Every day, we’re assailed with dozens of facts and figures about energy issues in Canada: how many jobs or royalties will come from a new pipeline, the annual growth rate of renewables, our per-person energy consumption.

But it’s often tricky to decipher truth from fiction.

That’s where the new 176-page encyclopedic report by veteran earth scientist and expert in coal and unconventional fuels David Hughes is meant to come in.

“Hopefully what it does is it provides the foundation of facts,” Hughes said in an interview with DeSmog Canada. “There’s a lot of rhetoric when it comes to energy. I wanted to make that quantitative so we actually had that bottom line of facts, rather than conjecture. I’m not trying to be prescriptive. I don’t have a magic answer. But I think we need to start with the facts.”

Over the course of 132 graphs and another 34 tables, Hughes — who worked for the Geological Survey of Canada for more than three decades as a scientist and research manager — meticulously chronicles and illustrates close to every imaginable part of Canada’s energy system.

There are four components to the report: 1) Canada’s actual energy production and consumption compared to the rest of the world, broken down into all the different sources; 2) the supplies and money from fossil fuel production; 3) electricity sources and trends; 4) emissions trajectories and targets.

Sounds like a few metric tonnes of info, right?

Well, while we highly recommend perusing through the report in its entirety, we’ve broken down some the 10 most noteworthy facts Hughes highlights in the report.

1. Canada uses a massive amount of energy

It might not come as a surprise to many, but Canada uses a lot of energy: more than five times the world’s average on a per-capita basis.

Hydroelectricity makes up a bigger proportion of our energy mix than other countries, but we have the exact average of dependence on oil and gas as everyone else.

When it comes to natural gas — used for heating and electricity generation — Canada uses 5.8 times the global average.

On the bright side, Canada’s coal consumption has been on the steady decline since the phase-out in Ontario. We’re already using half as much on a per-capita basis as the United States — and that trend will continue as Alberta shuts down its 18 coal-fired power plants in the coming years, with massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.

2. There’s an incredible amount of hydro power in this country

Canada is the second largest hydropower producer in the world, trailing only China with its colossal Three Gorges Dam.

On a per-capita basis, Canada harnesses 20 times the power from dams as the global average — only beat out by Norway, which somehow generates 51 times the per-capita average (you’ll start to notice that Scandinavia excels at a lot of these things).

Plenty of forecasts of low-carbon futures predict that Canada will have to add a lot more hydro to the grid in the coming decades. But Hughes isn’t convinced, based on recent precedent.

“I don’t think there’s any way we’re going to build all those Site C sized dams and nuclear reactors [modelled in various reports],” he said. “Economics, ecology and public protest would be off the rails.”

3. But we kind of suck at non-hydro renewables

Unfortunately, that dam-building habit has meant Canada isn’t nearly as good at non-hydro renewables: sources like solar, wind, geothermal and biomass.

Compared to Denmark (23.7 per cent of energy from non-hydro renewables), Portugal (15.5 per cent) and Germany (12.7 per cent), Canada only generated a tiny 3.1 per cent of its energy from such sources in 2016.

That’s slightly below the world average.

This is expected to change in the coming years as provinces and territories shift towards renewables.

4. Industry uses most of the energy in Canada

While we’ve been talking about per-capita consumption, it’s not really that accurate because 51 per cent of Canada’s energy is used by industry for things like oil and gas, refining, mining, pulp and paper and chemicals. Another 23 per cent is used in transportation: freight trucks, passenger cars, airplanes.

That leaves only 14 per cent for residential and 12 per cent for commercial. In other words, it’s the big factories, mines and refineries that are using most of our energy — yet they’re often the same entities which receive exemptions or subsidies for emissions.

Given the industrial sector’s large dependence on fossil fuels to make or extract stuff, this has meant that Canada has an extremely high amount of energy required per dollar of GDP — higher than even China.

While Canada’s GDP is being slowly “decoupled” from emissions, we’re still a long ways from the lower carbon likes of Denmark or the UK.

5. Western Canada is littered with an unbelievable number of old wells

Most people will understandably picture the oilsands when they think about the Canadian oil industry. But the massive growth in extracting bitumen from Alberta’s northern boreal forest is actually a fairly new phenomenon, really kicking off around 2007.

Up until that point, conventional oil — the stuff you drill for in wells — had reigned. But production from that method peaked in 1973. That’s meant that steadily rising production has required more and more wells, as declining well productivity means that companies have to keep finding and drilling more.

“With conventional oil and gas, you’ve just got to keep drilling and pouring capital into it all the time, otherwise it goes down,” Hughes said. “Companies always drill their best land first. You always got for the sweet spots, where the best economics are.”

It’s something made even more frantic with fracking. At last count, fracking now accounts for three-quarters of all oil production from wells in Western Canada. Such wells result in high initial production but decline at an even more rapid pace than conventionals — up to 83 per cent over three years.

As a result, Western Canada is just littered with wells: more than 820,000 in total, including gas, oil and bitumen. Only 235,000 are still active. A full 38 per cent of the wells are listed as inactive, with another 11 per cent as suspended. That means companies haven’t actually dealt with the environmental liabilities — which may cost billions to reclaim in the future.

