Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 29th, 2024

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

One thing we heard from witnesses is the concern that if we are going to have big investment in offshore wind, we have to make sure that Canadian workers are benefiting and that there are commitments to good jobs. We know that people who have worked in the oil sector and who may want to work there are used to getting good pay and good jobs. Issues of contracting out and bringing in other workers from other nations to handle the big jobs were raised.

This is a pretty straightforward amendment. It's to make sure we include project labour agreements and community benefit agreements to increase the participation of Canadians involved in this. It is very much in line with and matching what Biden is doing. Biden has made commitments to make sure there are going to be good-paying union jobs for American workers.

We can't leave our Canadian workers in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, and those who may want to move there to do these jobs, at risk without having commitments that there will be good, strong labour agreements in place.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

Ms. Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I agree with the intent of what's been proposed, but I have a question for the officials.

Has there been discussion with the provinces about his amendment? Do we have a sense of how they would respond?

[Daniel Morin, Senior Legislative and Policy Adviser, Renewable and Electrical Energy Division, Department of Natural Resources]

Yes, we have had discussions with the provinces. They are likely to oppose this on the basis that trade unions are captured under the term “individuals”, who are represented or not by trade unions.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I heard something and I want to make sure I understood it. I feel like I heard that the term “individuals”, which appears in the amendments to the bill, would capture trade unions.

Is that a correct interpretation? Is there an interpretation after something that sets that out?

[Daniel Morin]

The clause is about corporations and individuals participating on a competitive basis in the supply of goods and services. Trade unions wouldn't necessarily participate in the supply of good and services; they would represent individuals who do. That's why individuals are either represented by trade unions or not, and both can participate.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

There's only one other piece that I wanted to clarify on this. There are parts in this proposed amendment about labour agreements and community benefit agreements. Those tools are important for provinces and proponents to use.

Can you help me understand if this is typically included in legislation—specifically a reference to labour agreements and to community benefits? Would they be considered beyond the scope of what the clauses say? Can you help me with that?

[Daniel Morin]

Labour agreements and community benefit agreements are tools that are used. However, they're not typically in legislation.

Proposed paragraph 96.6(b) in particular is about addressing under-represented groups specifically, so the project labour agreements and community benefit agreements are outside of the scope of what the intent would be.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Based on the answers we've received, at this point I will seek unanimous consent to stand down this amendment and to vote on this clause, as long as the corresponding clause in the amendment to the Canada-Nova Scotia version of this bill.... I have to keep saying it because there's a Newfoundland version and a Nova Scotia version, and we'd have to stand them both down so that the committee, via the clerk, can seek the opinion of the provinces in writing before we proceed with a vote on these specific amendments and clauses.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Before I proceed to that, Ms. Dabrusin, I'm going to ask you to hold.

We'll suspend for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Okay, we are back.

Colleagues, do we have unanimous consent to stand clauses 38 and 147?

[An hon. member]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Go ahead, Ms. Dabrusin.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

That's too bad because it would have given us time to get an opinion from the provinces directly on this. In light of the fact that they'll have to pass legislation that mirrors what we're passing in these discussions, I need to oppose the NDP amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

We will now go to Mr. Patzer.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to speak from my personal experience. I have worked in the wind industry previously. I was not a unionized employee, which is fine. At some businesses, employees unionize; at some they don't. The company I worked for certainly was not unionized. The company I worked for had all kinds of.... It was an international company, but they had North American headquarters. It was an overseas company. There were several different divisions of the company, and as far as I know, I don't believe that any of them were unionized.

The experts at the end of the table said about there being no need to include certain language because the terms as they're built already encompass that. I think the way it was originally written would better reflect the workforce scenario because it includes unionized workers but also non-unionized workers. I think we need to make sure that it's reflected that way.

Also, in a different job that I had, a company that I worked at for 10 years—not in the wind industry, a different one—I was a member of Unifor. That's a shocker, I know. It was a big corporation that I worked for. There are unionized workers within Canadian corporations as well. I think this is generally understood to be the case.

On the surface, project labour agreements and community benefit agreements—I'm particularly going to focus on the project labour agreements—sound like a lovely idea. I get the intent behind them. They seem like a good idea. Practically, especially with wind, they are a lot harder in actuality to do, the reason being that you end up needing a very specialized skill set in certain parts of this industry.

For example, the company I worked for was Vestas American Wind Technology. They had guys who were dedicated wind blade repair technicians. As far as I know, there were only two of them in all of North America. Despite the fact that Vestas had several wind farms across North America, with the demand for blade repair technicians, they only needed two or three of them.

For building and installing these machines, some of the installatoin is specialized; a lot of it is generalized. For installation purposes, you might be able to get away with this. However, these companies are looking at the maintenance and service agreements. That's where you're getting the long-term jobs.

The farm I worked at had 82 machines. There were nine of us full-time employees on site who did the work on the machines. The guys who did the installations were local people who were hired to help set them up.

As far as the specialized parts go, again, it was a travelling crew. There were three travelling crews, one in Canada and two in the United States. Those crews travelled around and did all the site installations. For the long-term installation of these machines, you won't be able to justify having something that prescribes that you need a vast and robust labour force for the installation of wind turbines.

I know some people will think that, because there are so many to build, it will work. The reality is that we're going to build a couple of these farms, and that's where it will pause in a region. It's just the way it works. These people will have to travel around the country to keep being installers unless they get on a service agreement to be a maintenance tech. At that point, it's the same thing: You're going to be maintenance tech. If you're in need of blade work, you're going to bring in blade technicians. It might be from the company. It might be a contractor.

