Building at Record Speed: Does Canada Have the Workforce?
Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Canada needs to “build at speeds not seen in generations.” More than ten major projects have now been referred to the Major Projects Office (MPO). Assuming that all of the projects move forward in the next few years, will Canada have enough skilled workers to deliver them?
To explore this question, our guest this week is Sean Strickland, Executive Director of Canada’s Building Trades Unions. Canada’s Building Trades Unions is the voice of the country’s construction workers, representing more than 600,000 skilled tradespeople across Canada.
Here are some of the questions Jackie and Peter asked Sean: What is the current situation- do we have a shortage or an excess of trade workers? How might that change if all the projects being advanced by the Major Projects Office (MPO) move into construction over the next few years? How mobile is the labour force, and are there policy changes that could improve labour mobility? Are temporary foreign workers still available if Canadian labour becomes stretched thin? What are the demographics of the current workforce? What is it like to work on industrial projects in remote regions, including both the sacrifices and the rewards? How can workforce planning be done when the number of projects that will ultimately proceed remains highly uncertain?
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Episode 315 transcript
Disclosure:
The information and opinions presented in this ARC Energy Ideas podcast are provided for informational purposes only and are subject to the disclaimer link in the show notes.
Announcer:
This is the ARC Energy Ideas podcast, with Peter Tertzakian and Jackie Forrest, exploring trends that influence the energy business.
Jackie Forrest:
Welcome to the ARC Energy Ideas Podcast. I’m Jackie Forrest.
Peter Tertzakian:
And I’m Peter Tertzakian. Welcome back. So Jackie, today we’re going to talk about competition. And I’m going to put that on pause for a minute. When it comes to energy and infrastructure, we’re going to talk about competition. But you’ve been competing, as you do every year, and we talk about it on this podcast, for a camping site.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah, multiple camping sites. So we’ve just had all the competition with the Olympics, but-
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
What’s most important in my life, is this is also the time of year where you have to get your camping sites for the summer-
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
Months in advance. And it’s getting harder and harder. So this year I had the ultimate plan to get the Lake O’Hara. I literally had like nine devices going, and I’m like, this way I have one chance of getting my spot in the queue, because basically you have to wait and then right at eight o’clock you get given your spot in the queue.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
None of them got even close, so once again, no Lake O’Hara camping spot.
Peter Tertzakian:
Let me in on a little secret, if you haven’t already thought about it, you are probably competing with 500 AI bots, that are-
Jackie Forrest:
More than that. By the way-
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
In some of these I was put in like 20,000 in the queue.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah. They have some-
Jackie Forrest:
There’s only a handful of sites over the three months that they book or four months, right.
Peter Tertzakian:
I mean, this is ridiculous. When I was into serious backcountry hiking, you didn’t have to make a reservation, you just hiked in, pitched your tent, and there was hardly anybody there. So it’s just-
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah.
Peter Tertzakian:
Now you have to be 20,000th in line to-
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah, it’s like the Hunger Games-
Peter Tertzakian:
It’s crazy.
Jackie Forrest:
For campsites in Canada these days.
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, I think it’s completely distorted and maybe it’s a metaphor of broader things in society. But competition, okay. We want to talk about, not necessarily competition for barrels or for cubic feet of gas or electrons or any of that, we want to talk about competition for labor, because we’ve got Bill C-Five. We know we have to have a push on infrastructure, particularly export infrastructure. There are a lot of projects on the books and there’s more to come. And if we’re really serious as a country about building out this infrastructure, we’re going to have to have a lot of things fall into place, including where are we going to get the labor.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah. And I just want to add to that.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
I’ve been thinking a little bit about these projects that have been referred to the Major Projects Office, and if they were all to kick off in the next few years, and I mean, Mark Carney’s saying we need to build at speeds never seen in generations. So I’m assuming a lot of these need to start before 2030. I hope they’re going to start-
Peter Tertzakian:
’30, are you kidding? We need to get shovels on the ground.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay, well-
Peter Tertzakian:
We’re at war.