6. The oilsands still produces some of the highest carbon oil in the world

Politicians and industry often brag about Alberta’s world-class environmental regulations and claim that’s a reason to justify more oilsands expansion.

But the unfortunate reality is that Alberta oilsands crude remains incredibly carbon-intensive, with Suncor’s Synthetic H blend emitting 297 per cent as much pollution as the best-performing oil in the world (in Kazakhstan) and 161 per cent as much as conventional oil in Saskatchewan. Many other oils around the world produce cleaner barrels: Iraq, Kuwait, Brazil, Russia, UK and Norway.

It’s an incredibly energy intensive process, with an energy return on energy investment of 4:1 for in-situ and 8:1 for mining, compared to 17:1 for average global oil.

7. Alberta is receiving astonishingly little return on its oil

Another resounding narrative is that Alberta needs pipelines and oilsands expansion in order to generate massive revenues for government coffers, allowing it to build schools, hospitals and roads. But Alberta is actually receiving decreasing revenues on a per-barrel basis.

Since 1980, oil and gas production in Alberta has doubled. But royalty revenues are down by 90 per cent from that level.

Currently, non-renewable resource revenue makes up a mere 3.3 per cent of the government’s income. The same has happened in B.C., with gas royalties collapsing as production skyrockets. Corporate income taxes from fossil fuel producers have also collapsed by 51 per cent since 2006.

“The concept of high-grading and selling the best of our resources off for declining revenues to governments and people who own the resource doesn’t seem to be very smart,” Hughes quipped.

8. Fossil fuel jobs are also surprisingly low

You’d never know it from listening to Premier Rachel Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but long-term fossil fuel jobs have effectively flatlined since 2006. Meanwhile, construction jobs now constitute 52 per cent of all jobs in the sector — but they’re short-term jobs and usually evaporate as soon as a project is completed.

In total, employment in oil and gas extraction totals less than three per cent of total Canadian employment, and around 12 per cent of Alberta’s employment.

Hughes was also intentional not to include so-called “spin-off” jobs in his reporting.

“What the politicians do is say ‘we’ve got to count all of the store owners and money that these workers put into the economy,’ ” he explained. “That sort of assumes the store owners would otherwise be unemployed, which is not accurate. A lot of the jobs numbers that are quoted are huge numbers of spin-off jobs.”

In total, employment in oil and gas extraction totals less than three per cent of total Canadian employment, and around 12 per cent of Alberta’s employment. https://t.co/5uaACUKV81

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) May 1, 2018

9. Meeting climate targets is going to be nearly impossible with oilsands expansion

Thanks to rapidly rising oilsands emissions, scheduled to hit 115 megatonnes by 2030, it’s appearing unlikely that Canada will hit its Paris Agreement target. Currently, we’re overshooting the mark by a full 66 megatonnes — meaning costly emissions credits will have to be bought.

It’s going to get way harder heading towards 2050. By then, oil and gas emissions will require the remainder of the economy to contract by more than 100 per cent. That will require a tremendous amount of low-carbon electricity to pull off, costing anywhere between $30 billion and $70 billion per year from 2017 to 2050.

Hughes is seriously doubtful this will happen — and instead calls for finding efficiencies and reductions from existing systems.

“Investing in reducing consumption will be a very big deal,” he said.

“To me, we have to do as much of that as we can first before spending a lot of money trying to replace business as usual. I don’t think it’s possible. Fossil fuels are just too useful, energy dense and convenient. All of our infrastructure is built based on them. But I think there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit for reducing consumption.”

10. We need to rely on facts to guide us forward

Hughes spent years chipping away at this report, compiling decades worth of knowledge and sources into one place. He said he’s going to continue updating it now that he has a template.

For the rest of us, the mammoth work now exists as an excellent reference and fact-checking resource for when something a politician or industry exec says sounds a bit off.

“I just want to provide a solid factual basis to go forward,” he concluded. “I’m a grandfather. I have a concern for future generations. I’m a little put off by some of the rhetoric I see on TV. We need to start with the facts and go from there. ”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Site C jobs are often cited as a main reason to proceed with the $9 billion dam on B.C.’s Peace River. But how many jobs would Site C actually create? Are there really 2,375 people currently employed on the project, as widely reported this month?

DeSmog Canada dove into Site C jobs numbers. We found dubious claims, political spin, and far too much secrecy.

• • Number of direct construction jobs BC Hydro said Site C would create in March 1991: 2,182  [1]
  • Number of Site C direct construction jobs promised by Premier Gordon Campbell in April 2010: 7,650  [2]
  • Number of Site C direct construction jobs promised by Premier Christy Clark in December 2014: 10,000  [3]
  • Workforce at peak employment at the W.A.C. Bennett dam, B.C.’s largest dam, in the 1960s:  3,500  [4]
  • Workforce at peak employment at the Peace Canyon Dam in the 1970s: 1,100  [5]
  • Number of pages redacted from the B.C. Liberal government’s response to a 2016 Freedom of Information request asking for documents related to Site C’s job creation figures: 880  [6]
  • Time it took to receive the request: 11.5 months
  • Number of pages with redactions in BC Hydro’s 692-page response to a 2017 Freedom of Information request asking for daily worker headcounts at Site C: 692[7]
  • Date BC Hydro said it did not have daily and weekly headcounts for Site C workers on the project site or staying at the workers’ lodge: October 12, 2017  [8]
  • Number of people BC Hydro’s Site C main website page says were employed on the project in September 2017: 2,375  [9]
  • Number of Full Time Employees (FTEs) among them: unknown
  • Minimum number of days a contract worker must be employed to be included in BC Hydro’s monthly Site C jobs tally: unknown
  • Approximate number of direct construction contract workers included in the September 2017 Site C workers tally: 1,164  [10]
  • Approximate number of other contract workers included in the September 2017 Site C workers tally: 750  [11]
  • Number of engineers and project team staff, including at BC Hydro’s head office in Vancouver, included in the September 2017 Site C workers tally: 461  [12]
  • Number of workers laid off at the Site C construction site in August 2017: 120  [13]
  • Number of workers laid off at the Site C construction site in September 2017: approximately 200  [14]
  • Number of workers laid off over Thanksgiving weekend, 2017: approximately 60[  15]
  • Number of workers laid off in early November 2017: approximately 30  [16]
  • Mentions of the layoffs on BC Hydro’s website: 0
  • Current number of Site C workers according to Liberal MLA Mike Bernier: 2,400  [17]
  • Cost of Site C in 2010: $6.6 billion
  • Cost of Site C in 2012: $7.9 billion
  • Cost of Site C in December 2014: $8.8 billion
  • Cost of Site C in November 2017: potentially more than $10 billion  [18]
  • Date BC Hydro filed a quarterly report with the B.C. Utilities Commission saying Site C was on budget and on track to meet its 2024 completion date: September 29, 2017  [19]

• Date the BCUC released a report saying it is not persuaded Site C will be finished on time and that the project is over-budget with completion costs that could exceed $10 billion: November 1, 2017
• Date the B.C. government will make a final decision about Site C: before December 31, 2017

Digging for The Truth on #SiteC Dam Job Numbers https://t.co/YKAhAwWW7I #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 16, 2017

[1] B.C. Hydro and Power Authority, “Peace Site C Summary Status Report,” March 1991. Calculated from information on page 6-31.

[2] https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2009-2013/2010PREM0083-000436.htm

[3] https://news.gov.bc.ca/stories/site-c-to-provide-more-than-100-years-of-affordable-reliable-clean-power

[4] Meg Stanley for the BC Hydro Power Pioneers. Voices from Two Rivers: Harnessing the Power of the Peace and Columbia. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2010, page 80.

[5] Ibid.

[6] The August 2016 FOI request asked for all e-mails and documents exchanged between the ministry and BC Hydro regarding Site C’s job creation figures. It also asked for all e-mails, attachments and documents exchanged between the ministry and BC Hydro regarding Site C and project planning, including Site C’s most recent budget and timeline.

[7] The FOI request asked for daily or weekly headcounts for Site C workers in 2017, as per the work site’s Emergency Response Plan, and for weekly headcounts of workers staying overnight at the Site C workers’ accommodation facility in 2017.

[8] BC Hydro’s FOI response did not contain daily or weekly headcounts for on-site workers. Nor did it contain weekly headcounts of workers staying overnight at the Site C workers’ accommodation facility in 2017. DeSmog Canada subsequently sent an email to BC Hydro asking again for that information to be released and was told that BC Hydro “does not have daily or weekly headcounts for workers on-site or at the workers’ accommodations.”

[9] Accessed November 7, 2017.

[10] https://www.sitecproject.com/sites/default/files/Site-C-Employment-Statistics-August-2017.pdf. For this calculation, direct construction jobs were considered to be the following categories: carpenters and scaffolders; cement masons, construction and environmental inspector; construction managers/supervisors, crane operators, electricians, heavy equipment operators, ironworkers, labourers, mechanics, millwrights, “others — construction trades”, pipefitters and plumbers, security guards, truck drivers, underground mining, and; welders.

[11] Ibid. Jobs included in the calculation were the following categories: biologists and laboratory; engineers; foresters; health care workers; housing staff; kitchen staff; “professional and office managers”; “professionals, technicians and office staff”; “social science,” and; surveyors.

[12] Ibid. In September 2017 BC Hydro reported 461 people employed as engineers and on BC Hydro’s Site C project team. The engineers included in this figure are in addition to the approximate 160 engineers included in BC Hydro’s job category of “construction and non-construction contractors.”

[13] Email from Amber Harding, communications manager for the Peace River Hydro Partners, August 9, 2017.

[14] https://globalnews.ca/news/3771186/200-workers-laid-off-from-site-c-dam-project-reasons-unclear/

[15] https://www.biv.com/article/2017/10/sixty-workers-laid-site-c/

[16] November 10 email from Megan Adams, Communications Manager for the Peace River Hydro Partners.

[17] Tweeted by Bernier on November 9, 2017.

[18] British Columbia Utilities Commission Inquiry Respecting Site C, “Executive Summary of the Final Report to the Government of British Columbia,” November 1, 2017.

[19] https://www.sitecproject.com/sites/default/files/quarterly-progess-report-no8-f2018-q1-april-june.pdf. See page 3.

Image: Little visible work activity in this November 5, 2017 photo of the Site C dam construction site. Photo: Supplied by Arlene Boon

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

When Prime Minister Trudeau announced approval of the Trans Mountain project he said the expansion “will create 15,000 new,

middle class

jobs — the majority of them in the trades.”

Natural Resources Minister, Jim Carr, repeatedly points to this figure to justify Ottawa’s approval. He says, “the project is expected to create 15,000 new jobs during construction.”

Alberta Premier Notley relies on it too. “Initially we’re looking at about 15,000 jobs…” Former Premier Christy Clark said, “And then there’s Kinder Morgan, 15,000 new jobs…”

When the figure of “15,000” for new construction jobs emerged, I was confused. Kinder Morgan told the National Energy Board (NEB) that construction employment for the project was an average of 2,500 workers a year, for two years. It was laid out in detail in Volume 5B of the proponent’s application.

Why would elected officials promote a construction jobs figure six times Kinder Morgan’s actual number?

I contacted the Prime Minister’s office. I asked his staff to explain how the figure their boss relies on was developed. They did not do so. I even wrote the Prime Minister directly. I received no reply. Natural Resources Canada said, “The numbers are from the proponent” and “believed” they were based on Conference Board of Canada estimates, while Premier Notley’s office said it came from the industry and directed me to Trans Mountain’s website.

There it was. “During construction, the anticipated workforce will reach the equivalent of 15,000 jobs per year…” Kinder Morgan provided no insight as to how that figure was derived.

ICYMI: Robyn Allan Q&A: Trudeau Government ‘Dangerously Misled’ on Kinder Morgan Pipeline

I inquired directly and was told, “the figures come from two Conference Board of Canada reports.” Links to those reports were provided.

I read both reports. Neither included reference to 15,000 construction jobs as Kinder Morgan said they would. What they did provide was a figure of 58,037 person years of project development employment—over seven years beginning in 2012.

I knew the 58,037 figure to be the same as that provided in a Conference Board of Canada report authored in 2013 and filed by Kinder Morgan as part of the discredited NEB hearing. The Conference Board based its estimate on an Input Output model which — because of its many design flaws — delivers highly exaggerated results.

I was still at a loss as to how the 15,000 construction workforce figure was derived.

I wrote Kinder Morgan again. The company responded: “…person years of employment during Project development is 58,037. This figure has been divided by 3 years and 10 months resulting in an equivalent of 15,000 jobs.”

I asked Kinder Morgan why almost four years was chosen as the time horizon for construction, when the project will take two. This is when the company stopped answering my questions on construction employment.

The Conference Board did not estimate construction jobs; Kinder Morgan did. Kinder Morgan divided 48 months into the Conference Board project development figure, then multiplied it by 12 months to arrive at 15,000 jobs a year.

Inappropriately, the figure was renamed as construction workforce.

It is unbelievable. It is a misuse of Input Output model results and a deceptive relabelling.

The Search for #KinderMorgan #TransMountain’s 15,000 Construction Jobs https://t.co/ZuFLKF3dss #bcpoli #cdnpoli #factcheck via @robynallan

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 28, 2017

Even if the Conference Board’s figure of 58,037 person years of development employment was reliable—which it is not—that number cannot arbitrarily be divided by 48 months of a longer project time table and then the result annualized so the proponent can claim there are 15,000 construction jobs to be created.

Kinder Morgan had no business altering the time horizon or renaming the nature of the employment to characterize it as something it is not. Kinder Morgan’s 15,000 construction workforce figure is meaningless.

The absurdity of Kinder Morgan’s 15,000 construction jobs claim is readily illustrated. Kinder Morgan’s says its construction schedule will begin in September 2017 with completion slated for December 2019 — 28 months.

Using Kinder Morgan’s formula, and the Conference Board figure it abused — (58,037 divided by 28 times 12) — Trans Mountain’s construction workforce catapults from 15,000 a year to 25,000 a year — a figure larger than the entire Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction workforce in B.C. That’s how outrageous Kinder Morgan’s logic is.

Why would Kinder Morgan pay the Conference Board for an employment estimate derived from an expensive modelling approach and inappropriately turn it into a construction workforce estimate when it has its own, more reliable one of an average of 2,500 workers over two years?

ICYMI: 4 Reasons the ‘Oil to Tidewater’ Argument is Bunk

Trans Mountain’s 15,000 construction workforce jobs are a scam. The more realistic figure is less than 20 per cent that size.

It is a betrayal of the public trust that Trudeau, Carr, and Notley, so eagerly got behind Kinder Morgan’s manipulated jobs figure without checking to make sure it made any sense.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is a guest post by Cameron Fenton, Canadian Tar Sands Organizer with 350.org.

This week, the cover of the Economist proclaimed "the fall in the price of oil and gas provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix bad energy policies." The article teased on the cover explains how low oil prices create the space for governments to make rapid leaps to change energy policy instead of "tinkering at the edges" urging policy makers to use this moment to "inject some coherence into the world's energy policies."

The article gets a lot of things right. Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and forcing big polluters to pay for the mess they're making are crucial policy steps, but the piece also presents some more dubious proposals. The last paragraph of the Economist piece is the perfect example of the inherent dangers ahead.

After calling for policy measures to constrain climate change, the author encourages that "governments should be encouraging the growth of seamless global energy markets" through steps like approving the Keystone XL pipeline or lifting restrictions on energy exports. It's the logic of free-market economics laid out in Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine applied to the climate crisis – that moments of crisis be exploited to reduce regulations and open markets.

Without a big, bold and diverse climate movement these ideas may never have a chance, or worse could be transformed into policies that leave out or sacrifice those communities on the frontlines of climate change and extraction. If we've learned anything in the past decade about climate policy it's that just because policy makes sense, that doesn't mean it will happen.

It's now up to us to seize this moment, not to follow politicians but to push them and demand the kind of energy revolution that the best scientific minds on earth are saying we need. This is a moment build on the momentum of the Keystone XL fight to hold politicians to higher standard, to refuse to accept weak policy and empty commitments on climate.

According to the Carbon Tracker Initiative, $1.1 trillion of potential capital expenditure on fossil fuel projects, including $271 billion in tar sands developments, require a price of oil above $95 a barrel. With the current price hovering close to half that, Stephen Harper's government has been forced to delay the release of their 2015 budget until April. 

An eight year push to expand the tar sands is now coming face to face with the reality of the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel age, and it's something that neither Harper nor big oil are equipped to deal with.

The fossil fuel industry's business model, echoed in the policies of the politicians they prop up, is to extract every dollar and barrel they can before the bottom drops out. It's a model of business as usual that has set us on a crash course, both economically and climatically.

Like past crises, like the 2008 recession, it's unlikely that those truly responsible – CEO's and their political allies – will feel the biggest hit. Instead it's the workers, thousands of who have already been laid off, the communities and the people who will be left out in the cold.

Much of the time, movements move slow and steady, but sometimes we have a chance to sprint. This is one of those moments, and if we wait too long we might miss it. The good news is we don't have to start from scratch. The beginning of the end of the fossil fuel age has started at campus divestment campaigns, in frontline communities organizing against extraction, where local communities are stopping new fossil fuel infrastructure, and together in the streets at mass mobilizations like the Peoples Climate March.

This is the climate movement's moment to seize. It's a moment for the labour movement and climate movement to join together to demand investment in re-tooling and re-training workers to build the new economy.

It's a moment to divest from dangerous fossil fuels like tar sands and reinvest in the solutions that are here and growing, especially those being led by those communities most impact by extraction and climate change. It's a moment to recognize that climate justice needs racial, social and economic justice, and most of all, it's a moment to be bold.

Image Credit: Natural gas flaring in North Dakota by Tim Evanson.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Today (May 1st) marks the one-hundred-and-twenty-third International Workers’ Day, also referred to as May Day. Many countries around the world observe the annual event celebrating the working class and labour movement with street festivals, community gatherings and demonstrations. But May Day passes largely unnoticed in Canada. This may be because very few Canadians actually believe in a working class anymore.

“Canadians for the most part believe the working class belongs to an era that no longer exists. Whether they are the working poor or the wealthy, Canadians tend to think of themselves as middle class,” says Jacqueline Kennelly, an associate professor of sociology at Carlton University in Ottawa.

Canadians celebrate Labour Day (the first Monday of every September), but the public holiday is better known as the last long weekend of the summer than a day to celebrate the eight-hour work day, a major achievement of the labour movement. For many Canadians the term “working class” conjures up a bygone era of poorly paid male workers slaving away in unsafe factories, steel mills or mines.

“Today’s working class in Canada are the low-wage earners in the services sector," Kennelly told DeSmog Canada. "They wait tables at restaurants, bartend or work in retail. A lot of them are women and recent immigrants to Canada. They are engaged in precarious labour with little to no job security and are worse off than the Canadian working class of thirty years ago."

Seventy-eight percent of working Canadians are employed in the services sector. Health care and social assistance, food and accommodation and retail are the biggest employers. 

The power of unions and support services for Canadian workers have largely been dismantled by companies and corporate-friendly governments – provincially and federally – since the 1980’s through ‘back-to-work’ and other forms of anti-union of legislation. And companies frustrated with the cost of doing business in Canada have either already left or currently threaten to leave.

The Canadian working class of today would seem to have an advantage over the working class of old: jobs in retail, food and accommodation services are not easily outsourced to other countries. A barista in India can't froth a cappuccino for someone in Toronto.

But service-sector employees are facing their own form of job insecurity these days. If the recent abuses of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Workers program are any indication, service-sector companies have no problem bringing in cheap foreign labour to flip burgers at McDonalds or man a till a local RBC branch. 

