Alberta may be calling, but one experienced plumber is still drowning in red tape more than a year after moving to Calgary.
Plumber Josh Spragg arrived in the city in February 2024. With 14 years of experience working as a journeyman plumber in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, the Welshman expected an easy transition.
It hasn’t worked out that way.
Finding work was easy. However jumping through the permit and certification hoops has been a costly and confusing headache.
Upon arriving, he learned that Alberta doesn’t recognize out-of-country qualifications. Instead Spragg had to provide the government agency in charge of trades, Apprenticeship and Industry Training (AIT), with proof of hours worked as a plumber.
The agency at first rejected his application because one of his former employers had gone out of business, despite Spragg supplying AIT with his tax records. Eight months later he finally got everything approved. Then he had to wait another three months to sit his exam.
“They give you no info, no help, no resources. The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) doesn’t offer private lessons for the exam. So I pretty much had to find what I could online,” Spragg said in an interview with TheRockies.Life.
Spragg is a fully certified plumber in the UK and New Zealand and passed his exams on the first try in both countries. He’s failed the Red Seal exam in Alberta three times, coming in four percent short of a passing mark. Now he has to reapply and fill out the same paperwork he did before to write the exam again. So far he’s out of pocket $1200, with nothing to show for it except frustration.
He said he’s not looking for an easy road and doesn’t mind that the exam is challenging. However he said the lack of resources to help out-of-country tradespeople left him ill-prepared for a Red Seal exam with some questions not even related to plumbing.
“The next option I have is paying a company in BC $2000 for private tutoring, which honestly I might do just to get me over the line,” Spragg said. ”This whole thing confuses me, because I’ve been a plumber for 14 years now. Alberta is asking journeymen plumbers from out of province to come here and offering $5000 for them to move here. Yet myself and others I’ve spoken to in a similar position have to wait 8 months plus the time for exams. It’s honestly the most frustratingly long process and it feels so unnecessary.”
The Alberta Is Calling: Moving Bonus is a one-time only, $5,000 tax credit to offset skilled workers’ moving costs and address the province’s critical labour shortages.
According to Immigration Canada, the most in-demand tradespeople in Alberta through to 2033 will be electricians. There is also expected high demand for registered nurses, psychiatric nurses, and other health care workers, computer systems developers and programmers, and IT specialists.
So far red tape has kept the province from benefitting from skills of immigrants such as Spragg.
Luckily he’s been able to keep working throughout his licensing ordeal. He likes life in Calgary. He said it’s the perfect size, with “all the advantages of a major city with a small town feel.”
Certification not the only barrier
While Spragg was trying to find his feet as a Red Seal plumber in Alberta, he was in for other surprises and costly expenses – getting a driver’s license and car insurance.
He said the process in New Zealand was quick and hassle-free. Not so in Alberta.
He first had to surrender his UK license. “Then because I surrendered my UK licence and had a brand new Alberta licence, I was technically a first year Alberta driver at the age of 30,” he said.
Consequently, the cheapest car insurance he could find was $3,800 per year.
“Alberta insurance is privatised and is the most expensive in Canada. It blows my mind how expensive it is. I was getting quotes for £260 (roughly $500 CAN) for a year of fully comprehensive insurance in the UK before I left,” he said.
Spragg said he doesn’t like to complain too much about places he has chosen to live. He said he loves the people and the vibe in Alberta.
“But there is so much that could be improved to make Alberta one of the greatest places to live in the world,” Spragg said. “Bureaucracy is not an award Alberta or Canada is going to win anytime soon.”Or maybe mind-boogling bureaucracy and high costs are the awards they’re winning, if Spragg’s experience is any indicator.
