What’s On My Mind? With Pari Johnston.
What a difference a year can make.
As I reflect on our latest CICan on the Hill, I find myself thinking back to November 2025, when the federal government presented a budget focused on building Canada’s future.
The ambition was clear: investing in housing, infrastructure, defence, energy and the foundations of a stronger, more resilient economy.
It was an agenda that spoke directly to the work of Canada’s public colleges and institutes. After all, who trains the people needed to build, operate and sustain these bold new initiatives and investments? Who helps local Canadian businesses innovate, adopt new technologies and become more productive?
And Budget 2025 did not include an explicit investment in our sector’s capacity to help deliver this ambitious agenda.
For me, that moment crystallized both a challenge and an opportunity. We knew our institutions were essential to Canada’s future. But we needed to make that connection clearer to the people shaping and funding national priorities.
The Spring Economic Update answered our call.
And six months later, we are now having a very different conversation.
From Making the Case to Building Strategic Partnerships
Earlier this month, 25 college and institute leaders, including 22 presidents and three vice-presidents representing seven provinces, joined us in Ottawa for CICan on the Hill.
Over two days, our delegation participated in close to 30 meetings with Parliamentarians, senior government officials, and key partners. These included discussions with Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu, Secretary of State for Labour John Zerucelli, Parliamentary Secretaries, senior officials from the Privy Council Office, advisors to the Prime Minister, and Canadian Armed Forces leadership. We also convened three roundtables focused on applied research and workforce development and welcomed more than 100 partners to our annual reception, including Parliamentary Secretary of Industry Bardeesy Karim Bardeesy.
But what stays with me most isn’t the number of meetings. It is the nature of conversation.
There was a noticeable shift. No longer making the case for why colleges and institutes should be part of Canada’s future, we were discussing how government and our institutions can intentionally work together to deliver on national priorities that help Canadians on the ground, building strong communities and a strong Canada.
Federal officials were looking for concrete solutions: shovel-ready infrastructure projects that could expand public training capacity to train more apprentices faster, actionable capabilities and labour market intelligence to inform Major Projects workforce planning, and opportunities to leverage applied research to boost local innovation, Canadian SME productivity and regional economic growth.
Across discussions on workforce development, defence readiness, infrastructure and innovation, one message was increasingly clear: public colleges and institutes are essential partners to Canada’s ability to deliver national missions at pace and scale.
It truly felt as though we were sitting on the same side of the table, working together to identify solutions and explore how our institutions could help turn Canada’s national ambitions into local impact.
I left Parliament Hill with a real sense determined optimism.
Build. Operate. Innovate. Prosper.
Throughout CICan on the Hill, four integrated concepts framed our discussions: Build. Operate. Innovate. Prosper.
They capture the contribution our pan-Canadian network of member institutions makes to Canada’s future.
- Build. Prepare the skilled tradespeople; technicians and technologists needed to deliver major national projects.
- Operate. Develop the workforce that will maintain and sustain these investments for decades to come.
- Innovate. Connect applied research and industry partnerships to local technology adoption, productivity and practical solutions.
- Prosper. Translate national investments into good jobs, stronger communities and lasting opportunities for Canadians.
Our 120 public colleges, institutes, CEGEPs, polytechnics and Indigenous Institutes of Education are uniquely positioned to deliver on these priorities.
With 95% of Canadians living within 50 kilometres of a CICan member institution, our network connects national ambitions to local realities. Every year, our institutions graduate with more than 300,000 learners, including over 40,000 from construction-trades programs.
But their contribution goes well beyond these numbers. Our members are deeply embedded in their communities, directly connected to employers and responsive to changing workforce needs.
They operate at the intersection where national ambitions become local results.
And as our Roadmap to 2030 recognizes, this collective strength is also our greatest opportunity: connecting training institutions, governments and partners around shared priorities and turning that collaboration into meaningful collective action to build a strong and resilient Canada.
Building the Capacity to Deliver
The opportunity before us is significant. But realizing the full potential of our network requires the sustained capacity to respond to Canada’s growing ambitions.
Consider the skilled trades in the construction sector alone. Today, approximately 44,000 prospective learners outside Quebec are on CICan member waitlists, including roughly 22,000 apprentices. That’s an extraordinary pool ready to develop the in-demand skills Canada sorely needs.
Imagine what we could accomplish by expanding public training capacity, equipping more learners with in-demand skills, and connecting them to the major projects taking shape across the country.
The federal government’s $8B Team Canada Strong (TCS) represents a generational commitment to recruiting, training and hiring up to 100,000 new Red Seal workers by 2030–31.
TCS includes $6B in federally delivered support for placements for young Canadians to explore careers in the skilled trades, recruitment, retention and completion incentives for apprentices and employers and recent investments in the Union Training and Innovation Program (UTIP) – a program colleges and institutes are eligible partners in.
It also includes $2 billion to support provinces and territories in expanding workforce training and apprenticeship opportunities, by supporting public colleges and institutes with funding for facilities, equipment, instructors, technical training capacity, mobile delivery, and learner and apprenticeship completion supports. Together, these new commitments represent major progress and create new opportunities to build on the strengths of our public training system. For us, the priority is ensuring that these investments translate into the facilities, equipment, instructors, flexible training delivery and learner supports needed to expand capacity and help more apprentices complete their training.
As Canada invests in building its future, we must ensure that the public training and innovation infrastructure needed to deliver on those ambitions grows alongside it.
This is where our conversations with government focused: the show of delivery and implementation, identifying the strategic partnerships and investments that will enable our institutions to deliver at the pace and scale Canada requires.
As we look toward Budget 2026, our focus is on ensuring that colleges and institutes can play their full part in delivering lasting results for Canadians.
Turning Momentum into Lasting Results
Looking back on the past year, I am proud of how far we have come together.
To the college leaders who travelled to Ottawa, thank you for bringing the voices and experiences of your communities to these discussions. To our government and industry partners, thank you for your openness in strategic collaboration. And to Team CICan, thank you for the daily dedication to serving our members that made this progress possible.
A year ago, we were working to ensure our sector had a clear place in Canada’s nation-building agenda. Today, we are sitting on the same side of the table, working shoulder to shoulder with our sleeved rolled up with government and partners to turn national ambitions into concrete results for Canadians.
That is meaningful and concrete progress, and it gives me real confidence in the road ahead.