Jackie Forrest:
Let’s just talk about Northern B.C., in the last five years or so, site C-Dam, the Coastal gas link pipeline in LNG Canada, phase one, created strain for labor in that region. In the next five years, starting now and then over the next five years as we construct, demand could be much higher, we could be building two new LNG terminals, an 800 kilometer plus pipeline.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
The pipeline that needs to feed the gas. We have this Northcoast transmission line, Red Chris Mine, and that’s just happening in Northern B.C. Let’s add to the fact, well, okay, well, we used to get all this labor from other parts of the country. Go to Ontario, you’ve got the Darlington SMR project underway, Pickering refurbishment, Bruce Power has refurbishments going on and talking about doubling, but I think that’s going to be longer term. But I think the Ontario workforce is pretty busy. Go to Newfoundland and Labrador, that’s often been where a lot of people have come to Western Canada for work. Well, they’re talking about getting that big Churchill River Dam expansion and on the-
Peter Tertzakian:
And there’s the offshore wind projects.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah.
Peter Tertzakian:
Eventually, yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
If those go ahead.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
So where are these people that typically come from other regions to help-
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
With these projects?
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, let’s call a friend as we usually do on this program. So we are delighted to have with us Sean Strickland. He serves as the Executive Director of Canada’s Building Trades Unions. And I can’t think of anyone better to talk about labor, the availability of labor and the competition for labor. Welcome, Sean.
Sean Strickland:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Peter. It’s great to be here. Thanks Jackie for that little bit of a preamble about the project market from a macro kind of level. And you’re absolutely right, we have a tremendous opportunity here facing us in Canada, to launch the Major Projects Office and the announcement of these first 12 major projects. Which is really exciting.
I think it’s important to say that, from my perspective and what we’re trying to do at Canada’s Building Trades Unions and working with project proponents and working with the government and various governments, provincial and federal, is that we still really have a lot of work to turn the promise of these jobs into the reality of these jobs. For those of us who’ve been in the industry for a long time, we can remember even approximately 10 years ago, there was at least seven or eight major LNG proponents for Canada, for Alberta and British Columbia, and we ended up with one, maybe two. There’s all kinds of examples throughout Canadian history of major projects that have been announced, never made it to FID. So that’s why it’s critically important for us at Canada’s Building Trades Unions and Labor, to be at the table when these projects are being, not only announced, but when they reach FID and when they’re actually going to have, as you said earlier, Peter-
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Sean Strickland:
Shovels in the ground.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Sean Strickland:
In Canada, we have a lack of sophisticated labor market data. We have large macro views, what trade profiles are and what demands are demographically, et cetera, for trades across Canada. But we don’t have it down to the granular level. And so that’s what we really need to do to make sure we can execute on this opportunity ahead of us, is that for every one of these Major Projects Office, before they get final approval, they need to have a trade demand profile. How many trades do you need? What trades, when and where? And so then we can plan how to optimize our available labor force right across the country to provide the appropriate labor, at the appropriate time, the appropriate skills for these major projects.
And I just maybe want to conclude this little bit of a segment around this notion of trade shortages. Like everyone talks about trade shortages and when we’re talking about trade shortages at Canada’s Building Trade Unions, trade shortages are episodic. It’s not all trades, in all regions, at all times. And for our members, which are approximately 600,000 of them, across the country, we do a lot of the work in the large industrial projects, institutional projects, commercial projects, high rise. We’re not talking about folks you have to call to come and fix your sink or wire your rec room. These are folks who work on major industrial institutional commercial projects across Canada. And the trade profiles change within a region. The demand for trades change not only within a province, but within a region and also across the country depending about works available. And so that’s why I emphasize-
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Sean Strickland:
We need more sophisticated labor market data to meet the moment, as it were.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah. So before we get granular and address these other issues, the CBTU, Canada’s Building Trade Unions in plural.
Sean Strickland:
Yeah.
Peter Tertzakian:
Can you just give our audience a sense of who you’re representing? Because presumably, electricians as a trade have their own union and others-
Sean Strickland:
Yeah.
Peter Tertzakian:
Maybe just sort of characterize the landscape. Are you the umbrella organization for all these other unions? Or just maybe talk about who you represent in the 600,000 people.
Sean Strickland:
Yeah, we’re the umbrella organization for 14 construction unions in Canada. And those 14 unions have approximately 600,000 members and 60 different construction occupations in Canada.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. And then one other clarification, there’s obviously trades workers that are not unionized in Canada. So when we think about these large industrial projects like building nuclear or big power generation plants or these LNG facilities, is it usually union trades or are you looking at the right group of people here? Or is there another source of people that we’re not looking at by looking at the building trades?
