Just Transition comes with big costs to Canada
By Lethbridge Herald on February 10, 2023.
Franco Terrazzano and Kris Sims
CANADIAN TAXPAYERS FEDERATION
Ottawa seems to have only one message about its Just Transition policy: “trust me.”
How many people’s jobs are on the line? How much will it cost? Are the numbers bubbling up accurate?
Those are big questions that matter a lot to a lot of people. And Ottawa answers with a shrug.
Here’s the little we know.
The Liberal Party promised to pass a “Just Transition Act, giving workers access to the training, support, and new opportunities needed to succeed in the future economy” during the 2019 election.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously stated that “we can’t shut down the oilsands tomorrow; we need to phase them out.”
The feds haven’t introduced legislation, so Canadians are left reading between the lines. The government will force Canadians out of some jobs, then use taxpayers’ money to subsidize the new jobs.
Fortunately, a government memo reported by Blacklock’s Reporter shines some light on potential costs.
The memo asks, “what sectors and regions will be most affected by a transition to a low-carbon economy?” The memo then explains the Just Transition “will have an uneven impact” and “create significant labour market disruptions.” What does “significant labour market disruptions” mean?
The government doesn’t say.
Here’s what the memo does say. “We expect that larger-scale transformations will take place in:
“Agriculture (about 292,000 workers; 1.5 per cent of Canada’s employment),
“Energy (about 202,000 workers; one per cent of Canada’s employment),
“Manufacturing (about 193,000 workers; one per cent of Canada’s employment),
“Building (about 1.4 million workers; seven per cent of Canada’s employment) and
“Transportation sectors (about 642,000 workers; three per cent of Canada’s employment).”
You could be forgiven for interpreting this to mean the Just Transition will “create significant labour market disruptions” for 2.7 million workers in these sectors.
But the federal government claims “that the figures referred to the overall size of the workforce of various industries, not anticipated job losses,” according to the CBC.
Nothing to see here, folks. Unhelpfully, the feds didn’t bother enlightening Canadians on the real number of anticipated job losses.
Statistics Canada’s numbers raise questions. For example, Statistics Canada’s data shows 1.5 million Canadians are working in manufacturing, not 193,000 workers as the government claims.
Maybe the government and Statistics Canada are using different definitions. But that’s a big gap.
Politicians and bureaucrats in Ottawa are asking entire sectors of the economy to trust them. But they either don’t know their own numbers or aren’t willing to explain them.
Here’s what we do know: taxpayers will be left holding the bag for Trudeau’s Just Transition.
The salaries associated with the 2.7 million jobs where the “larger-scale transformations will take place” is $219 billion per year, according to Statistics Canada’s average income data for these sectors. The cost to taxpayers would be crushing if even a fraction of those jobs face “disruptions” or have to be replaced with government subsidies and programs.
“We have been particularly interested in the approach taken by Scotland,” states the government memo. Scotland’s “Just New Deal” costs about $4.9 billion. That equals a $35-billion hit for Canadian taxpayers, after adjusting for Canada’s larger population, if Trudeau followed Scotland’s approach.
Why should workers in these sectors put their blind faith in the government?
Farmers might have trouble trusting the government after it floated putting limits on fertilizer. The energy sector might have trouble trusting a government that roadblocks pipelines. And why should taxpayers trust a government that has added about $560 billion to the national debt and missed its own pre-pandemic balanced budget promise by $20 billion?
The onus is on the government to be transparent, not on taxpayers to trust the government. The last thing Canadians need is another costly government scheme that threatens jobs.
Franco Terrazzano is the Federal Director and Kris Sims is the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
© Troy Media
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Ronald Reagan said it best. Words you hope you never hear.”We’re from the government and we’re here to help”
We know from Trudeau’s record that he lies through his teeth.
yeah, as reagan showed, the govt is there to line pockets of the uppermost of the top 1%. under reagan, as the usa dropped taxes for the wealthiest and upped military spending (lining pockets), the usa in 8 short years went from being the world’s leading creditor nation to world’s leading debtor nation. here is one such link, but there are so very many, including numerous books published about the actual disaster that were the reagan years (ditto mulroney and thatcher).
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2011/7/10/reagan-mythology-is-leading-us-off-a-cliff/
Other perspectives? This:
“What is just transition? And why is it important?”
http://www.climatepromise.undp.org/news-and-stories/what-just-transition-and-why-it-important
Re: this cost of mitigating climate change, perhaps, the cost in now, $trillions in the cost of mitigation of severe weather episodes and damage because of climate change might be a worthy comparison.
Get informed! You are brainwashed! Solar power and wind power have a bigger carbon footprint then oil and gas!
Canada can do little since we are low emitters! 1.6% while China, the US and the EU emit almost 60% of the world GHG’s! China alone over 30%.
