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— Kirsten Baker, the National Energy & Utilities Leader at PwC Canada
Ottawa has promised decisions on major projects within two years, and the women who lead the companies financing and building them want that speed. What they told us is that they still question how the projects and promises will be delivered.
A decision from Ottawa is where the work starts rather than where it finishes. A permit doesn’t train a welder, doesn’t move a crew across a provincial border, and doesn’t stop the money that would fund the project from going to the United States instead.
This is the sentiment that we heard from more than 50 women business leaders who participated in Fueling What Matters roundtables in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto earlier this year, conversations CPW convened in partnership with PwC Canada.
The women who took part came from nuclear, mining, LNG, automotive, energy, utilities, finance and the regulators overseeing them. What Kirsten Baker, the National Energy & Utilities Leader at PwC Canada, heard in all four cities was agreement on the ambition, and frustration with the pace.
“Canada is stating the right ambitions today. But what’s not clear is the path to get to that ambition, and the recognition of all of the obstacles and constraints that need to be overcome or addressed to get there”, she says.
Four things came through consistently in the report, which highlights themes from the conversations, and all of them sit in the space between deciding and doing.
- Women want the plan rather than more ambition.
- Partnerships between government and industry are working, but the two sides measure success by different standards.
- The hiring wave ahead is far bigger than most people realize.
- Canada still has not made the economic case for energy in a way that reaches the people who need to hear it.
None of the four require a new idea. What these leaders asked for is a seat in the rooms where the reforms are being designed.
Women want the plan, not more ambition
More than 50 executive women who joined the roundtables doubted whether the mandates, the workforce and the infrastructure can actually be delivered, which mirrors what only 23 per cent of engaged women say when asked whether they have high confidence Canada can approve and complete large energy projects in a timely manner.
“With uncertainty, capital just sits on the sidelines,” a Calgary participant said.
In Toronto, the discussion covered bringing Indigenous communities into consultation and economic participation at the earliest stage of a project, rather than once the plans are already set.
And Vancouver participants raised the issue of permitting, which slows mining as much as energy projects.
Across the country there was agreement on the need for policy that doesn’t change midway through a project, written with regional differences in mind, so capital has a reason to come here.
Partnerships are working, but the two sides don’t speak the same language
Participants said partnerships between sectors, and between government and industry, are already producing results. What holds them back is that each side measures success by a different standard.
“Government speaks in policy. Business speaks in ROI,” an Edmonton attendee said, meaning the return a company expects on what it invests or spends. A Toronto leader said money is increasingly going to the United States instead, where the returns are better and the approval process is easier to predict.
Some of this is already being solved. Participants pointed to a utility regulator that pulled several industries together, including automotive, to plan for how much electricity their province will need in the years ahead.
The ask is for government to measure policy the way business does, and to line up tax, permitting and capital incentives together rather than one at a time.
The hiring wave is bigger than most people realize
Every project Canada has announced needs people to build it, and the executives responsible for staffing them said the country is nowhere near having enough. Roundtable participants described that shortage as the biggest employment opportunity in a generation, provided Canada trains people in time.
Participants said nuclear projects alone are expected to need 100,000 skilled workers, in addition to those required for transmission, LNG, mining, energy infrastructure and data infrastructure.
The report makes the case that these jobs stay, since energy is a hard asset industry where the work doesn’t become obsolete, at a moment when many people believe technology is eroding entry-level jobs elsewhere.
Getting people to take these jobs is only part of the challenge.
“We get them in, then they don’t stay,” a Toronto leader said. Vancouver voices raised the difficulty of moving qualified workers between provinces, alongside a construction labour pool that was already thin.
Participants also noted that the time required to educate a skilled worker has not been matched to the timelines proposed for the projects that will need them.
What they asked for is skills funding tied directly to project development timelines, and apprenticeship and trades pathways introduced to students as future careers brought into discussion way earlier in various stages at school including high school and post-secondary.
Energy has a branding problem it never fixed
Roundtable participants from all four cities said Canada is not making the economic case for energy and energy-adjacent sectors clearly enough, and that the cost is measured in talent pipelines and investor confidence.
A Calgary executive said the sector “never did a great job of telling our story outside our borders.” And a Toronto participant went further, saying energy has been branded as an industry on its way out.
Baker sees that from both sides.
The PwC leader grew up in Alberta and describes it as a place where “we come to understand the energy sector through our day to day, as it’s all around us, and we each know people working in the sector.” As she works with people coast to coast, it’s clear to her that more education is needed on the complexity of the energy industry, and ultimately the benefits that it provides for all Canadians.
Participants pointed to mining, which changed the conversation by making the case that it supplies the critical minerals the country needs, and they want the same for natural gas, which supplies the steady power that electrification and AI both run on.
They asked policymakers to talk about oil and gas as the foundation of a reliable energy system, and to update what schools teach about energy so the next generation considers these careers.
Women want to be in the room where the decisions get made
What connects all four themes is that none of them require a new idea, because Canada already knows it needs a plan, a shared language between government and business, a trained workforce and a better story about energy.
What the report asks for is that the women who spend their working lives solving these problems be brought into the committees, briefings and working groups where the reforms are being discussed and designed.
Baker’s argument is that energy policy affects far more people than the sector employs, since energy generates the revenue that pays for health care, schools and social programs. The women she met weren’t looking to trade one of those things away for another.
“The women want all of the above, energy, environment and economic prosperity,” she says.
What they asked for is the least complicated part of the entire report.
“Bring us into meetings, bring us into committees,” Baker says.
Canada has committed to building major projects faster. The women who took part in these roundtables work across the sectors that will do the building, and they’re ready to help figure out how.
Read the Fueling What Matters report here.
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