Candice White taking over from Melissa Young
The Ontario government is appointing Candice White as the new CEO for Skilled Trades Ontario (STO).
White brings over a decade of executive level experience, including serving as the Chief Administrative Officer for multiple municipalities, most recently the Municipality of Port Hope, and on boards of provincial agencies.
White has also served on the Board of Directors of provincial agencies including the Ontario Clean Water Agency and the York Region Wastewater Advisory Panel.
“I look forward to Candice leveraging her executive experience within public sector organizations to build upon STO’s successes as we continue to work together to grow our skilled trades workforce, and develop world-class training and standards,” said David Piccini, minister of labour, immigration, training and skills development.
White will start her tenure on Nov. 25 this year.
“I look forward to working with STO’s Board, its talented workforce and tradespeople across Ontario as we continue to modernize service delivery and advance world-class certification standards for the more than 1.3 million registered skilled tradespeople and apprentices – and the countless more Ontarians seeking to start their career in the skilled trades,” she said.
Candice has made an impressive impact during her time with the Municipality of Port Hope, said Mayor Olena Hankivsky.
"Her contributions have been significant, adding tremendous value to our organization and positively affecting the community at large. Her dedication and expertise have not only driven key initiatives forward but have also set a strong foundation for future growth. We are grateful for her hard work and commitment, and while we will miss her greatly, we wish her every success in her future endeavors.”
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Recently, Ontario expanded its Level Up! skilled trades career fairs to more cities this fall, introducing over 35,000 students to exciting, in-demand careers in the trades.
What is the Skilled Trades Ontario agency responsible for?
White is replacing Melissa Young, who is stepping down after she was appointed CEO of STO in 2022 to improve trades training, simplify and modernize services, and develop the latest training and curriculum standards.
Under Young’s leadership, she achieved significant accomplishments for the agency, including:
- launching Standards Industry Advisory Committees, Certificates of Qualification and wallet cards for skilled trades professionals
- releasing a guiding strategic plan
- enabling groundbreaking research to ascertain public perceptions of the trades
- establishing an Exam Support Unit to help clients as they advance through the apprentice to journeyperson pathway.
“When I took on the helm of STO, my objective was clear, but far from simple: make it easy and exciting to join the skilled trades. To achieve that, we needed to rewrite the system, which included creating a one-window experience for services, and identifying new opportunities where the government can take action,” said Young. “In short, we needed to make the system work for workers, not against them, and I’m proud of how we have delivered on these objectives over the past three years.”
Ontario has over 1.3 million workers in skilled trades related occupations, including over 102,000 active apprentices in the skilled trades. The province is expected to need over 500,000 additional workers in the skilled trades over the next decade.
One reason many Canadians are struggling with finances these days is the labour shortage that numerous sectors are experiencing, said Simon Gaudreault, chief economist and vice-president of research for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) in a CBC report.