Ottawa is proposing a major workforce shift toward a net-zero economy, calling it a transition toward sustainable jobs. With the plan being based on a definition of “sustainable” that the feds say will stay fluid over time, it’s causing widespread fears of a phasing-out of the oil and gas industry.
Bill C-50, known as the Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act, completed its first reading in Parliament on June 15. It’s a follow-up to the government’s interim Sustainable Jobs Plan released in February.
The legislation contains a definitions section that does not include a definition of “sustainable.”
“The formal definition of sustainable jobs will remain evergreen in order to evolve over time,” according to the interim plan, which also says the government understands a “sustainable job” to mean “any job that is compatible with Canada’s path to a net-zero emissions and climate resilient future.”
The interim plan also says that it “may not be possible to develop a single metric to measure and track sustainable jobs” and that the government will continue to draw on “research, expertise and consultation” to further a “Canadian definition” of the term.
Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, told The Epoch Times on June 20: “I worry, because we are an energy-abundant and energy-diverse nation. And we are trying to squeeze that reality into a very, very narrow defined path towards what they [the government] consider clean jobs. They haven’t well defined that by the way.”
Another problem McTeague notes is that the “just transition”—so called by the feds to refer to a “just and equitable transition” for workers and their communities—would ruin Canada’s ability to generate revenue from energy, transportation, and manufacturing to pay the massive subsidies needed to try to make green energy viable.
McTeague also said China controls the metals and minerals needed for green energy, which is another obstacle on top of the required public spending.
“Now we’re going to say, ‘Well, we can spend money that we don’t have in order to achieve this kind of green utopia for which the Chinese have been 15 years ahead of us,’” McTeague added.
He cautions that with the accumulation of debt needed for the “just transition,” Canada could face a downgrade in its credit rating and subsequently see its cost of borrowing soar.
‘Phase Out’
Bill C-50 envisions establishing a partnership council to advise the government on “sustainable” job creation and a secretariat to enable policy and program coherence across federal entities. It will also require the government to publish an action plan every five years starting in 2025.
“The legislation will put workers and communities at the centre of policy and decision-making,” according to a June 15 press release from Natural Resource Canada (NRCan).
The government does not expect to “phase out” oil and gas, saying in its interim plan, “There are also very significant opportunities for sustainable jobs in conventional energy industries, enabling Canada’s producers to be low emissions suppliers of products to a world in transition.”
NRCan did not respond to a question from The Epoch Times on the kinds of jobs that Bill C-50 would deem not sustainable. Also at risk are the agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation sectors.
But phasing out fossil fuels is the fear of the energy-producing provinces and has been analyzed by academics and determined to be very harmful and unnecessary.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith responded on June 15 that “oil and gas sector jobs are also sustainable jobs and will continue to be so for many decades and beyond.”
She added that this must be recognized by the advisory bodies and that “Alberta will not recognize, cooperate with or enforce any attempt to phase out our province’s oil and gas industry or its workforce.”
Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe holds a similar view.
“We should not be marching down that same policy path of sacrificing our energy affordability and our energy reliability for an ideological target of reducing emissions,” he said.
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) president and CEO Lisa Baiton told The Epoch Times via email on June 19 that its goal is to “grow Canada’s role as a supplier of lower emission, responsibly produced oil and natural gas to our global allies.”
“CAPP and our members will continue to work with the federal government to ensure alignment with our goal as the government progresses its Sustainable Jobs Plan,” he wrote.
Baiton added that “the upstream oil and natural gas industry has demonstrated we are providing opportunities for sustainable job creation.”
Regarding the phasing out oil and gas production in Canada, a June 10 op-ed in The Hub co-authored by professors Christopher Ragan and Mark Jaccard and former federal deputy finance minister Paul Rochon said that it is not needed to achieve net zero by 2050 and the costs of doing so would “likely be enormous.”
“Workers would be leaving a sector with very high labour productivity (oil and gas production) and be reabsorbed into sectors that, on average, have much lower labour productivity,” the three co-authors wrote.
“Thus, while overall employment in the economy would not be largely affected, total income accruing to workers and overall national income (GDP) would fall, and possibly very significantly.”
Avoiding a Blunder
A note prepared by NRCan for its minister Jonathan Wilkinson in 2022 warned that 2.7 million Canadians work in sectors like farming and trucking that face “significant labour market disruptions,” according to Blacklocks Reporter. The amount of job losses in the oil and gas sector was unspecified in the memo.
At risk is an estimated 170,000 workers in the fossil fuels sector in over 50 communities, according to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development in an April 2022 report.
McTeague quotes baseball legend Yogi Berra in reference to the sustainable jobs plan with its evolving definition. “If you don’t know where you’re going, chances are you’re going to wind up someplace else.”
He suggested a path forward.
“It is recognizing all the things we can achieve, but doing so in a way that’s realistic and in step with technology, in step with discoveries and the best practices—not going out and trying to create artificial lines in the sand that are both arbitrary, dangerous, and particularly pernicious for Canadians.”
