After a stint studying to be an automotive technician at his high school in Hamilton, Ontario, Gera set his sights on the manufacturing engineering technician program at Mohawk College. He would be a millwright, like his father and grandfather.

He graduated last year, joined a large company, and finished 8,000 hours of mandatory apprenticeship training. It was time to write his certification test with Skilled Trades Ontario (STO), the provincial agency established in 2022. Like many, he did not pass on his first try. On his second attempt, he received a notice that he had failed again, with a grade of 1 percent.

When he called STO, he says, they told him the third-party contractor that handles the exams had lost his test paper. Because it was impossible to input a score of zero into the system, someone had logged a grade of 1 percent and called it a day, he recalls the representative explaining. He would not be getting a refund. Gera was forced to take the test a third time—shelling out another $169.50—and finally passed with his certification after months of trying.