Thanks. Good morning.
As you said, my name is Gil McGowan, and I have the honour of serving as the elected president of Alberta's largest worker advocacy group, the Alberta Federation of Labour, which represents workers in all sectors of the Alberta economy.
On behalf of our members, I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to share some of our concerns and suggestions about the economy and the next federal budget. In the short time available to me, I'd like to focus on three issues of major concern to our members: the affordability crisis, the unfolding global energy transition and the Alberta government's proposal to pull out of the Canada pension plan.
When it comes to the affordability crisis, we wholeheartedly support federal initiatives to work directly with municipalities to build more housing. However, we humbly suggest that greater efforts should be made to ensure that those projects pay prevailing wages and provide opportunities for skilled trades apprenticeships. Frankly, too many contractors in the residential and commercial construction sectors cut corners on wages, and most of them are not holding up their end on training the next generation of tradespeople. If they are going to get public money, they should be required to do better.
Another concern on affordability has to do with the temporary foreign worker program. The government clearly has given in to lobbying pressure from low-wage employers and has opened the floodgates to guest workers in the low-skill categories. This is putting upward pressure on housing costs and downward pressure on wages, the opposite of what working people in the province want to see during these inflationary times.
Also on the issue of affordability, we would like this committee to seriously consider the idea of introducing an excess profits tax to discourage oligopolistic companies from using their market power to jack up prices. Frankly, we're tired of inflation being blamed on worker wages and government spending when it's clear that the real problem is that many big companies, including grocery chains and oil and gas companies, have used the pandemic as a pretext to boost profits by gouging consumers.
Here in Alberta, we also have the problem of power companies using market manipulation tactics, like so-called economic withholding, to impose obscene price increases on residential and commercial customers. Our provincial government has refused to do anything about this highway robbery, so we would like the federal government to consider stepping in.
On the subject of the global energy transition, we would like to sincerely thank the federal government for the investment tax credits included in budget 2023 and for the labour conditions that were attached to those credits. However, we want to draw your attention to efforts being made by some corporations here in Alberta to game the system. In particular, a number of big project sponsors are trying to water down and get around requirements related to prevailing wages and apprenticeships. This can't be allowed to continue.
Also on the energy transition, we want to stress the need to pass the sustainable jobs act so that workers have a seat at the table when we're shaping industrial policy. We also encourage this government to start looking at the clean energy regulations as a platform for industrial policy and job creation, not simply as a mechanism for emissions reduction. We would like to encourage the government, again, to look at the Biden administration for inspiration, particularly its strategies to speed up the approval of the diversification projects and its announcement of a youth climate corps, which is an idea that we find very intriguing and that we think would be enthusiastically received by young workers here in Alberta.
Finally, with regard to the Alberta government's proposal to pull out of the CPP, we would like to encourage the finance minister to direct the chief actuary to do more than just calculate the amount that Alberta could take out of the CPP fund should it decide to leave. She should also be asked to clearly outline the impact that this proposed divorce would have on the retirement security of workers and retirees in both Alberta and the rest of the country.
I think my time is up. With that, I thank you, and I look forward to your questions.