Sean Strickland:
Well, it depends, again, it depends on markets and regions and type of project. And so in the industrial marketplace, I would say it’s pretty fair to say we have probably 80% market share across Canada. And then when you go into different markets and different segments, it varies. For example, in nuclear, in Ontario, it’s a hundred percent union. Québec, it’s a hundred percent union. There’s five different construction unions in Québec. So it varies from market to market, and we have our concentration of market shares in the industrial marketplace.
Jackie Forrest:
But when we look at these major projects, then it’s fair to say that a lot of it has to come from these 600,000 people that you have registered in the building trades, in the union.
Sean Strickland:
For sure, exactly. And there’s a couple of reasons for that. One is, our building trades unions have been around and incorporated for over a hundred years in Canada and in North America. And we spend a lot of money on training our tradespeople, apprentices and journey people, it’s in our DNA, that’s our value proposition, is the training that we do. So that’s very attractive for the sophisticated projects and owners and buyers of construction. And the other thing is, is that we have a network across the country. So when we talk about Labor Mobility and tradespeople coming from Newfoundland that you mentioned in the onset, to come to the West, that’s something that it works within the building trades union’s family. So we have mobility within the unions across the country, that makes us also very attractive to provide the labor and manpower and people power for these large industrial projects.
Peter Tertzakian:
Can you talk about this term, trade profile? Because as I listened to, I guess what emerges in my head is, okay, let’s say there’s a major project and the profile is you need a hundred electricians, 250 scaffolders, 25 plumbers. I don’t know, I’m just making it up. Is that what a trade profile is? And then the CBTU, your organization sort of tries to pre-plan, to fill that profile? Maybe explain the process.
Sean Strickland:
Exactly. So what we’re asking for is a labor market impact advisory board. And so for these major projects that are in engineering, they’re developing the trade demand profiles. So what trades do they need, when and where? And at the onset of a project, you’re going to need different trades than you would in the middle or the closing of a project. And so the trade profiles change as you go through the building and construction of a project. So at the beginning, you need earth movers, you need concrete, you need forming, you need all that kind of stuff. And as you get out of the ground, you’re going to need more mechanical electrical trades. And then as mechanical electrical trades come along, then you’re going to need more finishing trades. You’re going to need cement masons and painters and drywallers. And so it’s sophisticated approach to construction that engineers are developing as they build these projects, ’cause they have to, of course, develop how much it’s going to cost.
And so all I’m saying, and all my Canadian executive board is saying, look, we need to be at the table and we can help you plan for this. We can help plan for the mobility that may be required based on other projects that are happening across the country. And it’ll also help us develop what kind of requirements do we need for apprentices? How many more people do we need to recruit into the industry? And so that’s critically important when you look at the scope and scale of some of these projects that are being considered from the Major Project Office.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. Well, let’s start with the current situation. I get a sense, it’s a bit of feast or famine. A lot of projects seem to have ramped down, at least here in Western Canada. So at this moment, is there a shortage of work? Do you have a bunch of trades workers that are not working?
Sean Strickland:
Well, we do need work. In Alberta, for example, it’s been steady as she goes, but the Dow Chemical project was delayed and deferred and now it’s starting off more slowly than what it had originally anticipated. We all know about the lack of investment in the oil since, or over the last 10 years for a variety of different reasons. Many projects have not only been stalled or deferred in Alberta, but right across the country, in large part, due to the tariffs. And so we have direct job losses in industrial plants where our members do the work. So steel, aluminum layoffs, Algoma Steel, we had CAMI shuttered, which is an automotive plant in Southwestern Ontario. Our members and contractors do all the maintenance work in those plants, so if those plants aren’t producing, then there’s less maintenance required. And so that has had negative drag on our labor requirements. And so we have members who are ready and willing to go to work.
So if you want to look at it from across the country, and I can’t emphasize this enough, I mean everyone thinks about construction as being homogeneous. It’s not, it’s very variable, project contingent, labor availability contingent, the kind of economic profile of the province and the region, has a lot of impact on what kind of labor you have available.
So for example, in Toronto right now, the high rise market and the low rise market is dead, it’s completely flat. We have the highest unemployment in Toronto than we’ve had in 30 years, right now. Who would’ve guessed that, right?
You go to Québec. Québec is going gangbusters right now. Québec is going gangbusters with mining and EV facilities and infrastructure. Hydro-Québec has got an ambitious capital project. Not to mention the Gull Island project in lower Churchill, that’s going to probably come to fruition in the next couple of years.
