Becoming a licensed electrician in Canada is a challenging endeavor that takes dedication and perseverance, but once you've gotten your license, the career can be very rewarding. You will always have job security, because an electrician is a necessary commodity in most places in the country. You don't need to have a special education before signing up to be an electrician in Canada. In some cases, you don't even need to have graduated from high school. If you meet the education requirements, you can sign up for an electrical apprenticeship and work toward getting your license.

Finish at least the 10th grade in high school and complete an electrical apprenticeship to become a licensed electrician in Canada. If you're trying to enter an electrician's union, you'll need to have graduated from high school with math, physics and English classes and completed an electrical apprenticeship.

Apply for an electrical apprenticeship. If you're applying in the construction or maintenance sector, you need a high school diploma or a GED certificate, your official high school transcripts and a typed resume that includes references and your objective for entering the electrical apprenticeship. If you are applying for an electrical apprenticeship in the low-rise residential sector, you need an 11th-grade transcript, a typed resume and a letter that explains your reason for wanting to be an electrician. You'll need to appear in person to submit these items to the apprenticeship council, and if you're applying to be a low-rise residential electrician, you'll need to have the sponsorship of a low-rise residential contractor.

Take a mechanical aptitude test that the council schedules for you once you've submitted your information to become a construction and maintenance electrical apprentice; or if you're a low-rise residential apprentice applicant, you'll need to be successful in your interview to get accepted, and then you'll have to take these four courses: "Safety and Orientation," "Workplace Hazardous Material Information System," "Fall Protection" and "Materials and Tools Identification." If you pass the construction and maintenance electrical apprenticeship aptitude test, you will be contacted again for an interview. Following a successful interview, you will have to pass a probationary term before being inducted into the electrical apprenticeship. For low-rise residential electrical apprenticeship applicants, when the four courses are completed, you will be placed in the preapprenticeship program, which lasts for 900 hours.

Attend and complete the electrical apprenticeship. The apprenticeship is five terms long, lasts for 9,000 hours and costs $1,400 dollars. Most of the activities at the apprenticeship involve paid electrical work, so you're learning to become an electrician by working as an electrician. The pay rate for the work you perform begins at 40 percent of a journeyman electrician's wages and increases by 10 percent for every term.

Take a written Certification of Qualifications Exam at the end of the apprenticeship and pass with at least a grade of 70 percent and you will be a licensed electrician.