Three governments spoke to workers on Labour Day, and the biggest number on offer was 100,000. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s statement, issued at 9 a.m. Monday, said his government launched Team Canada Strong “to recruit, train, and hire up to 100,000 skilled trades workers by 2031, including through new investments in the Union Training and Innovation Program.” A joint statement from Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu and Secretary of State (Labour) John Zerucelli put the same target as “up to 100,000 new Red Seal certified workers over the next five years.” Ontario’s labour minister, David Piccini, issued his own statement at 9 a.m. pointing to the province’s tariff-response programs.
None of the three contains a new dollar, a new program or a new date. Here is what sits behind each line.
The 100,000 target has been on the books since April
The figure first appeared in the 2026 Spring Economic Update on April 28, which set out “a new nationwide effort to recruit, train, and hire 80,000 to 100,000 new skilled trade workers by 2030-31” and budgeted up to $6 billion over five years for it. The Prime Minister launched Team Canada Strong the next day, and a further $2 billion over five years for provinces and territories followed on July 16. Every federal document until Monday gave the target as a range; both Labour Day statements dropped the bottom of it and said only “up to 100,000.”
The Union Training and Innovation Program that Carney called a new investment is a 2016 program that provides $25 million a year to union-run training centres. Budget 2025 added $75 million over three years from 2026-27, and on Aug. 12 the government announced a further $225 million. Monday’s statements restate that money; they do not add to it.
What Ontario’s “job-protected leave” actually is
Piccini’s statement cites the Canada-Ontario Workforce Tariff Response, Skills Advance Ontario and the province’s POWER Centres, and says Ontario is “providing job-protected leave so workers can search for a job or participate in training.”
That leave is the job-seeking leave added to the Employment Standards Act last November under the Working for Workers Seven Act, in force since Nov. 27, 2025. It entitles an employee who has received notice of a mass termination — 50 or more people let go at one establishment within four weeks — to up to three days of unpaid, job-protected leave during the notice period. It is not tied to tariffs and it is not paid.
The Canada-Ontario Workforce Tariff Response is federal money: $228.8 million over three years to help up to 27,000 workers, of which the province’s 2025-26 plan allocates $3.4 million to POWER Centres, $16.8 million to Skills Advance Ontario and $8 million to integrated employment services. POWER Centres are temporary service locations for workers affected by mass layoffs, formerly known as Action Centres.
The labour market they were speaking into
Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey for August, published Friday, recorded a loss of 42,000 jobs nationally, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 6.4 per cent. Ontario shed 18,000 jobs and its unemployment rate was 6.9 per cent; in the Toronto area it was 6.7 per cent. Youth unemployment edged up to 12.9 per cent. Manufacturing, the sector most exposed to U.S. tariffs, was the only one to post a significant gain, adding 22,000 jobs.
Carney’s statement framed the trades push as part of a response to “unjustified and unprovoked tariffs from the United States.” Canada’s own counter-tariffs on $27.6 billion of U.S. goods take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
Source: Statement by Prime Minister Carney on Labour Day, Prime Minister’s Office, Sept. 7, 2026.
