Natural Resources Committee on April 8th, 2014

[Peter Turner]

I'm afraid I'm not particularly conversant with those relationships between the first nations development corps and the Yukon government. I would say, though, that as we talk about renewable resource energy projects.... The big one announced by the Yukon government that we're hopeful for is a large-scale new hydroelectric plant facility. In order for it to be justifiable and economically rational, it is going to require interties to the southern electrical grid, which we do not currently have. That would be an area where the federal government could be working in conjunction with both the first nations and the Yukon territorial government. I think there's a major opportunity there to create a long-term renewable solution for the Yukon's energy production. That would clearly involve the first nations upon whose territory this would likely happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Leef.

We have on our list, Ms. Charlton. Go ahead, please, for up to five minutes.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Chair, I'd like to ask first.... I had a number of questions for Grand Chief Edward John.

Can you just tell us if there's a possibility of asking him to appear at the next committee meeting?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

No, we have three witnesses. We have an hour, maybe slightly more. The grand chief had agreed to appear today. We can't accommodate it.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Could we perhaps ask the clerk to see if the grand chief could send us a written submission, if that's doable?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We could certainly do that, yes.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, again, to our witnesses.

My first set of questions was about infrastructure and the lack of infrastructure in parts of the north, and I think Mr. Calkins just did a great job of demonstrating the need for improved infrastructure. He talked about that tire-eating highway from Alberta to the Yukon. I assume that's the same highway that trucks would use to get liquid natural gas up to the Yukon, which might be a concern to all of you along the way.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

I just want to clarify for the record that I had C rated tires on my holiday trailer which were fine for—

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

That is not a point of order. That is a point of debate, and not even much debate there.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Now that I have D and E rated tires, I'm sure it won't be an issue in the future.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Regardless, Mr. Calkins, I thank you for buttressing my earlier point.

To Mr. Turner, I want to take the conversation in a little bit of a different direction. I think one of the things that we've heard a lot about is the opportunity for job creation through resource development in the north.

Part of that is there's also been a lot of discussion about inequality of access to training and education for students and workers in the north, both training and retraining.

I wonder if you'd like to comment on that for a moment?

[Peter Turner]

Sure, I will say that we have an extraordinarily good resource in our Yukon College facility up here, which not only has a campus here in Whitehorse, but has satellite campuses in virtually every community across the Yukon. Once you get outside of Whitehorse, the demographic mix is very much towards a higher representation of first nations students. So I would say that the community has benefited disproportionately from the presence of the Yukon College.

A number of the satellite campuses of Yukon College are participating in programs today to train and prepare their students in those communities for employment in the mining sector, and also in the construction sector and other areas that would be of peripheral support to a mining, or a future oil and gas industry.

In that respect, I think we're very fortunate in having that, and part of that is because of some funding that was received from the federal government—which I believe totalled somewhere in the region of $5 million to set up facilities for training, specifically for the mining industry. That's a tremendous asset for the territory as a whole, and of tremendous benefit in terms of opportunities for employment for the mining sector.

So I can see that extrapolating to address the oil and gas industry.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you. There are some really innovative programs in the north.

I think one of the concerns is that we have to make sure that the training doesn't only happen with respect to the mining sector; that we also train and educate people for the whole plethora of jobs that you need to support communities, right? Whether that's in health care, education...that education happens in a really broad-based kind of way.

If the resource extraction sector booms as you're predicting or hoping, I think most people would suggest that there may be a skills shortage that goes along with that. At least in the short term. Have you done any extrapolation of whether you think such a skills shortage will happen, what the magnitude is, and specifically, in what areas are you anticipating such a shortage?

[Peter Turner]

Well I think you've touched on the fact that we need to focus on the support fields that surround any sort of growth in the economy. Certainly, health care would be one. The construction-related industries and transportation industries as well, and capabilities such as having skilled truckers, the equipment operators, people who can bang nails, and people who can look after health care needs.