Newfoundland, we have a lot of unemployment in Newfoundland right now. And Newfoundland workers are actually, some of them are in Québec. New Brunswick as steady as she goes. Nova Scotia is booming, but the market that’s booming in Nova Scotia right now is high rise, like the opposite of what’s happening in Toronto. So you get the picture as you go across the country.
Peter Tertzakian:
Can you talk about the labor mobility then? I mean, do people in Toronto, as you say, go to Nova Scotia to build high rises or what is the, I guess, propensity, the desire to relocate to get to work in this country?
Sean Strickland:
Yeah. Our workers are pretty mobile, but the working conditions have to be right. So it’s usually mobility for large projects that have a lot of labor requirements. And so Stellantis, LG, did an EV plant in Southwestern, Ontario. There was workers from all over the country that came to work on that plant. Toronto workers going to Nova Scotia, they would likely go to Northern Ontario or someplace else in Ontario, where there was work, rather than going to Nova Scotia, so it depends. There’s a big major project in Nova Scotia and there’s no work in Ontario, workers would go to Nova Scotia. So the mobility is there, project dependent, area dependent, market dependent?
Jackie Forrest:
And Sean, there is a requirement though, talking about our inter-provincial trade issues, where if you’re a trades person registered in Ontario, for instance, you can’t just show up in New Brunswick and start working. Isn’t there a requirement for certification and is that a barrier as well?
Sean Strickland:
You’re absolutely right. We have a Red Seal program, that works really well, and there’s a few things that may be adjusted like the electrician license in Alberta, for example, slightly different to the electrician license in Ontario. But if you write the Red Seal exam, then you’re able to have that transportability and you’re able to accommodate whatever that difference may be in your licensure.
Not all trades are Red Seal, but the Red Seal program works really well. One of the challenges that is a barrier, is safety harmonization. So we don’t have a similar system for safety certification like we have for trade certification. So if you take working at heights, or fall arrest, or working at elevated platforms or trenching and reshoring, just a couple of examples. There’s a hundred different certifications in construction. If you take it in Ontario, for example, and you go to Alberta, well, you still need to take the Alberta one. If you go to New Brunswick, you still need to take that course. And so that gets in the way of productivity, that gets in the way of getting the worker to the workplace in a timely manner. So we are embarking on some initiatives right now, there’s some interest to improve that safety harmonization. So I would say that’s more of a barrier than the Red Seal. There’s some other things related, mobility, I’d be happy to talk about too.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah. So we’ve sliced and diced across geography of this large country and by jurisdiction, it’s a province, talk about the demographics of our workforce. Do we have enough young people coming into the trades? What is the composition or don’t really have any sense of how prepared we are, not only in the near term under this infrastructure building, but the longer term of the country, in terms of the right profile of people to help build our economy?
Sean Strickland:
Yeah, we are an aging industry. It’s not as bad as it was a number of years ago. I can tell you that the average age of an apprentice is 27 years of age, and so young people are coming to our industry now at a later age than they would’ve been 25 or 30 years ago. I mean, the typical path would be, you go to high school and then at 18 or 19 you take up your apprenticeship. So we have a challenge there to lessen that gap and more readily identify people at a younger age who are ready and willing to get into the construction industry. And so there’s some public policy levers that can be used to help improve that. I know in Alberta they’re making some good changes to the training regime, to attract more people into the trades. Ontario has done the same. And then you can also use procurement practices, where you have mandatory requirements for apprentices, which will help attract more young people into the trades as well, so we can sustain our workforce going forward.
Peter Tertzakian:
Right. I read an article last week, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal or it was an article about the United States, that now we’re seeing mid-career white-collar workers who are being thrown out of work because of AI and things like that, that are now migrating to the labor force, training to be an electrician or a plumber, or some other trade.
Sean Strickland:
Yeah.
Peter Tertzakian:
Are we seeing any of that kind of thing here yet?
Sean Strickland:
Not yet. But it’s interesting you mentioned that, Peter. Because when you look at the impact that AI will have on jobs, being a tradesperson is pretty much bulletproof from AI. I mean, AI may be used to help production processes and design and all that kind of stuff, but you’re still going to need someone to wire the house.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Sean Strickland:
You’re still going to need tradespeople. And so we haven’t seen a lot of that, but we anticipate as our economy goes through adjustment, some dislocation, particularly with our manufacturing industry. Like I’ve been here before, when you had all the recession of 2008, we lost a lot of industrial capacity in various parts of the country. And we’re able to bring some more people from that environment into the trades. So we’re not seeing it yet, but I think that there’ll be an opportunity for us to provide those opportunities for more people, due to economic dislocation, if we get it right on these major projects.
