this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
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That Canadian belief is so bull. Canada arguably doesn't have enough people. If they want to move beyond being a US resource colony, they need way more of their own engineers and stuff, which immigrants can be.
Western universities are also all reliant on foreign student tuition to pad their budgets (short on state funding because of neoliberalism), so complaining about that is just stupid.
Tbf Klanada should not have more people. We don’t need more settlers stealing native lands.
The people complaining about immigration are not the people complaining about underfunding schools.
And canada has a lot of engineers, both domestically trained and those who immigrated, but the capitalists are addicted to underpaying extremely qualified immigrants who do not yet have their credentials validated. Why would you pay a graduate when you could get a mid level for the same price?
Engineering school is like medical school before the residency, except our "residency" isn't as closely watched by the regulating body so companies have no real obligation to provide useful training or mentorship. Without those vital entry level positions they can't get a licence and can't work as engineers.
Just to be clear I am only saying this to push back on the idea that canada doesn't graduate engineers or there are less or something. I'm an extremely frustrated mid career engineer 😅 I have no comment on immigration policy because borders are bullshit.
In a similar vein, most all of the trades graduates aren't able to find viable apprenticeships. I know several electrician graduates who can't find any apprenticeships even within their own province, let alone their city.
Nobody will hire and train a "newbie". And the older generations are well aware and critical of this as well.
Not only are the trades here no longer the golden ticket they were cracked up to be, that goes for basically every fucking job lol. If you aren’t a time traveller who somehow has 5+ years of experience despite just getting into whatever field we’re talking about, you can basically just kys or move to an impossibly expensive city (good luck without that job).
If I could trade my credentials back for a refund I would do it in a heartbeat.
As a Canadian apprenticing in Germany, the more I learn about trades in Canada the happier I am doing it here. Y'all have to buy your own tools!? Take unpaid leave from work to go to school?! Things are chaotic and frustrating in Germany as well, but at least it's a fully organized and coherent system.
Not trying to defend the canadian system but apprentices can get EI while doing their classroom portions of their training. (https://www.canada.ca/en/services/jobs/training/support-skilled-trades-apprentices/ei-apprentices.html)
Good luck getting the apprenticeship tho.
Yes, I know this pain too as I work on construction projects and my brother is a tradesperson.
I've had to stop work way too often as a result of people doing dangerous things because they don't know better. Not like questionable but low risk short cuts when the safety rep isn't around. I always try and explain why I stopped something and more often than not they stop whining once they realize they had no idea what they were risking.
We do a lot of mentoring on our personal time, or work later to catch up because we are trying to bring the juniors along with us as much as possible. Same thing for helping people with international training get their licences so they can practice fully and not be exploited with shitty (insecure/low paying) contracts. It's a lot.
God I wish Engineering degrees forced you to have residency. At least then I'd be able to be guaranteed work and experience.
I'm probably taking this too literally but they kinda do, in canada at least. You can't get a licence without meeting the experience requirements. When I did mine it was 4 years. It's reduced now with more of a focus demonstrating competencies. And just like residency, a placement isn't guaranteed. I think it's slightly less sadistic and exploitative than a medical residency tho.
Here in the US, we have licenses that are based on programs and different classes. You got to pass a test (difficult ones at that) to get a license in those programs or to work as different kinds of engineers, but you're not given any employment. If you wanna get an entry level position, you better hope you got accepted for an internship while you were a student because no one will hire you.
For my major, we have the bonus of needing a license to operate a nuclear reactor BUT the class to get that license is limited capacity and you aren't forced to take it, and it's in fact competitive. We are all required to take a class to learn how to operate the reactor but not one that gives us a license.
You can imagine the frustration.
Just adding more details to compare and contrast: