Just transition… If Ottawa wants to take energy workers earning $150,000 a year and put them into jobs earning less than half that, you could call the transition a lot of things..But certainly not any word that means fair, equitable — or just..Yet that’s what the Trudeau Liberal government is planning to do now to Canada’s energy workers — a lot of them in Alberta, of course..But, by no means all of them: Nationally, oil and gas means directly and indirectly nearly 600,000 jobs to Canada. And more than a third of them are outside Alberta..Same with the money. Oil and gas is worth nearly $140 billion to Canadian GDP. But again, a lot of the money invested developing energy out west — energy all Canadians need — is actually spent in central Canada..And with the money go the jobs — 71,000 in Ontario and 20,000 in Quebec..Again, from coast to coast-to-coast, more than half-a-million Canadians depend on oil and gas to pay their taxes and feed their families..So, if the Just Transition turns out to be unjust, it hurts the whole country..Why do the Liberals want a transition anyway?.The official government line is that Canada must lead the world in lowering carbon emissions, and to do that we have to move everything gas-powered — cars, trucks, home heating — over to electrical power..The transition then, will be to ‘green jobs.’.So much for the official line..The unofficial line, as we know, is that the oilsands must be phased out. The prime minister said it, then said he mis-spoke..But, over the last seven years, Mr. Trudeau has been killing pipelines, chasing tankers away from the West Coast (but not the East,) using regulations to make it more expensive for oil and gas producers to operate and putting potentially valuable exploration lands out of reach in national parks..That looks like a transition, alright..But a ‘just’ transition?.If you ever had any doubts about federal good faith, keep in mind how Canadian gas producers were squelched after they pointed out the more Canadian gas they could sell to China, the fewer coal-fired generators China would have to build..Carbon dioxide is borderless, after all: Less carbon dioxide emitted worldwide is a net gain for the entire world..In fact, under Article 6 of the Paris Accord, Canadian gas producers should have received green credits for doing that..But they didn’t..So Justin Trudeau’s just transition plan is going ahead. It’ll kill us here in Alberta of course, but here’s the thing: Where are these green jobs coming from anyway?.The largest manufacturers of wind-driven generators are in Europe and China..Same goes for solar panels..That could change perhaps if the government put enough money into it..But isn’t it ironic?.Trudeau’s Liberals chase away $150 billion in private investment, but if we’re not going to live in a world of brownouts without end, they’ll need to make massive investments of taxpayer funds. So, could there be some jobs expanding the grid?.Maybe. But nobody seems to be doing much about it at the moment..And the question therefore, for something like 140,000 Canadians from Atlantic Canada to B.C. is, ‘Just transition?.Transition to what?’.Raking leaves?
