Canadian industry and government keep sounding an identical alarm: too few young people are entering the skilled trades, even as thousands of well-paying positions go begging across the country. One increasingly influential explanation attributes the shortage to the nation's overwhelming preference for university credentials. Labour analyst Eduardo Gomez maintains that a weakened trades stream closes off a sure route to a secure and rewarding career.

Much of the pressure, he argues, originates in the household. Parents opposed to the trades, the so-called "helicopter parents," intervene so extensively in their children's lives that they dictate the selection of school, program, and eventual occupation, with a university seat held up as the only goal. Confronted with such relentless supervision, many teenagers drift into a degree they never wanted and discover too late that it was a poor fit. "A university degree, on its own, guarantees nobody a comfortable living," Gomez observes. "Secondary schools ought to present an apprenticeship as a first-rate first step, never a consolation prize."