Jackie Forrest:
I think you’re right, and I’ve talked to a lot young people actually, who are now considering the trades, because of the uncertainty. But I will just say Elon Musk is trying to develop that human-like robot, so let’s hope it takes him a while to figure that out.
Peter Tertzakian:
Right.
Sean Strickland:
I’ve seen them for years. I mean, there’s a robot that can brick a house. I’ve seen it for years, but I’ve never seen it in a commercial application, you know what I mean?
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah, out in the real world in the -40 Celsius, you probably have to recharge-
Sean Strickland:
Exactly.
Jackie Forrest:
Your robot batteries.
Sean Strickland:
Exactly.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. Let’s talk about another issue. Peter and I obviously are here in Alberta, and we lived through that peak of labor requirements in 2014, in the Fort McMurray area. And I did actually look up the numbers, there was at peak, and there’s different estimates, this is petroleum labor market information at the time, said there were 30,000 trade workers in Fort McMurray and another 20,000 other types of workers to support the trades workers. So that created a ton of stress, but one thing that was used at the time, was a temporary foreign workers program, to bring in additional labor.
Now, the temporary foreign workers program is kind out of fashion, and it seems that the Canadian government is trying to curtail the amount of people that come under that designation. So is that going to be an issue too as we go the next few years, that relief valve we had to meet these requirements is kind of closed off?
Sean Strickland:
Well, first of all, the temporary foreign worker program for construction has not received any diminishment in the amount of numbers of people that can be brought in under a labor market impact assessment for construction. So it still is a challenge for us, it still is a real aspect of our market. And as I come back to your labor market information, our position is that we want to optimize jobs for Canadians. I don’t think anyone would argue with that. So we want to optimize jobs for Canadians, but we also recognize, especially some of these major projects, that there may be a requirement for temporary foreign workers. And if there is a requirement for temporary foreign workers, we have some recommendations on how that temporary foreign worker program can work to the benefit of the industry and to the benefit of Canadians.
So for example, in Alberta, there’s the ACTUMS, I can’t remember the exact acronym for that. It’s the turnaround and maintenance industry, that’s set up with four large buyers of construction in Alberta. And they’re able to bring in temporary foreign workers under a group of employers application, share the workers, have them come into the union, protected from exploitation, get paid union wages, and able to contribute to the economic betterment of Canada. So that’s a model that we’re continuing to advocate for as these major projects come forward, so we can better manage those temporary foreign workers, protect them from exploitation. And then on top of that, we need to find a way in which we can make that more sustainable and provide a long-term economic benefit to Canada, by having them stay in Canada and become landed immigrants in Canada. And so there’s some things that can be done around the temporary foreign worker program that can be vastly improved to the greater benefit of Canada.
Peter Tertzakian:
Let’s project forward about these major projects, and what we talked about at the beginning of the program, which is if all of them start to go at once, then all of a sudden, as Jackie talked about, feast or famine, now it’s feast. You talked about the necessity of trade profiles to plan for this sort of thing. But we know the world doesn’t work that way, or certainly this country doesn’t seem to work that way, quite often. As evidenced by the oil sands boom or the feast and famine in one part of the country versus the other. I guess my question is, how is the federal government and provincial governments thinking about all this? I guess it’s mainly the federal, because they’ve set up the Major Projects Office. In your interactions with the government, do you feel that they are attuned to the potential of labor strain, wage inflation, all that kind of stuff, as we necessarily have to build out these big projects?
Sean Strickland:
Yeah, I would say they’re in tune with that, for sure. The conversations we’ve had with the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s office, various cabinet ministers, were, we’re working towards the establishment of this body to manage the labor requirements for these major projects. And so I would say that we are in a much better position now than we ever have been before to plan for these projects. There are some things that we need from a policy perspective on top of that. You talk about labor mobility. We have a labor mobility tax deduction that’s in place right now, because one of the things is, it’s easy to say, get a worker to leave their residence and go to a northern, mostly remote location and work on construction for three weeks, then come home for a week. Well, how do you incentivize them to go there? And so we have labor mobility tax deduction in place where they can deduct travel costs and meal costs that aren’t covered by their contract. We think that needs to be expanded and enhanced so we can attract people to go to these remote areas.
