EDITORIAL: Job fears over PM’s ‘just transition’ plan

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been promising a “just transition” plan for workers displaced by Canada’s transformation to a so-called green energy economy, since 2019.

Given that, it would be helpful for him to announce what that plan is and the enabling legislation to implement it, because in the absence of that info, the government is increasing fear and uncertainty.

That’s particularly true in the energy sector in western Canada.

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said recently he hopes to unveil the government’s just transition plan in the early part of 2023.

He also said his biggest concern is not that jobs will be lost, but that there will be so many jobs it will be difficult to fill all of them.

But that’s not what he was told in June by his own advisors in a briefing memo titled “Key Messages on Just Transition,” uncovered by Blacklock’s Reporter, an independent digital news service in Ottawa.

According to that document, Wilkinson was told the jobs of more than 2.7 million Canadians, or 13.5% of the nation’s total workforce, will face “significant” disruptions in employment because of federal climate change programs.

“The transition to a low carbon economy will have an uneven impact across sectors, occupations and regions and create significant labour market disruptions,” the memo said.

“We expect that larger scale transformation will take place in agriculture (about 292,000 workers or 1.5% of Canada’s employment), energy (about 202,000 workers or 1% of Canada’s employment), manufacturing (about 193,000 workers or 1% of Canada’s employment), building (about 1.4 million workers or 7% of Canada’s employment) and transportation sectors (about 642,000 workers or 3% of Canada’s employment).”

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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she “felt sick” reading the contents of the federal government briefing memo.

While not all of these jobs will be lost in the transition to green energy, when federal environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco examined the Trudeau government’s just transition strategy for the energy sector alone last year, he basically concluded there wasn’t one for 170,000 workers in the fossil fuels sector living in 50 communities.

Instead, he said, the government was relying on existing programs, like employment insurance, for laid-off workers and what new programs existed weren’t being monitored to determine their effectiveness.