Diversity Development Network of Canada

21/10/2026

📣 FREE SESSION!! Are you a licensed AME ready to put your maintenance skills, teamwork, and decision-making to the test?

Join CAE at the 2026 National Aircraft Maintenance Conference & Skills Challenge, for an immersive, real-world maintenance experience:

AOG to Airworthy: The Maintenance Challenge
See the problem. Align the team. Make the call. Safely return the aircraft to service.

Step into an immersive AOG scenario where the pressure is real, the situation evolves around you, and your team must work together to determine the right course of action.

Using immersive technology, participants will experience how teams can quickly visualize an issue, build a shared understanding, and coordinate the actions needed to move from Aircraft on Ground (AOG) to airworthy.

Working alongside MOC and applying technical knowledge, procedures, and sound maintenance practices, participants will also navigate the human factors that can impact:

📕Communication
📕Situational awareness
📕Teamwork
📕Decision-making
📕Operational safety

The objective is simple: safely return the aircraft to service. This is an opportunity to experience maintenance decision-making in a dynamic, collaborative environment while putting your technical and teamwork skills into action. Don’t just attend the conference — experience the challenge!

Please note: This is a separate upskilling program held at the conference, not part of the conference itself. Participation is exclusively open to Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AMEs), and registration is required. Participants must complete the Participant Registration Form to secure their place.

Session Dates & Times

🗓️ November 12, 2026
10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

🗓️November 13, 2026
10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Register today to participate in CAE’s AOG to Airworthy: The Maintenance Challenge at the 2026 National Aircraft Maintenance Conference & Skills Challenge!

https://ame-ont.com/events/2026-national-aircraft-maintenance-conference-and-skills-challenge/

12/10/2026

Happy Thanksgiving from DDNC! 🍂

Today, we’re taking a moment to appreciate the people, connections, and communities that make us stronger. May this holiday be filled with warmth, gratitude, and a place at the table for everyone. 🧡

02/10/2026

🤝 Conflict Management
Sign up for a FREE facilitated virtual course

Conflict is not the problem, but how we respond to it. Unresolved tension can affect morale, communication, and safety. This seminar is designed for AMEs and other professional staff, offering practical tools to navigate tough conversations, reduce tension during high-pressure work, and strengthen teamwork across shifts.

✏️ Course details:
Professional Development Credits: 3
Certificate: Received upon completion
Format: Facilitated virtual course

🗓️ Course date:
One course date only: Tuesday, November 24, 2026
🕐 Time: 1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.

👋 Meet your facilitator
Marilyn Debora, CTP, has over 25 years of experience in organizational and employee development. She is a Certified Training Practitioner and uses a dynamic, hands-on approach to help participants turn complex workplace challenges into practical solutions.

Practical impact: Build the confidence to navigate difficult conversations, strengthen relationships, and turn conflict into collaboration.

What you’ll learn

✅ Foundations for successful conflict resolution
✅ Skills for achieving successful conflict resolution
✅ What to say and how to say it

🔗 Register today
One course date only: Tuesday, November 24, 2026, 1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.
Registration link: https://amesdfproject.ca/course-registration/

This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Ontario.

Course Registration

01/10/2026

✈️ Arrive and Thrive
Sign up for this FREE facilitated virtual course today!
Certificate Received Upon Completion.

📎 Course overview
Arrive and Thrive gives internationally trained AMEs and AME candidates a clear, practical roadmap for building a career in Canadian aviation maintenance. It explains the steps to get a Canadian AME licence. In addition, we look at how to find and keep a job in Canada, and the workplace rights and cultural norms that shape daily life in a Canadian hangar. Participants leave with clear next steps for licensing, job hunting, and understanding their new workplace culture.

📣 Facilitator
Katherine Lesperance is the founder of Cogwheel Soft Solutions and a sociologist, organizational culture, and leadership subject matter expert with hands-on experience inside aviation organizations. She delivers hands-on, in-person, research-based workshops about leadership, communication, and Human Factors for aviation organizations across Canada.