We also think the government needs to bring back the apprenticeship incentive grants and apprenticeship completion grants. That was actually in the Prime Minister’s and the Liberal Party’s platform. It’s been canceled. We don’t know why, but we want to bring it back. And the government is committed to doubling it from its previous $2,000 to a new apprentice, to 4,000, and then $4,000 once you complete your apprenticeship. And so those are critically important.
And the two other big pieces, one is, to help with that, as I mentioned earlier, is mandatory minimum apprenticeship. So for these projects, we’re advocating that 10% minimum of apprentices on those projects, and then also prevailing wage. So Bill C-59, in order to get your tax credits for decarbonization projects, to get your maximum tax credit, you have to pay prevailing wages defined by union wages. That doesn’t mean all the work needs to go to union, but that does mean that workers are getting paid the best contracts that are out there, which will further incentivize them to get into the trades and also go to where the work is.
Jackie Forrest:
Let’s talk, Sean, a lot of our listeners maybe don’t know what it’s like to be a remote worker. Like what is the schedule and what’s expected and why do we need incentives to get people to do it because of that?
Sean Strickland:
Well, first of all, you’re away from your family, you’re in a camp and you’re working 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for two to three weeks straight. And then you’re back to your family, depending on the shift cycle, then you’re back to your family for one or two weeks.
It’s interesting, I’ve been to a couple of major projects and just the idea of getting there, like I went to LNG Canada and workers go through this every day that are traveling and to get to Kitimat, it’s not easy. And my flight just to get in there, tried to land twice, aborted the landing, then had to turn back to Vancouver. Well, I was on there with a plane load of tradespeople, and having conversations with them, they were saying, “Yeah, well, going to work’s not so bad, but when we’re coming home, this costs us two days on our time with our family when we get back.” Notionally, as Canadians, we tend to romanticize, okay, go work in Northern B.C. or Northern Alberta, it’s not easy, it’s not for everybody. And once you get there, it’s not like you’re having a coffee for eight hours a day, you got to work hard. So this is the reality of a construction worker in Canada.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
And outside in the elements, right.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
Whether it be freezing cold or raining or whatever, right so.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Sean Strickland:
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. It’s interesting you mentioned that, like my office is in Ottawa and I have an apartment there. I’m overlooking this condo construction, and last week was -25, and there they were at seven in the morning, all bundled up going to work. So that’s the reality, I mean, it’s hot in the summer, it’s cold in the winter, and you got to go to work, you got to work hard, you get rewarded for it. But we have to recognize that it isn’t an easy path and a lot of people, it’s not for them. So once we get someone who shows up on time, is willing to go to work, we’ll train them and we’ll put them to work, and they’ll have a good career.
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, I remember in a long past era, I actually worked 20 days on, 10 days off in remote parts of Canada-
Sean Strickland:
Yeah.
Peter Tertzakian:
In my twenties. And it’s no fun actually, after a while, as you say, the romanticism wears off and the 20 days inevitably turned into 25 and 28.
Sean Strickland:
Yeah, it’s hard.
Peter Tertzakian:
Because you had to get the job done, and it’s not easy. And I didn’t have a family at the time, so I can’t think-
Jackie Forrest:
Hey, but we have to sell it though.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
Because I think people are getting, is it true, Sean, people are getting like six-figure type wages, much higher wages than they would by staying home?
Sean Strickland:
Oh, you can make really good money depending on your trade, over the course of a year. Like you can make 150 to 200 grand on some of these major projects, which is a tracked wage package. But you got to look at the totality of what that means for a lifestyle.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Sean Strickland:
It’s not a nine to five job, and it’s not, you leave the house at 7:30 in the morning and you’re back at six o’clock at night.
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Sean Strickland:
So there is attractiveness there, there’s good wages, there’s good benefits, pension, health and welfare. So it is very attractive for those people who want to go to work and do the work, a hundred percent.
Peter Tertzakian:
You mentioned your umbrella organization has 14 trades. So which one or ones of those trades are the ones that concern you most in terms of potential shortage?
