“Instead of taking computer science, get a trade.” That's Gwyn Morgan’s blunt advice for young people watching their career plans collapse under the advance of artificial intelligence. The former EnCana president, a man who built one of North America’s largest natural-gas producers, is not known for soft talk. In this week’s Hannaford, he delivered the line with the same directness that once defined his corporate career: AI is already wiping out the need for legions of programmers..University computer-science degrees are becoming a path to underemployment. The work that remains, and that will grow, is the work that must be done in person – electricians, plumbers, metalworkers, machine fixers, and the full range of skilled trades that keep the physical world running..Morgan’s column in the Western Standard a few weeks ago (itself reprinted from a longer version in C2C) had already framed the paradox. The AI data-centre boom is a major source of jobs growth, yet the same technology is “slashing ragged swaths through fields of human workers.” That harvest, warns Morgan, is accelerating. What the interview makes clear is that Alberta sits at the intersection of both forces – and may be better positioned than almost anywhere else to capture the upside..GWYN MORGAN: Canada has a generational opportunity to help build the AI future.The numbers are staggering. A single major data centre can consume as much natural-gas-fired power as the entire city of Edmonton. Projects measured in square miles are already moving forward, notably in the Grande Prairie region. Hyperscalers – the handful of global firms driving the build-out – are now among the largest businesses on earth by market value. They need reliable power, vast open land, and speed. Alberta supplies all three. .Because these facilities stay inside provincial borders, they require no federal approval. The Danielle Smith government can green-light the natural-gas generation that will feed them. That regulatory reality, Morgan notes, is one of the quiet reasons the projects are landing here rather than in jurisdictions already hitting capacity or facing political resistance.Construction, not operations, will deliver the bulk of the employment. Once running, a data centre needs only a few hundred people. Getting it built demands far more: tradespeople, equipment operators, and the supporting ecosystem that grows around large industrial projects. Trade schools and certain technical programs will need to expand quickly. The same natural-gas expertise that once powered Alberta’s energy industry is now the foundation for the next wave of investment..Morgan does not pretend the transition is tidy. Young people who spent years preparing for digital careers are already discovering the jobs have vanished. NIMBY opposition will appear wherever land is converted. Federal net-zero timelines sit awkwardly beside the sudden, enormous demand for fossil-fuelled electricity. Yet the train, as he puts it, cannot be stopped. The practical question is whether Alberta will treat the arrival of these facilities as disruption to be managed or as the largest industrial opportunity the province has seen in a generation.His counsel remains the same at the end of the conversation as at the beginning. The work that cannot be done by algorithm – fixing machines, wiring buildings, keeping systems running in the real world – will be in greater demand, not less. For a 20-year-old choosing a path, the safer bet is a trade certificate, not another computer-science degree.The full interview with Gwyn Morgan airs on Hannaford, at 7 o'clock tonight.