You’ll benefit by learning how to:
✅ Navigate the pathway to a Canadian AME licence
✅ Know your rights under Canadian labour law
✅ Read Canadian workplace culture and fit in fast

💻 Facilitated virtual course

📅 Course dates and times:
Dates and Times
🕙 Wednesday, November 18, 2026 | 9:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
🕙 Wednesday, February 17, 2027 | 9:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.

🔗 Registration
For course registration, click the link in the post’s description.
https://amesdfproject.ca/course-registration/

This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario.

01/10/2026

📘 Foundational Skills: An Introduction to Blueprint Reading, Trade Math & Measuring

Sign up for this FREE facilitated virtual course today. Certificate received upon completion.

This 6-hour online course provides an introductory overview of foundational knowledge in blueprint reading, technical trade math, and precision measurement—core technical skills required for careers in aviation and aerospace.

What You’ll Learn:
✅ Blueprint reading concepts
✅ Interpreting drawing content
✅ Dimensioning methods and proper callouts of common features
✅ Tolerancing concepts and explanation
✅ Assembly drawings and additional views
✅ Aircraft-specific schematics
✅ Trade math, theory, and calculations
✅ Measurement concepts and instruments, including micrometers, calipers, and more.

👋 Meet Your Instructor
Shawn Bontaine, Executive Director of Technical Training Group (TTG), brings over 30 years of combined experience in manufacturing, testing, and technical education. He is a Mechanical Engineering Technologist with an Ontario teaching certificate, holds ASME Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) certification and is a Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP). His combination of engineering expertise, corporate training leadership, and teaching expertise makes him well qualified to deliver the program.

You'll Benefit by Learning How To
✅ Build a foundation — gain a baseline understanding of essential technical skills.
✅ Speak the language — learn relevant technical language used in aviation.
✅ Explore your path — develop key foundational knowledge to discover if a career in technical fields and trades is the right path.

🗓 Course Dates & Registration
🕘 Course dates and times
November 16 and 17, 2026 | 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.
January 18 and 19, 2027 | 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.
March 1 and 2, 2027 | 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.

Register today: https://amesdfproject.ca/course-registration/

This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Ontario.

&T

30/09/2026

🗓️ Today, we pause to honour the children who never returned home, the Survivors of residential schools, their families, and Indigenous communities across Canada.

This day is an opportunity to listen, learn, and reflect on the lasting impact of residential schools and the experiences shared by Survivors. It is also a reminder that reconciliation is not limited to one day. It is an ongoing responsibility that calls for respect, understanding, meaningful action, and a commitment to building stronger relationships.
May we continue to learn from Indigenous voices, recognize the truth of our shared history, and help create communities grounded in dignity, inclusion, and care.

23/09/2026

🤝 Civility at Work: Fostering Respect, Clean Speech and Professionalism in Your Workplace

Sign up for this FREE facilitated virtual course today!

Small behaviours. Big impact.
The way we communicate can either strengthen a team or slowly undermine it. This seminar identifies everyday behaviours that damage trust and provides practical strategies to improve communication, reduce tension, and build respect. Learn how to handle challenging interactions, use “clean speech,” and build a culture where people feel valued and teams perform at their best.

Meet the facilitator
Marilyn Debora, CTP, is a Certified Training Practitioner with over 25 years of experience in organizational and employee development. Known for her highly interactive, hands-on facilitation style, Marilyn brings Civility at Work to life by building respect, professionalism, and clean communication into everyday interactions.

You’ll benefit by learning how to:
✅ Understand why civility is essential to a productive workplace
✅ Build self-awareness as the foundation of respectful behaviour
✅ Set standards of civil and respectful behaviour and receive a free downloadable ✅ Code of Civil Conduct for your organization
✅ Apply communication skills for difficult people and situations

Course details
📅 Course date: Thursday, November 5, 2026
🕘 Time: 9:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m
💻 Format: Facilitated virtual course
🎓 Credits 📜 Certificate Registration

3 Professional Development Credits
Certificate received upon completion | Register online

🔗 Register here: https://amesdfproject.ca/course-registration/

This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario.

22/09/2026

📣 Last call for tickets!! Happening this Wednesday, Sept 23 from 12:00 PM to 7:00PM.