If you need to swap out a generator set, most likely you're bringing in someone who has the specialty skill to swap out a generator set. If you need to take the nacelle off, you'll be bringing in speciality equipment. You won't be able to have that in a project labour agreement. You're not going to have somebody sitting around waiting for five years for the first generator set to blow up and need to be replaced. The practicality of it isn't going to work.

It comes from the right spirit, but just practically, I don't think it's going to work. I don't think including that in this amendment is going to benefit the area. The intent seems fine, but the practicality of it isn't going to work out in this particular instance.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer, for your detailed intervention and telling us a bit more about your experiences.

I'll now proceed to Mr. Angus.

Go ahead.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Canada is the only G7 country without an offshore wind industry, so we are behind the eight ball. We know that coming off the north shore, a number of trained workers, many who came off the oil patch, will be picked up very quickly to come and do the work, because they'll come in on contract and move quickly. Unless we have labour benefit agreements, we lose.

In comparison to what Mr. Patzer said, it's common in mining. I've dealt with many cases where we've tried to get expertise from, say, Finland if we're adding new equipment, specific equipment that brings in a specific set of skills. You bring those people in on short-term work agreements because that's their specialty, but the work itself is done by trained Canadian workers.

To anybody who thinks the operating engineers in Canada aren't trained and ready to take on any job in offshore wind, I don't believe that. To anyone who thinks IBEW workers are not ready to take on any job in offshore wind, I don't believe that. To anybody who thinks the longshore workers out of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, who work on so many of the rigs and are brought back and forth, aren't able to do this work, I don't buy that. However, you need the labour benefit agreements because companies will easily take contract workers from wherever. If they're coming out of Fife and saying they'll send in a crew who will fly in and fly out, those jobs are going to Scotland. They're not going to Canada. I think it would be a real tragedy if we passed on this.

I'd be more than willing stand this down so we can talk to Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, because it's about jobs. It's about their jobs. If the Conservatives want to force this, then we'll vote, but it is important to say labour benefit agreements.... Biden put those in because they knew that they could easilycould bring in workers from Korea. They could be bringing in workers from anywhere. That's how this is done.

It doesn't mean that all the labour benefit agreements are going to be unionized. It doesn't mean they're all going to be locked in. However, you can sign in a contract that we have to have some commitments to workers in Canada. That's the fundamental principle. Certainly, any day of the week, I trust the skills we've seen in trained Canadian workers. They are able to do any job.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

We'll now go to Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you.

Having listened to the commentary for the last few minutes, I think there's a distinction to be made. We have construction-type jobs, which is basically what we're talking about. We need that sort of expectation and expertise. Then, on the other side, we have maintenance, but there's also the operational part. I think that's the difference when we talk about how we're going to bring in people who are used to working in the oil sands and oil and gas and how they're going to jump into these types of jobs.

These jobs are gone once the construction is done. It isn't as though this is a long-term employment plan. The companies are going to use what they can to get these things built as quickly as they can and get them out, and they're getting their money from the government on this. Those are the realities that exist. Even though they're going to have jobs, if the plan works to break up the oil and gas industry so that it can't be workable anymore, those are not the kinds of jobs those folks are used to. They're working day-to-day tough jobs. That's what you do in oil and gas. It's not that once the windmill is up there, they'll just watch it spin.

I think it's important to recognize that this is not going to be the panacea for job creation that some people suggest it might be.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

We'll now go to Mr. Patzer.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I think part of it, too, is bearing in mind that the return on investment on this is really thin as it is. There are a lot of wind farms that don't even break even by the time the 20-year lifespan is hit.

The beauty of mining is that you can have mines that are open for 70, 80 or 90 years. They can continue to go, they can find new deposits or they can change the focus of what they're trying to find. Depending on the formation, they might be able to keep the mine going and going.

In that case, it's a little different because you're able to build and establish a long-term projectable project, but with wind, some wind farms are taken down after 10, 12 or 15 years because there are issues with them and the profitability isn't there. I think making things more cumbersome for offshore in particular.... With the set-up and installation of these things, the costs are astronomical compared to those on land.

Creating and finding a sustainable workforce is not going to happen in one particular region of the country because, again, the scalability in the long run is not going to be there. It's great that the provinces are looking at doing this, but the reality is that trying to get the skilled labour you need for this is going to require short-term contract workers to come in. Hopefully, they'll come from somewhere else in Canada—that's certainly my hope—but forcing them to be local.... Maybe that will be great, but people are going to have a job for a year or two, and then they'll have nothing else nearby because they've just been trained to do something and there's no longer going to be any work. Then they'll be the ones who have to travel and be imported somewhere else to do the work.

If there are project labour agreements in those places, a person can't get the work in the field they've been trained for. A company will have spent all of that money training somebody to do something they can no longer do. Again, these things sound like a fine idea, but practically it's going to be tough.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I don't see anybody else for further debate, so we'll now proceed to the vote.

(Amendment negatived: nays 9; yeas 2 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We'll now proceed to CPC-7.

Do I have a member to move it?

Mr. Patzer.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I move that clause 38 be amended by adding, after line 19 on page 25, the following:

(c) importance shall be given to the development of measures to assist in the preservation of the fishing industry, including measures to assist in understanding and maintaining the environmental characteristics of the offshore area that support that industry.

We did hear several witnesses talk about the importance of the fishing industry and the need to be consulted, and we heard repeatedly that they were not. I think it's about making sure that any project will substantially consider the plight of the fishing industry, which is the main industry in these provinces. There are some briefs from first nations groups that were talking about the importance of this for their people, for economic reconciliation and for opportunity.

I think this is a good amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer.

I'm going to Mr. Aldag.