B.C. to help Indigenous candidates get Class 1 licence

by Today's Trucking

The B.C. government will offer skills training to nine eligible Indigenous individuals to prepare them for employment in the trucking industry in the Columbia Valley.

This is the second intake of a new Community and Employer Partnerships (CEP) project from the Government of British Columbia.

Picture of a driver in a truck
(Photo: Government of B.C.)

“The safe transport of bulk, industrial and consumer goods is vital to British Columbia’s recovering economy,” said Nicholas Simons, minister of social development and poverty reduction. “Graduates of this professional driver program will find themselves qualified to secure well-paying jobs in a variety of sectors.”

The province is providing almost $650,000 to College of the Rockies in Golden to deliver skills and certification courses in two intakes of its professional Class 1 truck driver program.

“Graduates of this program will achieve mandatory entry-level training (MELT); a program for new commercial truck drivers that will improve the safety on our highways,” said Rob Fleming, minister of transportation and infrastructure.

Participants will receive 13 weeks of essential, occupational and practical skills training, four weeks of on-the-job work experience and two weeks of follow-up support to assist in their job search. Courses include MELT, air brake training, truck theory and simulator training.

Certification courses

Participants will also receive certification courses in Workplace Hazardous Material Information Systems, Occupational First Aid Level 1, Transportation Endorsement, Transportation of Dangerous Goods, Truck Weight and Dimensions, and Electronic Logging Devices.

Funding is provided through the Project Based Labour Market Training stream of WorkBC’s CEP. CEP’s investments are targeted toward projects that support an inclusive economic recovery.

Full-time, group-based classroom learning for the second intake of this project starts on Nov. 8 and will run until March 31, 2022. The first intake started July 26 and will run until Dec. 3.

Anyone interested in finding out more about this or other CEP projects can contact their local WorkBC centre.


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  • I do not understand why it can not be done for $12,000 per driver. Am I missing something or something else going on with the process..