44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 19, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, let me speak to the hon. member's mentioning of the phrase “just transition.” There is a very simple reason why I do not like using “just transition” and it is because workers hate the phrase “just transition”.
I do recognize that the International Labour Organization created it. I understand that it did come from the labour movement. However, it does not speak to the people who I represent, and it does not speak to the people who work in the oil and gas industry or the energy industry as a whole. It does not speak to them.
We need these workers onside. We need them to lower emissions in the oil and gas industry because they are the only ones who know how to do it. We need them to build the renewables because they are the only ones who know how to do it. There may be certain phrases that get in the way of them doing that work or continuing to work in that industry, and building those things and doing those things is way more important to me than complying with the conjecture or the phraseology of Geneva.
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Mr. Speaker, this is such important legislation for sustainable jobs. It is about building our economic future as a country.
I was wondering if the Minister of Labour could talk to us a little about the importance of making sure that workers are at the centre of the work that we are doing, and how we have made sure, through this bill and the work that we have been doing generally with labour, that workers' voices are being heard, listened to and included.
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Mr. Speaker, this is very much a process, and process can be incredibly important.
I do not want to presuppose what workers are going to say about how they want to get this done. I have talked to a lot of oil and gas workers, both in my constituency and in my time as natural resources minister. Even through COVID, I still spent a lot of time talking to oil and gas workers in Alberta and Saskatchewan, even if it was by Zoom. They all said the same thing. There was a great nervousness about plans being made and them not being at the table.
I made it very clear that, with this legislation, the whole point of the bill is to make sure that they are at the table, to make sure that they can lead the table, and that we are working with them to make sure that the training opportunities are there for them to avail themselves of all sorts of things. There is carbon capture sequestration, for instance, within the oil and gas industry, even on pipelines themselves. It is so important that we know where and when to tighten the nuts and bolts on a pipeline to make sure the methane does not leak. These are all very important things.
These are the only people who know how to do this work. Consecutive governments have spent too much time putting them in the margins of this debate, putting them in the margins of the hard work that needs to be done when they have to be at the centre of it because they are the only ones who know how to do it.
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Mr. Speaker, Bea Bruske, the president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said that this would be a big win for workers and that workers have raised their voices and helped to make the sustainable jobs act a reality. We did not just come up with writing this off at committees. These are things we developed after a great deal of consultation with workers themselves, so these are the mechanisms that would give them a voice. They would be legislated through this place and have the authority of this place. The legislation would carry the weight of not just what is in here, but of the House saying to workers, firmly, that they are in charge of this and we are going to figure this out together.
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Mr. Speaker, I am afraid the hon. Minister of Labour's speech would have been well informed if there had been some reference to already broken promises to workers in the fossil fuels sector.
We talk about how workers do not like to hear this language. I was in Paris with the member's friend, the minister of the environment at the time, Catherine McKenna, was working with Canadian labour unions, and working hard, to get the language of exactly “just transition” into the Paris Agreement. At that point she came back to Canada and put in place a task force on coal sector workers.
The task force went into every coal sector worker community in Alberta and Saskatchewan, co-chaired by the head of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and co-chaired by the then head of the Canadian Labour Congress, who is now a senator. They went into every community, listened to coal sector workers and came up with 10 key principles that should be followed. They are gathering dust, these principles, under the title “A Just and Fair Transition for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities”.
This morning, this debate is not about the bill itself. It is about everybody's right to speak to it. Here I am as Leader of the Green Party of Canada, and my first chance to speak to the bill is on the question of shutting down debate before we even talk about the work that is important to do and about using language. It is not phraseology or minimizing it and ridiculing it. It was hard work to get it into a legally binding agreement, to which Canada agreed to, signed and ratified, that uses the language “just transition”.
The emphasis there is not only on the transition, but also on the justice of it for the workers and the communities, who gave their time in full faith that their report would go somewhere and not just gather dust on a shelf.
I see the Speaker wants me to hurry up, but I have had it with being hurried up, shut up and kept off the floor because the bill is important, and now we are going to have time allocation. I do not know that I will get to speak to it.
I ask my dear friend, the Minister of Labour, to please not use time allocation on every single bill. It is insulting to democracy and it makes a mockery of the work to review important legislation in this place.
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Mr. Speaker, time is of the essence here. The Inflation Reduction Act has passed in the United States. It is perhaps the single greatest industrial policy, and probably the single greatest piece of legislation, that has been passed in any democracy in the world on the issue of energy transition. We have to move, and the way in which we move will determine whether how we move is sustainable and competitive in drawing investment, and we want to do it right. We want to do it with workers on side.
On the issue of time allocations, members can please tell me what in the bill is so bad about including workers in decisions. Members can tell me if there are larger issues that are unresolved, as there are in the House on issues of energy transition, but on the issue of whether workers should have a role here, let us get to work.
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Mr. Speaker, this flawed bill is a bill to basically create a committee to create a committee, and there would be no assurances within this committee that the 15 positions, other than bureaucracies, would actually represent those workers. They would not represent the worker who is on the dragline in Westmoreland Coal in Estevan or in Bienfait, Saskatchewan. The committee would not have that person there. It would have a bureaucrat or union person who is focused on that aspect, as opposed to knowing exactly what that job is. On top of that, you talked about wanting to listen to the workers. I quote you on that; you want to hear from them directly. Where in the legislation does it say we would have that worker there?
Furthermore, there is no mention in there about communities. You talked about the new sustainable jobs plan. It does not make any mention of sustainable communities or mitigating negative economic impacts. These are important things that would affect each and every one of those workers in Bienfait, in Coronach and around this country who would lose their jobs because of this.
