The third time's a charm, right?
Thanks for having me back. We're the Canadian building trades; we represent about 550,000 skilled trade workers, in every province, coast to coast.
I received the invitation and thought about market diversification. I talked to some of our folks. Quite simply, market diversification for us means job expansion. It appears from your backgrounder papers that you're looking at export product and diversification of supply, so I'll talk about each of those quickly and then answer any questions you have about the job impacts.
As my colleague said, export market diversification means more customers for “made in Canada” products, so that ultimately Canada can become a price maker and not a price taker. Ultimately, for the skilled trades it means that the projects are more certain and that our employers can bid on more projects and on a more diverse scope of work, once that price-making ability is in effect.
Project diversification is interesting for us. Whether it's for diesel fuel in Sarnia or jet fuel at the refinery in New Brunswick, the work prospects for the skilled trades in those markets should be better.
If the demand for a particular finished product wanes or waxes depending on the economy, refineries in home towns and the resident workforces who live there are less vulnerable if other products are being demanded by the market and by other markets.
If we're exporting natural gas to global markets, that means more work on pipeline infrastructure, more work on holding tanks, on liquefaction plants. These all add to the work scope of the skilled trades in Canada. If we're exporting natural gas, we think the natural gas liquids should be stripped off here in Canada and that the plastic and the byproduct industries should produce here.
This is a potential increase in work scope for us. The Alliance Pipeline was a major success in getting Canadian resources to market. It spawned a series of industrial complexes just outside Chicago, but if we increase pipelines such as this, hopefully that kind of industrial complex will come to Canada.
Diversification of supply is also important. When oil sands facilities use natural gas feedstock or when electricity generation facilities in Ontario are using natural gas for feedstock, the abundant supply of these products means project certainty in Ontario. If we know that the natural gas is going to be there, people are going to be incented to build more co-generation facilities to produce electricity for Ontarians.
As for LNG, our becoming involved in the LNG business would do three big things.
It would increase the need for pipeline spreads, which require thousands of workers—even more, if we factor in, as I said, the stripping off of the natural gas byproducts.
It means thousands of jobs building and maintaining these LNG facilities. For every $1 billion a company spends on an LNG plant, there are about 4,000 direct construction jobs. Then, behind every 600 construction jobs, about 100 other jobs are created to support those jobs. The sustaining capital invested in an LNG plant—and there's a proposed one in Kitimat—really would be a game changer for workers in British Columbia and other places.
Also, LNG would increase jobs in the shipbuilding industry, because naturally you have to ship those products to every other market. It means that our shipbuilding industry will benefit as well; there would be tons of skilled trades jobs at those deep port facilities.
Let's talk about electricity, quickly. If we're going to be serious about electricity transmission in an east-west fashion, the line infrastructure associated with this move will provide work for thousands of workers. However, we have to be cautious. Does it make economic sense to generate electricity in remote locations and then transmit it long distances to where people live? What does make sense is for Quebec and Ontario to be able to produce electricity and sell it to one another. It also makes sense for Ontario electricity producers to be able to access the east coast without having to sell through New York State to get to other provinces in eastern Canada.
Should hydro energy produced in northern Manitoba or Labrador flow south to the U.S. market if there's demand in Ontario? Let's figure out a way to connect the grids for Ontario. There's a real need to have a plan in place for electricity generation.
I'll talk a little bit about west-east oil.
TransCanada Pipeline's “Energy East” pipeline makes enormous sense to us. It connects jobs between Alberta and New Brunswick. If the refineries in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick want to buy the product that Alberta has to offer, which I'm sure they will—you talked about the discount—that will certainly benefit job prospects in New Brunswick, where skilled trades work has been flat for a long time. Whether it be an Energy East pipeline or a Line 9 reversal, it means jobs at either end. It also means jobs every 75 kilometres along the pipelines for pumping stations, maintenance, etc.
East-west pipelines may mean that Quebec refineries will be busy again. Maybe the old Petro-Canada facilities in Oakville and Clarkson will be busy again. Those are all good news stories for local constituencies and local workers.
I made a presentation previously on pipelines and the job prospects specific to them, so I would refer the committee to the numbers I talked about for those; I won't repeat them. What I do want to say before I finish is something I presented before: that developing some of these natural resource projects could be a show stopper. I think Canada can get it right, but we need to get the people thing right. To be an energy superpower, we have to be a labour force and training powerhouse.
I think there is $600 billion or $700 billion in the Major Projects Management Office, at the same time as there is a large demographic shift in our population. I took a look at our national membership data, and the “most frequent age”—my wife, who is an accountant, tells me that's the mode, and thinking back to my statistics course.... The most frequent age in our national membership is 52. What does that mean for projects that are planned for six years into the future, or for projects that are planned for 10 years into the future, or 15 years? We have to make sure we get the training and the labour force supply thing right if we are to be able to supply the people for these projects.
I've talked to the HUMA committee about some things that I think link back to things you're talking about here: there are inefficiencies in our training systems; there are negative perceptions about a career in the skilled trades, and I think we've all come across that; and there are employers who won't hire young people to get into an apprenticeship. Many young Canadians come to us on a regular basis who, after a post-secondary education, don't have any incremental attachment to the labour market. These people need to be directed to the skilled trades before they go into post-secondary education. There are issues with community colleges, but I won't go into those.
At the end of the day, to be an energy powerhouse and to do some of the market expansion stuff we're talking about today, we have to get the people thing right. The budget in March was a good start. It talked about encouraging new people into the skilled trades with the Canada job grant, revamping the LMDA and the LMA funding so that there is more federal control, and aligning training to jobs that are available.
My wife told me not to say this, but has anyone seen Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner? There is a saying from that movie: “If you build it, they will come.” My submission is that if we don't get the people thing right in the energy sector to build these natural resource projects, they won't come. Canada has a real opportunity ahead of us over the next number of years to succeed, and we need to get the people thing right.
Thanks very much.