No problem.
The fourth and final point is that for a truly equitable transition, we need to look beyond directly affected workers and consider the impacts of transition on everyone in their communities. In Alberta, for example, we have a coal transition. We've provided income support, retraining money, relocation money and other benefits to coal workers, which those workers deserve. However, contractors in those facilities, part-time workers and other people indirectly dependent on that industry don't receive the same kind of support.
Providing broad support is important from an equity perspective, because while the people who work in the energy industry today are disproportionately high-income white males who were born in Canada, the people who depend indirectly on that industry—who, for example, make lunch for energy workers and also lose their jobs when a project closes down—are more likely to be low-income women, racialized workers and immigrants. Just transition policies that are too narrow can make inequality worse and further marginalize historically excluded groups.
The lesson is not that energy workers don't deserve support in this transition. Of course, they absolutely do. The lesson is that we need to think bigger and more comprehensively about how entire communities transition to ensure that the costs of this inevitable shift to a clean economy are shared fairly and that the benefits are shared equitably with everyone.
That's equally as important on the phase-out side as it is on the training side, where we need to do a much better job of diversifying the professions, like the skilled trades that are poised for growth in the coming decades.
I'll stop there.
Thank you again for the invitation. I welcome any questions from the committee.