Canadian NGO seeks to gain government recognition for Bicycle Mechanic as an occupation

A new Canadian NGO – the Bike Training Collective Canada (BTCC) – comprising a coalition of bicycle industry training organisations, plus supporting stakeholders, is asking Employment and Social Development Canada to list bicycle mechanic as an occupation in the 2026 version of the National Occupational Classification (NOC) system.

The announcement reads, “Bicycle Mechanic is currently not listed as an occupation by the Canadian government, unlike every other English-speaking nation – US, UK, Australia, NZ, EU.  This significantly holds back the growth of the industry in Canada in a number of ways.”

The move by the Bike Training Collective Canada comes hot on the heels of recent Shimano Europe moves, launching a European call for evidence to tackle what it calls an “urgent bicycle mechanic shortage”.

Canadian industry status

The NGO aims to have bicycle mechanic listed officially as an occupation – seeing this as one of the first steps needed to begin building a professional, skilled workforce for the Canadian bicycle industry.

• Canada is the only nation that does not include bicycle mechanics as a separate occupation in its national list of job occupations.
• A review of four other countries (USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand) and 2 supranational (UN and EU) occupation lists indicates that they all have a specific job classification listing for bicycle mechanics.
• The National Occupational Classification (NOC) system is Canada’s list of job occupations and allows the collection of information on the listed jobs.

There are over 40,000 job occupations listed in the NOC. Bicycle mechanic is not on the list of NOC occupations but is buried in a general code, NOC73209 – Other Repairers and Servicers, that includes over 100 unrelated occupations such as accordion repairer, adding machine repairer, air compressor repairer, and archery bow finisher. Currently, no useful information on individual occupations can be obtained from this code’s statistics, as it is so diverse.

Formal status giving industry visibility and understanding

The information collected on individual job occupations in the NOC is critical for growing an industry and includes:

• Understanding the employment in an industry, how many people are hired per year and the career opportunities for people entering the industry.

• Helps employers determine competitive wages for employees and career advancement.

• Allows education and training organisations to identify the training needs and develop and operate training programs that serve the needs of the industry.

• The NOC listing of an occupation is a key initial prerequisite to having an occupation considered a trade (defined at the provincial level) and to support the development of skill training and apprenticeship programs.

The Bike Training Collective Canada presented a submission to the federal government on June 13th, 2025. It was supported by key stakeholders from across Canada, including the Canada Electric Bike Association, Cycle Toronto, Foresight, the Ontario Clean Technology Industry Association and the University of Toronto.

The submission can be downloaded via the Bike Training Collective Canada website.

A specific window of opportunity

The NOC is updated once every five years. The last version was released in 2021. The next version will be released in 2026. If changes are not made in the next release it will result in having to wait till 2031 to have it considered again.

A national advocacy campaign has started to encourage the Canadian government to establish an occupation code for bicycle mechanic.

A national petition is now live, enabling supporting stakeholders to show support for this change.

This submission and petition will be used in anticipated discussions with the federal government on the need for bicycle mechanics to have their occupation code.

Facts on the Bicycle Industry in Canada and Globally

The announcement from BTCC states: “While there are limited statistics on the bicycle industry in Canada, it has seen a boom-and-bust growth cycle since the pandemic.

“However, long-term projections on growth are positive as cycling is a critical element to many local climate change and congestion reduction strategies.

• Retail Bicycle and Equipment Sales (2024) in Canada: $1.56 Billion Can.. 1

• Number of Bicycle Shops in Canada (2025) : 1,800 estimated,2 with each employing at least one bicycle mechanic.

• The global cycling industry (2024) is estimated to be between $77 and $126 billion US annual sales with an average forecasted growth rate (CAGR) of between 7.4% and 10.5% over the next five years.

Who is the Bike Training Collective Canada?

The Bike Training Collective Canada (BTCC) is a new collaboration between several key micro mobility industry stakeholders across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, supported by the Peter Gilgan Foundation, which is focused on developing a standardised and professionalised approach to training bike mechanics and ensuring that the industry can meet anticipated growth projections.

The goal of the BTCC is to create a professionalised, standard set of curricula and professional education and apprenticeship programs across Canada so that bike mechanics can become a certified trade.