📅 Plan your day at the Workforce Agility Forum & Networking Event

Join us on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, for an afternoon of insights, discussion, and networking focused on the future of Ontario’s aviation and aerospace workforce.

The agenda includes:
🕛 Registration and refreshments
🕧 Introduction and HR workforce overview
🕐 Diversity Panel
☕ Break and refreshments
🕝 Academic Organizations Panel
🕞 Industry and Organization Panel
🕔 Wrap-up and next steps
🕠 Networking reception with a cash bar, hors d’oeuvres, entertainment by Mysterion the Mindreader, and immersive aviation and aerospace experiences from Pop-Up VR

The event runs from 12:00 PM to 7:00 PM.

View the full event details and register:
https://ame-ont.com/events/workforce-agility-forum-networking-event-2026/

22/09/2026

🤝 Communicating for Accountability©

Sign up for this FREE facilitated virtual course today!
Certificate Received Upon Completion.

Communicating for Accountability© is an online workshop built for all members of aviation maintenance teams. Accountability is the interpersonal act of trust, ownership, and commitment in the workplace, but talking to people about broken promises, not following norms and failing to deliver is not always comfortable, and we worry it might risk relationships. So, we tend to avoid them. This course gives a practical, repeatable, hangar-appropriate framework for having conversations with co-workers, leaders and crew while building better working relationships.

Katherine Lesperance is the founder of Cogwheel Soft Solutions and a sociologist, organizational culture, and leadership subject matter expert with hands-on experience inside aviation organizations. She delivers hands-on, in-person, research-based workshops about leadership, communication, and Human Factors for aviation organizations across Canada.

You’ll benefit by learning how to:
✅ Establish a common set of expectations
✅ Create dialogue to foster trust and reliability
✅ Improve relationships
✅ Develop an agreement for future expectations

📅 Course dates and times:
• Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 9:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
• Wednesday, February 10, 2027, 9:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.

💻 Facilitated virtual course

🔗 For course registration, click the link in the post’s description.
https://amesdfproject.ca/course-registration/

This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Ontario.

22/09/2026

📏 Measuring Instruments and Math

Instrument Refresher Course
Sign up for this FREE facilitated virtual course today!

Certificate Received Upon Completion.

Participants must have prior experience in using measurement tools to benefit fully from this course.

This 12-hour online course reinforces core measuring and math skills for individuals with previous technical training. Delivered in four 3-hour instructor-led sessions, the interactive format is designed to refresh measurement precision, strengthen trade math calculations, and ensure exactness and reliability.

You’ll learn about:
✅ Math and trade calculations involving fractions and decimals
✅ Metric and imperial conversions
✅ Area and volume calculations
✅ Specific aircraft-related calculations
✅ Measurement concepts
✅ Common measurement instruments, including micrometers and calipers, and their proper use, how to read them, and the dos and don’ts
✅ Instruments that check a physical state, such as pressure gauges
✅ Aircraft locking devices

Shawn Bontaine, Executive Director of Technical Training Group (TTG), brings over 30 years of combined industry expertise in manufacturing, testing and technical education. A Mechanical Engineering Technologist with an Ontario teaching certificate, Shawn holds ASME Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) certification and is a Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP). Shawn’s rare combination of deep engineering mastery, corporate training leadership, and pedagogical expertise makes him uniquely qualified to deliver this course.

You’ll benefit by learning how to:

✅ Reconnect with handling, reading, and maintenance techniques for micrometers, calipers, torque wrenches and more
✅ Master quick, accurate calculations for fractions, decimals, ratios, and seamless metric-to-imperial conversions
✅ Gain confidence solving technical trade math problems
✅ Review best practices and critical dos and don’ts
✅ Access one-to-one support with measuring tools

📅 Course dates available:
• November 2, 3, 9 and 10, 2026, 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.
• February 15, 16, 22 and 23, 2027, 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.
• March 15, 16, 22 and 23, 2027, 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.

🔗 For course registration, click the link in the post’s description.
https://amesdfproject.ca/course-registration/

This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario.