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Clean Energy Transition Could Create 4 Million Canadian Construction Jobs: Report

By  Christopher Cheung for The Tyee.

The construction industry has a big role to play as Canada aims to meet to its commitment to the Paris climate agreement and transition to a greener economy, according to a new report.

“We need that construction workforce to get us to net zero,” said Bob Blakely, the COO of Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU), an alliance of 14 unions.

There hasn’t been much Canadian research on the construction industry’s role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, so the CBTU commissioned a study by think tank the Columbia Institute to investigate potential job growth as Canada moves towards a low-carbon economy.

According to the study, Jobs for Tomorrow – Canada’s Building Trades and Net Zero Emissions, a low-carbon economy could create almost four million direct building trades jobs by 2050 — and that’s a conservative estimate. These jobs include boilermakers, electrical workers, insulators, ironworkers and masons.

Here is a breakdown of the study’s job creation estimates.

  • New eco-friendly construction and retrofitting could create almost two million direct non-residential construction jobs.
  • Building small district energy systems in half of Canada’s metropolitan areas could create over 547,000 construction jobs.
  • Building $150 billion worth of urban transit infrastructure, from rapid transit tracks to bus lanes, could create 245,000 direct construction jobs.
  • Moving to an electrical supply grid composed primarily of hydroelectric (40 per cent), wind, solar, geothermal and tidal power generation (43 per cent), and legacy nuclear (five per cent) could create over 1.1 million direct construction jobs.

“This neither means nor implies the sudden end of the use of fossil fuels,” said Blakely,“but it does mean a shift in how fossil fuels are used and in what quantities.”

Lowering Canada’s reliance on fossil fuels will protect against price shocks, the report found. For example, the OPEC-induced crash of oil prices in 2015 resulted in more than 35,000 people losing their jobs in the oil patch.

Canada’s population is projected to grow to 48 million by 2050 from the current 36.3 million.

Ensuring a greener future is going to take collaboration, said business manager Lee Loftus of the B.C. Insulators Union.

“This is a conversation with the federal government, every [provincial] government in Canada, and the municipalities,” said Loftus. “Every one of those governments has a role in helping us execute the changes that need to take place, from procurement to development to bylaws.”

Photo: Topher Donahue, Aurora Photos

Threats to our environment are often hidden from public view.
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In just six months, they filed a whopping 233 requests — and with those, they unearthed a veritable mountain of government documents to share with readers across Canada.

But the reality is this kind of digging takes lots of time and no small amount of money.

As many newsrooms cut staff, The Narwhal has doubled down on hiring reporters to do hard-hitting journalism — and we do it all as an independent, non-profit news organization that doesn’t run any advertising.

Will you join the growing chorus of readers who have stepped up to hold the powerful accountable?
Threats to our environment are often hidden from public view.
So we embarked on a little experiment at The Narwhal: letting our investigative journalists loose to file as many freedom of information requests as their hearts desired.

In just six months, they filed a whopping 233 requests — and with those, they unearthed a veritable mountain of government documents to share with readers across Canada.

But the reality is this kind of digging takes lots of time and no small amount of money.

As many newsrooms cut staff, The Narwhal has doubled down on hiring reporters to do hard-hitting journalism — and we do it all as an independent, non-profit news organization that doesn’t run any advertising.

Will you join the growing chorus of readers who have stepped up to hold the powerful accountable?

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As The Narwhal turns five, I’m thinking about the momentous outpouring of public generosity — a miracle of sorts — that’s allowed us to prove the critics wrong. More than 6,000 people just like you donate whatever they can afford to make independent, high-stakes journalism about the natural world in Canada free for everyone to read. Help us keep the dream alive for another five years by becoming a member today and we’ll mail you a copy of our beautiful 2023 print magazine. — Carol Linnitt, co-founder
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