Canada’s Building Trades Unions Executive Director, Sean Strickland, has released the following statement regarding the Government of Canada’s announcement on the next steps for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (the project):
“Canada’s Building Trades Unions support Deputy Prime Minister Freeland’s announcement today, to ensure the Trans Mountain Expansion Project – an important part of Canada’s economy – continues. We are also encouraged to see this won’t utilize public money, and that Trans Mountain Corporation will instead secure the funding necessary to complete the project with third-party financing.
It is estimated that the project will generate over 15,000 construction jobs including demand for new apprentices, jobs and training opportunities for Indigenous peoples, and, it will result in ongoing demand for skilled trades workers in maintenance, extraction facilities, refineries and other facilities, creating jobs that contribute to Canada’s economic health. This project provides a rich training ground for the next generation and good jobs for the workers of today and the future.
Large projects, like the Trans Mountain Expansion Project are extremely difficult to execute and we supported the government’s move to step in and purchase the pipeline and now, to see that through to completion. The government’s support makes sense – this is a nation-building project. The project funds green investments and shifts the transportation of oil away from more carbon intensive methods. The revenue generated from the project will provide our government the money to reinvest in renewable energy and technology to achieve our climate goals. It will be all Canadians who benefit from the royalties and the thousands of construction jobs it has and will continue to create.”
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Media Contact
Kate Walsh kwalsh@buildingtrades.ca 613.298.0652
About CBTU
Canada’s Building Trades Unions are an alliance of 14 international unions in the construction, maintenance and fabrication industries that collectively represent over 600,000 skilled trades workers in Canada. Each year, our unions and our signatory contractor partners invest over $300 million in private sector money to fund and operate over 195 apprenticeship training and education facilities across Canada that produce the safest, most highly trained and productive skilled craft workers found anywhere in the world. Canada’s Building Trades Unions represent members who work in more than 60 different trades and occupations, and generate six per cent of Canada’s GDP. For more information, go to www.buildingtrades.ca