Images of May Day demonstrations from around the world:

Protesters take cover as riot police fire tear gas to disperse a #MayDay rally near #TaksimSquare in Istanbul pic.twitter.com/oiXKYFez5U

— AFP Photo Department (@AFPphoto) May 1, 2014

#Turkey: Turkish police tear gas at #MayDay protesters in Istanbul, by @Kilicbil #AFP pic.twitter.com/LdiDG2QSGG

— AFP Photo Department (@AFPphoto) May 1, 2014

Sri Lankan Kandyan dancers ride on the back of a truck during a May Day rally in Colombo #AFP pic.twitter.com/oKZqkqR4QH

— AFP Photo Department (@AFPphoto) May 1, 2014

Pakistani worker at a steel factory in Lahore on the eve of International Labour Day pic.twitter.com/jZIdWpMW2x #AFP

— AFP Photo Department (@AFPphoto) May 1, 2014

#Turkey: Protestors try to take shelter as police uses water cannons during #MayDay rally in Ankara by @AdemAltan3 pic.twitter.com/SE6SbUM5kv

— AFP Photo Department (@AFPphoto) May 1, 2014

Cuban workers take part in the May Day parade at Revolution Square in Havana by @AFPphoto ADALBERTO ROQUE pic.twitter.com/6U3amHmEUJ

— AFP Photo Department (@AFPphoto) May 1, 2014

Russian Communist Party supporters carry red flags during the 1 May rally in Moscow by @AFPphoto KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV pic.twitter.com/DvVxRZLFic

— AFP Photo Department (@AFPphoto) May 1, 2014

A Turkish protester stands amid a fog of tear gas during the #MayDay rally in #Istanbul by @Kilicbil pic.twitter.com/vjKgSDqjSE

— AFP Photo Department (@AFPphoto) May 1, 2014

Underemployment and Precarious Work Is on the Rise in Canada

Low-wage earners in the services industry are part of the growing number of Canadians who are underemployed or precariously employed, meaning their basic need for paid income is not being met. They are more likely to hold down more than one part-time job to get by, work irregular hours that can take a toll on their health and families and not be part of a union to protect their employment rights.

Underemployment in Canada is on the rise according to the Canadian Labour Congress. The current underemployment rate is 14.2 per cent, which is a 28.6 per cent increase since 2008. This is double the national unemployment rate. This trend is most likely to continue since part-time jobs are growing twice as fast as full time jobs. Nearly 95 per cent of the jobs created in 2013 were part-time jobs according the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.  

Not Talking About Class Ignores the Challenges of Being Working Class

“Canadians have lost the language to talk about class and have difficulty conceptualizing what the working class today looks like,” says Professor Kennelly.

Canadians could be forgiven for thinking the working class no longer exists in this country. The main political parties – Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP – claim to be the defenders of the middle class way of life and the plight of the middle class is a reoccurring theme in the media.

And discussion about class more generally is now often articulated in terms of percentages – the wealthy 1 per cent against the remaining 99 per cent. The idea of a relevant working class has more or less fallen off the public radar.

Such 'class blindness' can lead to social ignorance of the challenges certain social groups face in the 'pursuit of happiness.' 

Professor Kennelly argues it is difficult to tackle problems like inequality between the classes if the existence of class isn't recognized.

“There is the attitude in Canada as well as the U.S. that if you are working poor it is up to you to get yourself out of the situation. The onus is on the self. But class gets reproduced. Someone born to parents who did not go to university are less likely to attend university themselves because their parents by and large do not know how to navigate the system,” Kennelly told DeSmog Canada.  

Image Credit: ShutterStock

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The message the federal government has been pushing through its ‘responsible resource development’ ad blitz in recent years is one of all Canadians benefiting from developing our energy sources (particularly the oilsands). This is why export pipelines must be built through our communities and LNG plants for natural gas constructed on our coasts. Canadian oil and gas must reach international markets for the economy to thrive, argues Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the infamous global finances referee, took a closer look at Canada’s energy sector – oil and gas primarily – earlier this year and finds the benefits from Canada’s energy boom still remain largely within the energy sector.

“There appears to be an important scope to increase inter-industry linkages across Canada that would lead to wider sharing of benefits from the energy sector,” concludes the IMF report released last January.

The IMF finds every dollar invested in the energy sector in Alberta grows Canadian GDP – an economic vitality indicator – by 90 cents. Of this growth, 82 cents remains in Alberta, mostly in the energy sector (67 cents). The leftover GDP growth is split between Ontario (four cents), the rest of Canada (three cents) and the U.S. (two cents).

“The (IMF) report also shows that the positive impacts of additional exports outside of the energy sector and the producing provinces are surprisingly modest,” says Andrew Jackson, senior policy advisor at the Broadbent Institute in a recent article.

Energy Sector Created Only 1.7 per cent of New Jobs in Canada from 2007 – 2012

Make no mistake the IMF report favours increasing Canadian oil and gas production and building more pipeline capacity. As one would expect the IMF sees impacts of the energy sector on Canada’s economy as positive. The report does not assess the environmental or the social consequences – particularly on Canada’s relationship with First Nations – of the energy sector, which have their own social and economic impacts.

IMF's breakdown of $1 investment in the energy sector scenario.

But the IMF almost appears disappointed by the energy sector’s contributions to economic growth and job creation in Canada:

“The energy sector accounts for only 0.1 percentage points of the average (2¼ percent) annual GDP growth over the last decade. Also, employment in the energy sector increased by less than 13,000 over 2007–12, against a total 752,000 jobs created over the same period in Canada,” states the report.