You have drank too much of the Koolaid that isn’t better for the planet.
The old solar panels, unreclaimable old battery remains, wind blades all get buried and will contaminate underground aquifers as they decompose!
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2022/02/28/graveyard-of-the-green-giants/
I have some beautiful beachfront property so sell you in northern BC, with scenic view and wildlife. Beachfront on muskeg and you will love it since everyone is moving there. Better act fast or it will be gone!
I’m afraid the calculations you are holding to are just plain skewed.
Eg. Canada may have a lower “number” because we have a smaller population.
But based on per capita? Both the U.S. and China are below us. (The Chinese are barely above a third of what we consume per capita).
Also: Who do you think is burning all that Oilsand bitumen-based oil? Nobody?
Oh. That’s right: The good old U.S.A. is consuming the Lion’s share. So to try and “separate” our emissions from the U.S.is plain ridiculous. -We’re joined at the hip. We’re part of THEIR problem. And they are part of ours.
And stop conflating any kind of industrial waste over another.
How many old wells are stilll lieing around?
How much old plastic is in our landfills leaching into our aquifers?
How much Selenium is in our watershed because of coal mining?
How much chemical crap of various kinds is being pumped into the air, water and ground daily by the Gas/Oil Sector?
-Those are just some simple examples.
I can guarantee you that constantly defending the continued over-consumption of those energy types spells our doom.
Here’s a thought: Why aren’t we insisting that instead of lining their pockets, the Gas/Oil Sector start spending their profits on cleaning up their act FASTER???Because the clock is ticking down to zero.
Everything we are attempting to do now in order to transition away from over-consumption of carbon based fuels should have started decades ago.
So instead of going on about why we can’t use another energy source in order to offset (Which we HAVE to): Start screaming about WTF is both government and industry are doing to do to deal with the damned problems they have continued to ignore.
i swear people who continue the type of discourse you hold to don’t give a crap about anyone who has to live on with the consequences of our lazy-ass inaction.
I don’t trust anything coming from the lips of this PM.
He has managed to sidestep charges in several areas in the last few years and with all the money he has spread around to so many people and organizations we need a forensic accounting. I trust a rattlesnake more than this PM
Climate change? Yes it is happening, BUT Canada only emits 1.6 percent of the world GHG’s. If we shutdown all industry, along with all oil and gas operations, we may bring that down to 1 percent. Canada has been picked on by the world because of several reasons: market control by foreign producers, holding us hostage to buy into the social plan of paying other countries for climate change remedies (thinking we are still a wealthy country) and bankrupting Canada for the New World Order that the UN is going to try to present in the next few years of a One World Government.
Bankrupting the West is one way they can force it on us easier.
Trudeau appears to have bought into this Globalist concept, and appears to be putting everything in place for this to happen. So did they promise him one of the Kingdom seats in this master plan?
He has bankrupt this country and the provinces had to go to beg for more healhcare dollars for Canadian healhcare, but he only gave them a few crumbs!
In my younger days, I worked for a few years (13) as an employment counselor through economic slowdowns and recessions. Some which affected Alberta, particularly negatively. Federal and Provincial governments offered, job retraining programs and wages subsidies.
Unfortunately, neither worked especially well. Often after going through retraining, workers would return to their previous jobs/careers when employment opportunities improved. In addition, once retraining wage subsidies expired, many new employers would lay-off the employee, as they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) afford to pay them 100% of salaries.
Yes, many can and are retrained every day. Ideally, the best, most efficient retraining often, is within one’s existing industry or employer.
I am guessing this survey does not reflect salary ranges for positions like; geologists, engineers, hydrologists, environmental engineers etc.
Just some questions; Once we have “retrained” thousands to the wind and solar industry; will salaries and benefits offered by “green industries match those eliminated? What happens when the wind doesn’t blow, or the sun doesn’t shine? What happens when, we have thousands of more windmills and solar plants, how many are required to maintain them? I understand once operational, it only requires one operator in a control room. What happens to the carbon generated and employees in the rare earth mining and refining industry? What happens when the windmills keep falling over?
All this proposed money, our money from our taxes, spent because of a miniscule amount of carbon created by Canada is ridiculous. Once all of this is done, will the Carbon tax be eliminated? or continue to increase?
Attached; is the most recent Alberta Wage and Salary Survey, (2021). One can only presume annual COL increases and inflation has increased these salaries.
https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/5e977b8c-41f7-4763-ad4d-2f0723417dbd/resource/16fb5882-fca3-4708-9931-1d6e0634d1fa/download/lbr-2021-awss-wages-by-industry-by-region.pdf
https://alis.alberta.ca/
we just bounce from one set of liars, thieves, nepotists and pocketliners to another…and we think of that as democracy. we is two smrt for wurds.