I think the first thing we have to do is make a commitment to the concept of just transition, which Ms. Carter has already alluded to.
When people talk about just transition, I think some people have different ideas of what it actually is. Some people talk about just transition as adjustment policies for workers who lose their jobs in the affected industries. Other people talk about just transition in terms of future economic transformation.
I just want to make it clear that from our perspective in the Alberta labour movement, when we talk about just transition, we're talking about both of those things. They're related.
In the near term, we need policies for workers who are facing the loss of their jobs. That means training for younger workers, pension bridging for older workers, relocation allowances. These are the kinds of things that we actually negotiated with the previous Alberta government as part of the just transition package for affected workers in the coal-fired power industry. There are lessons to be learned there.
Then there is the bigger question of economic transformation that can generate economic opportunity for people who are displaced, but also for people who are not even in the industry, just to grow the economy.
For that latter part of just transition, I'll be blunt. We need to put money on the table. If our governments at the provincial and federal levels are serious about dealing with energy transformation and providing just transition for workers and regions, we have to think big, in the order of the Marshall plan, the mobilization for World War II, the Apollo moonshots. That means governments have to put a lot of money on the table.
What I am concerned about is that money will be put on the table, but it might be for the wrong things. The oil industry, for example, has asked for $75 billion from the federal government for carbon capture and sequestration. I think we should model that and see where the money would be better spent—on helping to sequester carbon or actually building a transition towards a greener economy.
I think Canadians deserve to know that before our governments start signing cheques.