Health care and social assistance created 22,000 jobs in December 2013 alone according to Statistics Canada.

Photo from federal government's responsible resource development campaign.

While the IMF does not dare to say Canada is suffering from “Dutch disease,” it does conclude the energy boom has taken its toll on the Canadian manufacturing industry.

“Higher energy prices contributed to the real appreciation of the Canadian dollar since early 2000s, which has intensified Canada’s competitiveness challenges in non-energy sectors, particularly in manufacturing,” reads the IMF report.

Rapid Growth vs Slow Growth in Energy Sector – Modest Difference

The IMF gazes into the economic crystal ball to try to predict the future impacts of rapid versus slow development of the energy sector on the economy. If no additional infrastructure to export Canadian energy were to be built – the slow scenario – Canadian GDP would only decrease 0.5 per cent by 2020.

At the other extreme, if all proposed energy export infrastructure is approved and the energy sector develops rapidly (i.e. a 20 per cent increase in oil and gas production in the report) GDP would increase be 2 per cent by 2020. However, the IMF concludes there would be a certain downside to this growth:   

“the current account would be slightly negative, reflecting larger deterioration in the non-energy balance driven by higher imports demand from households and firms.”

Jackson says the “gap between the two scenarios is more modest than might have been thought” given the daily dose of rhetoric Canadians hear insisting the “approval of new pipelines to export oil and gas are central to Canada's economic future.”

IMF Recommendation: Strengthen Domestic Supply Chain

Strengthening Canada’s “domestic-supply chain” will increase the “spillover” benefits from the energy boom into non-energy sector industries according to the report. Building more domestic pipelines to connect western Canadian oil to eastern Canadian refineries is one of the recommendations:

“Canada’s internal market remains segmented, as refineries in eastern Canada are not connected with pipelines to western Canada…. and import much of their crude oil at the higher global (Brent) price,” argues the report.

“This has not only a direct negative impact on Canada’s energy trade balance, but potentially also an indirect one as it limits the competitive boost that Canadian manufacturing firms could derive from accessing a cheaper, domestic source of energy,” concludes the report.

All new pipeline proposals in Canada including TransCanada’s “nation builder” Energy East pipeline involve exporting Canadian oil to international markets. Enbridge’s recently approved Line 9 pipeline from Sarnia to Montreal may be the only exception, but Line 9 could easily be transformed into an export pipeline as well.

The IMF reports supports similar findings by the Canadian Energy Research Institute in 2011 that finds 94% of the economic benefits of expanding the oilsands remain in Alberta.

Image Credit: Government of Canada, IMF

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In his efforts to advance TransCanada’s bid for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, that will carry 700,000 barrels of oilsands oil from Hardisty, Alberta to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has travelled to Washington six times. During his most recent trip he resorted to “desperate and false arguments” to sell the project according to Robyn Allan, former President and CEO of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

In a recent piece for the Vancouver Observer, Allan writes Oliver’s “eagerness” has led him to make misleading claims about the significance of the pipeline to energy security – for both the U.S. and Canada – job security and the environment.

During his November 6th trip Oliver claimed “the approval of Keystone XL would enhance energy security, create thousands of jobs and support the environment. Approval would displace oil from Venezuela which has repeatedly threatened to cut off its supply to the United States and has the same or higher emissions as the oil sands, with less stringent regulations.”

As Allan points out, the Keystone XL would only account for a portion of imported oil to the U.S., accounting for only six percent of U.S. imports.

However, that amount of oil, if upgraded domestically and shipped to the east coast of Canada (which currently imports oil from other countries), could potentially be significant in terms of Canadian energy security.

So, to the claim of U.S. energy security, Minister Oliver is off the mark.

Allan claims that the argument for job security is equally misleading. Even President Obama took issue with claims the pipeline would create thousands of jobs in an interview with the New York Times.

He said, “Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator,” but “there is no evidence that that’s true. The most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 job during the construction of the pipeline, which might take a year or two, and then after that we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs in an economy of 150 million working people.”

The export of diluted bitumen from Canada, says Allan only guarantees Canadians will lose out on upgrading and refining jobs.  “Diluted bitumen shipped to the Gulf Coast means upgrading and refining oil sands crude does not take place in Alberta – it takes place in the U.S. So we can be assured Keystone XL actually represents thousands of jobs lost to Canada.”

When it comes to environment, Minister Oliver bases his reasoning that Keystone XL will “support the environment” on the claim that Venezuelan oil has the same or higher emissions as the oil sands but without a strong set of regulations to guide production.

Allan breaks down the claim this way: for the pipeline to actually benefit the environment, oilsands oil emissions would have to be lower than Venezuelan oil emissions, be capable of displacing Venezuelan oil, and Venezuelan oil not imported would need to remain unexploited.

To clarify on the first point, Allan reached out to Minister Oliver’s office but could not get a response.

Allan would be right in assuming that oilsands represent Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and that Alberta, due to industry, accounts for 49 per cent of Canada’s total emissions.

