Thank you, Chair and committee members.
I'd like to start off by acknowledging that I work, live and play on the traditional and treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
Communities across Canada face increasingly critical times, leaving the most vulnerable even more precariously situated. Canada's economy faces three challenges: recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, decarbonizing our economy, and addressing inequality to ensure a prosperous transition for all.
At Iron and Earth we are fossil fuel workers and friends and family of those in the energy industry. Fossil fuel workers bring a wealth of technical experience that must be harnessed to create a fair and equitable energy transition, but workers face challenges to this energy transition. With a lack of access to opportunities, many workers are worried that if they don't receive training and/or career support, they will be left behind in this transition, even with a deep desire to participate in the net-zero economy.
Canada needs to invest in upgrading our workforce, businesses and infrastructure, and revitalizing our environment. In response to the just transition, Iron and Earth created the four-point prosperous transition plan, with an emphasis on indigenous peoples, fossil fuel industry workers and energy communities at the forefront of the conversation. The four points are, first, upskilling initiatives that include hands-on, real-life work experience and prioritizing access for indigenous workers and workers who currently face barriers to participating in the industry; second, repositioning initiatives to support businesses to retool manufacturing capacities and pivot services to meet emerging demand in net-zero industries; third, retrofitting and repurposing initiatives to reduce the carbon intensity of long-term infrastructure and repurposing old infrastructure; and, lastly, indigenous-led climate solutions that address climate mitigation, adaptation and restoration.
Iron and Earth has also developed a just transition implementation program where we listen to fossil fuel industry workers and their communities, as well as indigenous peoples from different communities and nations. The program meets people where they are at and centres the most vulnerable and those who tend to be left out of the main narratives at the forefront: those racialized, gendered, housing-insecure and underemployed, among others. We include voices who are critical to the transition, as well as those who are against any new developments in their communities. The goal is to go beyond consultations and to truly listen to communities and workers by creating ongoing conversations.
This program should be used as a model for the just transition implementation in every energy community across Canada to show workers and their community what a just transition will mean for them, focusing on the local economy, job opportunities and available resources such as upskilling programs and the climate career portal.
There is also a need for consistent messaging from the government. It is confusing to hear that the Bay du Nord, a major offshore fossil fuel project, was approved shortly after a very green forward budget was announced and while intergovernmental agencies such as the IPCC are calling for an end to all new fossil fuel projects. It makes it difficult for workers, their families and communities to know who and what to listen to. Begin a fair and equitable energy transition, a just transition, by having clear and consistent messaging across all sectors of the government.
This leads me to my next point, which is that there must be coordination between all levels of government from the municipal and provincial to the federal levels. We already face barriers to clean energy project developments because of differing laws at each government level. Currently, there are several ministries at the federal level that play a part in the just transition, but no central ministry, group or committee that oversees the development, management and implementation of just transition policy in Canada. It is essential that this group not be an advisory board, because advice can be ignored. Rather, this group needs to have the authority to ensure workers' needs are centred and shape the legislation.
To summarize, to create a fair and equitable energy transition start with communities, involve everyone and listen. Dedicate funding and resources towards a national upskilling initiative. Create career opportunities through repositioning businesses, retrofitting and repurposing infrastructure, and indigenous-led climate solutions. Create a central government authority on the just transition legislation creation, management and implementation. Above all, be clear and consistent with all messaging.
Thank you.