Sean Strickland:
It’s hard to say, Peter. Again, it depends. I think the challenge would be, because when you look at the trades in their profiles, there’s a distinction, predominantly across Canada, in some areas a little bit different. It’s the federation after all. But you have compulsory trades and then you have voluntary trades. So there’s some trades where you need a certificate of qualification, but you don’t need a license. And so it’s easier to ramp up those trades than it is for the compulsory trades. So mechanical, electrical, sheet metal where you have to serve a five-year apprenticeship. So those trades would concern me the most, because the lead time to get from apprenticeship to journey person is much longer and requires more rigor. Those are the trades where I would be concerned over the next 10 to 15 years if these projects come to fruition.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. Well, let’s come back to the projects. I’m thinking of, I’m Don Farrell and I’m in the Major Projects Office thinking about how are we going to get all these projects done. There’s so much uncertainty though, like how do we know which ones will actually make a final investment decision and when? And if only half of them go forward, well, that’s a totally different situation than if they all go forward. So how do you deal with that uncertainty? I know you want to get to the micro level here, but there’s a ton of uncertainty in terms of what actually ultimately goes forward.
Sean Strickland:
Well, and that’s why we need that planning, it’s critical. And you hit on a good point, business managers who run our locals, like the locals in Calgary and Alberta and across the country, they’ve had major project proponents come to their offices and say, “We’re going ahead with this project and we’re going to need X number of tradespeople by such and such a time.” And then the union says, okay, they buy-in, and they start bringing apprentices in. And then the project doesn’t go ahead, doesn’t reach FID, like you mentioned Jackie. So now you got a union hall with a bunch of apprentices and you got no place to put them to work.
So what happens to those apprentices? Those apprentices leave, they leave the trade, they go work someplace else, ’cause they got to go to work. And so it’s critically important that we have that planning and we have that planning, right? And so we can optimize jobs for Canadians and recognize the fluidity of decisions related to major infrastructure projects and where it makes sense, we can bring labor in from areas that have surplus labor to areas that have excess demand. So we need to find this way in which we can develop these profiles and not only optimize the labor that we have now, but also how many apprentices we need to bring in, when and where, with as much certainty as we possibly can have around that job.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. And you’d mentioned you talking to the PMO office about this. Have you been working with the Major Projects Office? Are they at that level yet, or is it still too early?
Sean Strickland:
I think the Major Projects Office is really focused on regulatory, is really focused on decreasing regulatory friction between various government departments. And so when it comes to labor market planning and these other policy levers that I had mentioned previously, that’s really in the politician’s bailiwick. The Major Projects Office, I would describe it as more of a facilitator for these projects to get government approval, reduce friction, and help them get the FID faster.
Peter Tertzakian:
Well, it’s been a great conversation, Sean. I mean, we can talk a lot about labor, it’s going to be so vital to the success of our projects and our country, in fact, a necessity. So thanks for helping us slice and dice the labor market geographically, jurisdictionally by province, demographically, and by trade type even. I guess I’m heartened to hear that you’re having these high level and other broad discussions about how to plan for the profiles to meet the demand of the future. A little bit concerned that there’s some severe underemployment in regions like Toronto and places like that. And we need to get some policies in place to improve the mobility and attract people in the near term, but also attract young people to the trades, to make it attractive to build this great country and have really high quality jobs for the future. So thanks for joining us. I think we’re going to probably have to have you back once some of these projects get going.
Jackie Forrest:
Yeah, I mean, I am thinking a bit, this is a Donald Trump quote, but Peter, you were talking about how when the CEOs and executives came, of the oil companies, to the White House-
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
That he wanted them to invest in Venezuela, he said, “Do it for your country.”
Peter Tertzakian:
Do it for your country.
Jackie Forrest:
And I think we need a lot of Canadians to rally here, to do it for their country. I recognize working remote is hard-
Peter Tertzakian:
Yeah.
Jackie Forrest:
But if we’re going to build all these projects, diversify our economy, get less dependent on the Americans, we’re going to need to build a lot of projects.
Peter Tertzakian:
Do it for our country. And these are really high paying jobs, as you said, not without sacrifice, but you make those trade-offs. And even if you do it for a part of your career, you also get a lot of great experience. So thanks again, Sean.
Sean Strickland:
My pleasure. Anytime. And we’re going to continue to work to turn the promise of these jobs into the reality of these jobs. And you’re absolutely right, a career in the unionized construction industry is a really good one. And I encourage folks who are interested in that, to pursue that. They can reach out to my office anytime.
Jackie Forrest:
Okay. And we will put a link to that, Sean. So thank you. And thanks to our listeners, if you enjoyed this podcast, please rate us on the app that you listen to and tell someone else about us.
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