Without a strict basis for comparison, however, Allan takes an extremely favourable position – that Venezuelan crude has higher emissions than Albertan oil. But that assumption only propels Allan to ask the next question. Could oilsands bitumen displace Venezuelan crude in the U.S. market?

As Allan explains, this is extremely unlikely. Venezuelan oil is produced by a state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela South America (PDVSA). PDVSA owns and controls three “captive” refineries in the U.S. which are supplied with a guaranteed feed of Venezuelan oil. Even if Canada could displace the Venezuelan crude supplying these Venezuelan-owned refineries, Venezuela would need to agree to halt production of an equal amount of oil from its reserves to allow for the ‘displacement’ of that oil.

This would amount to the shutting down of 40 percent of Venezuela’s resource sector.

Allan writes, “Mr. Oliver’s claim that Keystone XL would enhance energy security, create thousands of jobs and support the environment is wrong. For many of us concerned about adding value to our non-renewable resources, meaningful and long term jobs for Canadians, global warming and climate change, his brazen misrepresentations are insulting.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

I boarded a jet plane this past Friday and traveled 16 hours through the night to Washington, DC. I was back on a plane again on Monday morning flying the reverse 16 hours back home.  

I was in Washington for the Forward on Climate rally, to call on President Obama to say “no” to the KXL pipeline. 

If oil workers could choose, would they choose to work in toxic environments with damaging chemicals, or would they choose to work surrounded by clean air?   If Americans could choose, would they choose to work on the infrastructure for cancer-causing oil power or would they choose to work on the infrastructure for health reviving wind power?   If Canadians could choose, would they choose to dig up their forests, leaving behind barren and filthy wastelands, or would they choose to harvest the sun’s rays and leave behind a legacy for their children?   If people had a choice, what would that choice be?

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

By focusing on fossil fuels, Canada is missing a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on clean energy technology, according to a new report from the Pembina Institute.

Through both a review of recent literature and one-on-one interviews with 21 of the country’s “clean energy leaders,” the report, entitled Competing in Clean Energy: Capitalizing on Canadian innovation in a $3 trillion economy, exposes the financial cost of the federal government’s overwhelming emphasis on the short-term profits provided by oil, gas and shale.

Interviewees include Nick Parker of Cleantech Group, who admits he finds it “difficult to not be acerbic or negative when it comes to how Canada ranks in the clean energy race.”

What are we missing?

As world leaders move to make the changes necessary to comply with the Copenhagen Accord which aims to limit global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius, they are increasingly looking for options to cut down on carbon emissions and move to renewable energy sources.

“Yet much of the focus of leaders in government and business has been on Canada’s abundance of raw fossil fuel commodities — from oilsands to shale gas and coal — and the opportunity to generate prosperity by exporting these resources.”

Thus far, the Canadian government has favoured a “go slow” approach to energy innovation, “betting on a slower emergence of a low-carbon economy, and a reluctance to impose additional costs on domestic industries and consumers to address a global problem [climate change].”

This has left us behind in the lucrative field of energy innovation. Although Canada is one of the top research and energy development funders in the world, our rate of funding as a percentage of GDP is presently less that the peak in 1984. Furthermore, poor coordination and short-sited funding have left us in fifth place in terms of clean energy inventions behind Korea, Germany, Japan and the United States. 

The report shows that aiding in the global transition toward clean energy is not only a moral imperative, but also a potential windfall for Canadian businesses, as well as an excellent way to create new jobs for Canadian workers. 

“With more than 700 companies, the cleantech sector has emerged as a major driver of innovation and employment growth in Canada, investing almost $2 billion in research and development and seeing an 11 per cent increase in employment between 2008 and 2010. Yet Canada currently captures just one per cent of the $1 trillion global clean technology industry. It is estimated that, as this industry grows to a projected $3 trillion by 2020, Canadian clean technology companies have the potential to increase their market share from today’s $9 billion to $60 billion.”

What can we do?

The report outlines three opportunities for the Canadian government to encourage growth in the clean energy entrepreneurship:

• Improve access to capital to keep emerging companies from falling into financial “valleys of death” before they are able to bring their new technologies to market. Chief Environment Officer of TD Bank Karen Clarke-Whistler provides advice on what the government could do to make banks more “comfortable” with supplying much needed financial resources to clean energy companies which tend to be high risk and have high capital needs.

• Create a national energy strategy that would focus hitherto poorly distributed funds. Many interviewees, including Tom Heintzman, co-founder and CEO of Bullfrog Power, suggest using fossil fuel resources to fund clean energy research, thus aiding in the smooth transition to sustainable technology.

• End preferential tax treatment for fossil fuel production and begin to figure the real cost of greenhouse gas pollution into the price of carbon-based energy. Dawn Farrell, CEO of TransAlta, encourages us to see the atmosphere that takes up CO2 emissions as a scarce resource and then price that resource to encourage more efficient use.

It concludes that if the federal government can go the way of some provincial governments and shift its focus away from the development and sale of fossil fuels, this country is, “well positioned to compete in the field of clean energy technology, creating jobs and economic prosperity across the country.”

Image Credit: Green Energy Futures on flickr.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.