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Mr. Speaker, Bea Bruske, the president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said that workers have raised their voices and have helped make the sustainable jobs act a reality, and that Canada's unions are proud to work with the government to develop legislation that focuses on workers. The International Union of Operating Engineers said that the act “puts the interests of energy workers at the forefront of a low-carbon economy.” The international vice president of the IBEW said that this act shows the government's “commitment to protecting good-paying, highly skilled jobs.” Canada's Building Trades Unions welcomes the bill, saying that the consultation built into this process would “ensure workers are front and centre during this transition.”
If there are issues with the people they elect, then you can take it up with them. However, to say that somehow these people who are there, whom these workers elect, are elites is to put us into question. What are we? Are we elites?
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Mr. Speaker, it is a huge competitive advantage to make sure not only that workers are at the table but also that they are helping us lead these decisions. That in itself is a competitive advantage. It is a competitive advantage when we put in place the mechanisms to make sure that they do have that voice, that it is heeded and that they lead. We do not have all the answers in this place. The heads of the companies do not have all the answers, by any means. I would argue, and they have told me this, that not all the heads of the union leadership have the skills necessary to do what we are talking about. We are talking about the workers on the ground. It is a competitive advantage as we look at some of the phenomenal things that are happening in the United States and particularly with this president and the Inflation Reduction Act, but I think this, at the heart of it, is our competitive advantage in this country: putting workers at the centre.
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Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity, with this legislation, to make sure workers are at the centre of the most important decisions in the biggest challenges facing this country today.
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Madam Speaker, I would inform the member that there is nothing just about this legislation. When the Liberals are throwing at least 170,000 people out of work across the country, displacing 450,000 workers, risking the livelihoods of 2.7 million Canadians and damaging the industry that is literally holding the country up, there is nothing just about that.
I wish the Bloc would understand how much this industry can contribute to bringing down world emissions, taking dictators' dollars away and making strong, powerful Canadian paycheques instead.
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Mr. Speaker, this whole sustainable jobs action plan is about workers, as is the legislation before us. It is about engaging labour. It is having workers at the table with us, along with industry, indigenous groups and communities at all different levels.
I had an opportunity to travel across this great country last year and speak with a number of people. I spoke with Russ Shewchuk, vice-president of the IBEW in Saskatchewan. He stated, “Through this legislation, the Government is showing their commitment to protecting good-paying, highly skilled jobs.” That is just one example of many different labour groups that are supporting this legislation.
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Mr. Speaker, the member also comes from an oil and gas area, like I do. It is very interesting. I also have five coal-fired power plants in my area. The workers are extremely worried about the transition that is supposedly happening. There is no aspect of looking at older people who are near the end of their career and how they would transition out, not to mention those who are trying to get involved.
The member talked about wind and solar. I wonder how she actually responds to her constituents when they find out that the wind turbines are all being built somewhere else. They are not being built in Newfoundland and Labrador. They are not being built in her neighbourhood. The solar panels are not being built there. They are all being imported. The jobs are not being created. I am wondering how the member responds to her constituents on that aspect.
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Mr. Speaker, I go door knocking in my riding quite a bit and run into former co-workers, retired co-workers and people who used to work in the industry all the time. I can say that not a single one of them is proud of what happened under the NDP-Liberal government. Not a single one of them is satisfied with how it went down. They are not satisfied with the jobs and retraining. Frankly, even though the government pledged that it would spend $100 million to support these communities, the government has never reached that target. It betrayed our communities.
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Mr. Speaker, words do matter, and when we met with workers about what they wanted, they wanted to know there was a future. That was why the words “sustainable jobs” meant something. We heard that from workers.
In terms of international obligations, we need to ensure in the legislation that this is not just an island by itself. It must meet the international commitments we have made on issues like the just transition.
It is very important, when I am in Edmonton meeting with electrical workers who want to know what their future looks like, to say this is about jobs. This is about tomorrow. Once we have established trust with the working class, we will move further ahead because there is no energy transition without workers at the table. That is why the language matters.
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Mr. Speaker, one thing we heard at committee recently was that workers in the traditional energy sector have jobs that pay really well. Compare that to the jobs that will be and currently are created by green tech companies, whether in wind, solar or otherwise. On average, they pay about 36% less than what a traditional oil and gas worker earns. If this is a just transition would transfer people from job to job, does the member see anything in the bill that would ensure that the worker who is making money in oil and gas is going to be making the same amount when they are transitioned to a different job?
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we heard from representatives of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents many energy workers across the country. The Conservatives did not ask them questions; they used their time to do a political stunt. When we talk to these workers, they are very concerned about their seat at the table because they know change is coming.
It is really important that we actually have legislation that is strong enough, because this is about the tax credits that would be going out. If the tax credits are done by these functionaries, who knows where this is going to be and how it is going to happen? Will the Bloc be willing to come forward with amendments?
We are looking for the New Democrats to have regional voices and working-class people represented, as well as having public NGOs and youth at the table. We do not want just industry, so that it would not just be a carve-out of pals but would actually ensure that the jobs being created are good, sustainable, long-term jobs, and that they represent our regions.
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Mr. Speaker, I apologize for that. However, I think about what the Liberals did to those coal workers, that they did not get them jobs, that they did not bridge their pensions. These are people with families, they have children, they have mortgages and they have to buy food. The Liberals did all of that to them. I could say that they did it intentionally, because they did not run the programs, they never apologized and have not set up a single program since. So, I think that word actually applies. I will not say it again, but they should be ashamed of themselves. I can tell members that we will do everything—
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