Oh, no, we aren't transitioning jobs out of the sector.
To be honest with you, Mr. McLean, our biggest problem is we don't have enough workers. this certainly has been my focus since I've taken on this new role as labour minister and co-leading with Minister Wilkinson our just transition strategy. We don't have enough workers in just about any industry in this country, but most particularly and poignantly, we don't have enough workers in the energy industry and in the oil and gas industry.
In my role now, and in doing the consultations I've been doing.... I've spoken to this committee before about the deep-seated anxiety amongst oil and gas workers whenever the words “just” and “transition” are mentioned. Both Mr. Wilkinson and I have an aversion to to the phrase, but we say it here because we all know what we're talking about. Honestly, we have to keep people in the industry. It was one of the reasons we worked very hard to put in place an orphaned and inactive well program at the height of the pandemic and the oil price war. When things bottomed out in April of 2020, as you will recall, and we had negative $38 oil, we needed to retain workers and keep workers in the industry for what we thought would be a more prolonged period of chaos. Thankfully, it was not, but we needed to keep people in this industry.
My biggest role right now is making sure people are calm and staying—