education issue.

It is a competitiveness issue.

Expanding Alberta’s apprenticeship capacity means expanding our ability to build. The investment announced by the province increases training capacity at a time when Alberta’s economy requires more skilled people, and that connection between workforce capacity and economic growth deserves attention.

Government and post-secondary institutions have important roles, however, industry does too. Apprenticeships only work when businesses are willing to train and experienced tradespeople are willing to mentor the next generation.

Alberta has the resources, energy, entrepreneurs and capital to build extraordinary things. None of it happens without people who know how to do things.

Learn to do by doing.