However, I should say that Yukon College actually already has a number of programs and degrees in place, specifically addressing those sorts of areas. So the mine training that I spoke about was an incremental and new edition to the college curriculum, and augmented existing programs that were more focused on things like health care, social services, as well as journeyman skills.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

I think one of the challenges we've seen across the country is that oftentimes employers are.... I don't know if “forced” is the right word; I suspect that actually it's not. But they're resorting to foreign-trained workers because they can't immediately fill skill shortages, and I think in part that's because you can't train somebody overnight. To get a fully qualified apprentice, you're talking about years, not weeks or months. That takes a bit of planning, which is why I was asking about whether you had done any kind of forecasting to know whether you could locally train and then hire the skilled trades from within.

When you're commenting on that, I'd also like your comment on first nations communities in the north, because, as we know, unemployment rates are much, much higher in first nations communities than they are across the rest of the population. There is a huge opportunity there, I would suggest, to work with first nations for that kind of skills upgrading.

I know that I don't have very much time left, so I'll turn the rest of the time over to you.

[Peter Turner]

Well, I completely agree with you that there is a huge opportunity, particularly for first nations communities, and I think that's one of the areas where the Yukon has done quite well in terms of partnering and working to develop that base of the employment centre.

With regard to the foreign worker issue that you've raised, I know that's a subject of some discussion in southern Canada, with different viewpoints. In the Yukon, we have very much a seasonal workforce in a lot of our areas. We actually welcome and see a benefit from people coming in from foreign countries, who bring with them some of the skill sets that we need up here, particularly on a seasonal basis. We see that as an augmentation to our workforce. In fact, our third-largest minority population here are Filipinos. They have come through all sorts of programs and are a vibrant portion of our Yukon community.

Getting back to the first nations opportunity, I would say that there's tremendous opportunity there and, I would say, disproportionate benefits to come from training and development that would take them towards employment, particularly in a local industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

We have Mr. Regan.

Are you ready? You have a five-minute spot and your seven-minute spot, so you can take the time you'd like, Mr. Regan, for up to 12 minutes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Chair, I have a couple of questions for Chief John, who is not here, obviously.

I wonder if I could submit those after the meeting in writing to the clerk so that they could be passed on to Chief John, who we're asking to make a submission. Hopefully in his submission he'll address those. Does that sound okay?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Sure.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Let me start, then, with Mr. Turchanski.

One of the things you mentioned in your comments and in the deck that you kindly gave us was that the B.C. service sector is not always the supplier of choice for Alberta-based explorers and producers. Do you have a view on the reason for that? Do they prefer to deal with the industry in Alberta for some particular reason? That's the first question.

[Dave Turchanski]

There are a couple of things behind that. I think basically what it boils down to is not knowing what the resources are that are up here and available to assist on any projects going forward. Probably the biggest thing in the gas industry that we find up here today is that it's the people who you know as far as engineering firms and contacts in the cities go. As well, there's always been a slander when it comes to working in British Columbia; it's always “bring cash”.

That said, we see a lot of that stuff. It's cheaper to do business in Alberta. Even if they have to transport it up here, they can do it and they can get away with it, because of course they don't have to pay that 7% sales tax. Alberta doesn't have to pay it.

There are a couple of main factors there, one being who you know, as well as having resources available.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

We're heard some comment in previous meetings that some of the larger producers prefer to deal with large suppliers. Do you have any experience or knowledge of that?

[Dave Turchanski]

Yes, they do. Of course, when they're working and dealing with volumes, there are larger suppliers and people who look after that. That said, at the same time, when there are the resources available here and suppliers.... I can see pipe suppliers.... The resources that we don't have available here in the province of British Columbia, of course, are the rigs, the completion crews, and the fracking crews, and that probably makes up 75% of the pie, but for the rest, the 25% that we do have here, we have those resources available here, so we do, we can, and we will work with producers given the opportunity.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

One of the other things we've heard in previous meetings was about the temporary foreign workers program and about temporary foreign workers being used to fill jobs that perhaps Canadian workers could be doing.

What has your experience been in that regard? Have you heard that as an issue? Do you have any suggestions on what the federal government could do to improve the situation?