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There are positive, meaningful solutions that include all energy workers
Ever so quietly, on a Friday afternoon, the Sustainable Jobs Plan was released by the Canadian federal government. It was Friday, February 17, 2023, to be exact, the same day that the Commission into the invocation of the never-before-used Emergencies Act released its findings and stole the media thunder.
This plan is the newly branded “just transition.”
In the interim document, the Government of Canada defines a ‘sustainable job’ as “any job that is compatible with Canada’s path to a net-zero emissions and climate resilient future” but also qualifies they must be “decent, well-paying, high-quality jobs that can support workers and their families over time and includes such elements as fair income, job security, social protection, and social dialogue.”
Developed over the next two years, the first plan will be released by 2025, then again every five years after that “to guide and organize efforts to support workers in the economy of the future.”
A five-year plan, you say?
There is not much concrete information in the interim plan document, and that creates more uncertainty for businesses and workers as we wait for another two more years to find out what the government plans to do with our future. One concrete action the plan includes is a newly created sustainable jobs secretariat to provide information on federal programs and funding. I guess those will count towards the sustainable jobs’ numbers.
We must be cautious and ensure it does not become an ideologically driven policy that will harm workers. After all, it’s a plan crafted by a government with a near-singular focus on climate, sometimes to the exclusion of the environment itself.
The energy future is here, now.
Oil and gas workers, we ignore the energy future at our peril.
There is nothing wrong with preparing. There is a need to re-train and re-skill workers for the energy future, which is morphing rapidly due to changing consumer preferences.
Poland recognizes this requirement as it promises to build 79 small modular nuclear reactors by 2038. The government has asked universities to expedite educational programs to ensure enough workers are trained to build and operate these new instruments of much-needed energy.
Natural resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson acknowledged that “Canada has what it takes to become the clean energy and technology supplier of choice in a net-zero world.” I agree, but we can’t destroy the innovation occurring in the oil and gas industry right now or we will not achieve this goal.
If Canadian oil and gas shuts down, another jurisdiction will simply ramp up production to fill the gap. Restricting the supply of our product does not restrict demand. Even pessimistic predictions out to 2050 estimate we will still require a quarter of current demand. That means another jurisdiction will fill the supply; operations in Canada will halt and will move to where it is less complicated and burdensome to do business. There will be carbon leakage and brain drain.
There are positive, meaningful solutions that include all energy workers
Environmental protection must be looked at holistically. We must consider ecosystems and human health, not only emissions. I believe there is a benefit to developing local resources and focusing on regional energy approaches.
All sectors must decrease their greenhouse gas footprint. It is what consumers demand. The Canadian oil and gas industry can help other sectors through collaboration and clean tech development.
And while we are putting Canadian-made sustainable energy solutions in place, we are also working on emerging carbon technologies, which are a fundamental part of the solution.
Calgary-based Questerre tested various technologies and found they could commercially produce near-zero emissions natural gas in Quebec. Unfortunately, politics got in the way and the province moved forward with its ban on all oil and gas development. The learnings from these projects could have been exported around the world.
The plan acknowledges that “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.”
That is where the oil sands Pathways Alliance and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) can take a leadership position.
With a goal to progress decarbonization as fast as reasonably possible, the Alliance is using CCUS as part of the solution. It is a proven technology that will be required to be competitive with international producers like Norway and the United States, who receive incentivizes from their governments to produce low-emissions oil and gas.
Read the fine print
To ensure we attract and retain high-calibre individuals, oil and gas has to embrace the energy future. Nonetheless, we cannot blindly and naively accept what is very likely a Trojan Horse from a government that has at times been hostile towards oil and gas production and the workers who make it possible. “Man camps”, anyone?
The environmental impacts on human health from development are an important consideration and that is why environmental and climate policy cannot ignore the human impacts. We also cannot ignore the social, emotional, and spiritual impacts on people of job loss or underemployment.
The oil and gas industry not only needs the “social licence” to operate, we must make people feel they have the “social licence” to work in the industry.
Each of us deserves to find purpose, a purpose we, ourselves, determine and not one that others define for us.
About Deidra Garyk
Deidra Garyk has been working in the Canadian energy industry for almost 20 years. She is currently the Manager, ESG & Sustainability at an oilfield service company. Prior to that, she worked in roles of varying seniority at exploration and production companies in joint venture contracts where she was responsible for working collaboratively with stakeholders to negotiate access to pipelines, compressors, plants, and batteries.
Outside of her professional commitments, Deidra is an energy advocate and thought leader who researches, writes, and speaks about energy policy and advocacy to promote balanced, honest, fact-based conversations.
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