Individuals, unions and employers encountered particular types of barriers most strongly in certain phases of apprenticeship, although many types of barriers were encountered in more than one apprenticeship phase.

The specific research activities undertaken in the project included the following:

1. An initial set of interviews with CAF-FCA Board members who represented key constituencies (governments, labour, business, equity groups and educational institutions). These interviews sought to clarify and validate the key questions on which the research should focus.
2. A comprehensive review of existing literature and data on barriers and access to apprenticeship in Canada. The review also drew on key international literature pertinent to the Canadian context. Over 200 documents were reviewed, with some 115 entered into a database.
3. To fill in the information gaps identified by the literature review, the study undertook a series of thirty-five telephone interviews and an additional ten focus groups. These interviews and focus groups captured perspectives on barriers to apprenticeship of a wide variety of stakeholders, including:
   • Employer and sector-council representatives;
   • Labour representatives and union trainers;
   • High school counsellors;
   • Community colleges and private trainers;
   • Equity groups (women, persons with disabilities, Aboriginal people, visible minorities and immigrants);
   • Apprentices;
   • Journeypersons;
   • Youth, students and parents;
   • CCDA members from provincial and territorial governments;
   • Government of Canada; and
   • Academics.

The perspectives of ex-apprentices (those who did not complete an apprenticeship) were gathered primarily through secondary sources. For a number of reasons, including concerns regarding privacy and access to information, it was not possible to identify and contact ex-apprentices who might have served as potential interviewees.

2.3 Report Organization and Citation of References

This report discusses common generic barriers that were identified by employers, labour representatives and individual respondents. Generic barriers are those that affect the apprenticeship community in general and are distinguished from more group-specific barriers—those barriers reflecting the particular circumstances or characteristics of individual employers or members of under-represented groups, such as youth, Aboriginal people, women, persons with disabilities, immigrants and visible minorities. This section is followed by a discussion of the group-specific barriers that affect these particular groups, and then by a discussion of specific barriers encountered by employers and unions.

These sections are followed by a presentation of the perspectives of education and government on aspects of the apprenticeship system that prevent each group from playing their roles more effectively.

The report draws directly on both the literature reviewed during the project and the interviews and focus groups conducted. References to the literature are included in brackets containing the author’s name and the year of the publication. The full reference can be found in the bibliography included in Appendix 1. Points that reflect the discussions of individual interviews are indicated by the following bracketed symbol (), while those points deriving from multiple interviews or focus groups are indicated by ().