Canada fossil fuel workers want victorious Trudeau to keep retraining pledge

TAG Oil

22/09/2021 17:14

By Nia Williams
    CALGARY, Alberta, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau's narrow election victory this week reinforced Canada's
commitment to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,
but workers in the country's sizable fossil fuel sector said
they also expect him to keep his promises to retrain them for
jobs in a clean-energy economy. 
    Oil worker advocacy group Iron & Earth estimates Canada will
need around C$10 billion ($7.8 billion) over 10 years to retrain
fossil fuel workers, but is sceptical about government promises
to help after past pledges failed to materialise.
    "At what point do these stop being promises and start being
actions? These are people's livelihoods on the line," said Luisa
Da Silva, executive director of Iron & Earth.
    Da Silva said the country risks losing the skilled labour
crucial to a clean energy economy if the government does not
prioritise transition funding, which the 2015 Paris Climate
Agreement recognizes as important to ensure no workers are left
behind as the world decarbonizes.
    As the clean energy economy takes off, it will generate some
640,000 jobs by 2030, a 50% increase from 2021, with strong
growth in Alberta, industry body Clean Energy Canada forecasts.
    But Steve MacDonald, CEO of Emissions Reduction Alberta, a
provincial government-funded organization that invests in
emissions-reducing technology, said it would be difficult to
recreate the sustained economic contribution that was associated
with the oil and gas sector.
    Two years ago, the Liberal Party announced a "Just
Transition Act" to support and retrain oil and gas workers, but
only launched consultations to shape that legislation in July,
and then put it on hold in August when the election was called.
Trudeau announced a similar programme worth C$2 billion during
the 2021 election campaign.
    The oil and gas industry is Canada's highest polluting
sector, accounting for 26% of all of carbon output. Yet Canada
is the world's No. 4 oil producer and some 450,000 jobs directly
or indirectly linked to the industry are at risk over the next
three decades as the country slashes climate-warming carbon
emissions, TD Bank estimates.
    So any talk of shrinking the sector is touchy, particularly
in the staunchly conservative energy heartland of Alberta where
many oil and gas workers live in remote communities scattered
across the prairies and northern boreal forest. Trudeau sparked
fury among them in 2017 when he talked about "phasing out" the
oil sands.
    Those remarks contributed to a wipe-out of Liberals in
Alberta during 2019 election, although Liberal candidates are
leading or elected in two seats in the just-concluded 2021
election. Failing to help retrain workers could batter local
economies and sap support from government efforts to tackle the
climate crisis.
    "With the loss of any position in the oil and gas industry,
the effect trickles down seven times due to the loss of economic
spinoff effects," said Gerald Aalbers, mayor of Lloydminster, a
city of 31,000 straddling the Alberta-Saskatchewan border where
an estimated 15% of jobs depend on the fossil fuel industry.
    "The costs to retool the economy and businesses, let alone
employees, will be tremendous."
    
    'ONE-INDUSTRY CITY'
    Canada's petroleum sector, which includes oil and gas
extraction and refining, contributes about 5.3% to national GDP.
    The Trudeau government is working with major producers like
Suncor Energy  SU.TO  to develop technologies like carbon
capture to allow companies to bury emissions underground rather
than cut production.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2Q11I3
    Still, downsizing of the industry seems inevitable if Canada
is to meet its 2050 net zero goal, and an interim target of
cutting emissions 40-45% from 2005 levels by 2030.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2ML2LD
    In the oil sands hub of Fort McMurray, where a nearly a
third of all jobs are in fossil fuels, workers are nervous.
    "We are a one-industry city," said Dirk Tolman, 59, a heavy
equipment operator and union leader at Suncor, who has worked in
the oil sands since 2008. "Without the oil sands I don't know if
anybody would be staying in Fort McMurray."
    Even if clean energy jobs do replace oil and gas jobs, they
are unlikely to be in the same location.
    Sean Cadigan, a professor of history at Memorial University
of Newfoundland, who has studied the impact of the collapse of
Atlantic Canada's fishing industry in the 1990s, said oil and
gas communities need new industries to develop alongside any
shutdown of fossil fuels.
    "(Otherwise) it will lead to a profound dislocation of
people and that will always have grave impact on communities
left behind," he said.
           
($1 = 1.2822 Canadian dollars)

 (Reporting by Nia Williams
Editing by Denny Thomas and David Gregorio)
 ((nia.williams@thomsonreuters.com; +1 403 531 1624; Reuters
Messaging: nia.williams.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))