That is a great question, and I'm really happy to get it from you, Ms. Jones. It's our first interaction, and it's nice to be able to have it in this form, on this important issue.
What you're pointing out is the importance of a just transition for the people who live in Newfoundland and Labrador, and I'm sure that Mr. McGowan has a lot to add on this as well. What that means is we need governments working in collaboration with the labour movement, with workers, with unions and affected communities to create a plan for how we're going to move from being now very oil dependent to being able to seize the benefits of a clean energy economy.
I think one thing right off the top that I would say is that we've seen, especially in the last year or so in Newfoundland and Labrador, huge sums of funds, $320 million that came from the federal government, that was intended to support workers and to put us on a track for a new energy economy. Instead, that huge subsidy for the most part was given to multinational firms, and they didn't guarantee any jobs from that. That was a huge disappointment. We didn't get any binding agreements that employment would be kept.
We need to make sure that any future funds that are coming from the federal government—and it sounds like there will be if we get just transition legislation in place in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador—are used to help workers and communities make the transition.
There are plenty of examples of just transition that we can draw on in the OECD: Denmark, Scotland, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden. The EU has plenty of examples for us. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We can also look closely at some American states, such as Illinois and New York, that are creating green job coalitions with labour, governments and indigenous peoples, or other groups in society that might be hurt by this change.
I see a huge potential for this.