National Energy Board: Oilsands

Construction Trades Dept: We wish this were so, but our study of employment in the energy sector finds that these claims are largely wishful thinking. While there are new developments, overall Canadian energy policy is "more of the same." It is explicitly driven by private-marketbased decisions, rather than careful planning by governments to ensure both good environmental and labour outcomes. To the extent that there is public planning, it is focused on delivering outcomes the energy industry wants. This planning failure has implications both for the lack of greening of the energy sector, and the types of jobs being created, according to Vancouver Sun. According to the National Energy Board, by 2020 the oilsands will account for 75 per cent of the oil industry and shale and tight gas will be 66 per cent of the gas industry. The resulting jobs are similar to those created in the past, with a heavy reliance on construction trades, particularly in the oilsands, but also in other areas such as pipeline construction. Government reliance on market forces has resulted in a failure to take advantage of the full employment potential of valueadded manufacturing and fossil fuel processing and the energy sector is often promoted as an area where a "winwin" situation exists for labour and climate change policy. The prevailing view is that the economy will create many good new jobs as it shifts from dirty energy production to clean, renewable energy. In the oil-and-gas sector, despite industry "green" washing, employment growth is largely based on increasing production from non-conventional fossil fuels oilsands, shale and tight gas . These newer extraction methods are environmentally even more damaging than conventional oil and gas production. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.