ABOUT THOSE SUSTAINABLE WELL-PAYING JOBS IN THE JUST TRANSITION

     Jack Mintz:  That’s over 2.7 million jobs — almost 14 per cent of all jobs in Canada. Seamus O’Regan, the federal labour minister, struggles to put job-killing in a better light as “ensuring an equitable and prosperous future for workers and communities to take full advantage of the transition to a net-zero future.”
    The leaked federal document’s agenda is to replace lost jobs with jobs that are sustainable jobs, but not necessarily well-paying. Oil and gas workers earn salary and benefits equal to $98 per hour in the oilsands or $78/hr in petroleum and coal manufacturing (based on 2021 data ). Replacing those with anything similar will be hard. Jobs in the critical minerals sector are closer to the mark, at $65/hr, but still represent a big income hit for oil and gas workers. The federal government extolls the virtues of clean-tech jobs but they average only $48/hr, not much more than the average Canadian worker earns ($41/hr).
   When lost in a just transition fog, politicians in some countries feather-bed their own public service with laid-off workers whether they’re needed or not. Canada’s non-military federal employees averaged an extraordinary $75/hr in 2021, so the income would at least be in the ballpark. But in the long run being paid handsomely for zero-value “work” isn’t even good for the “workers.”