Canada's construction unions support Keystone XL

Speaking on behalf of Canada's construction unions and its nearly half million members, Robert Blakely, Director of Canadian Affairs for the Canadian Building Trades, said his organization supported "unreservedly and wholeheartedly" TransCanada Pipeline and its Keystone XL Project. This project, he said, does more then create short-term pipeline construction jobs. It will also provide an opportunity for training skilled workers in trades vital to the energy sector.

The Canadian Building Trades, the largest private trainers of skilled workers in Canada, believes that Keystone XL will create longer-term employment in both Canada and the United States in refinery conversion projects, operations and maintenance. Moreover, these jobs will keep "an enormous amount of money" circulating within North America.  Energy security for North America comes from developing the oil sands and other Canadian energy projects.

Development of the oil sands and the Keystone pipeline are integral to future growth, he maintains.  Opportunities for Canadians to be trained in skilled jobs for the energy sector will be lost if the project does not go ahead. 

Joseph Maloney, Chairman, Canadian Executive Board, and International Vice President for the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers called jobs in Canada's oil sands "vital" to North America because they support our standard of living. He posed the question, "what is better for the North American economy, to support the United States and Canada or to support unfriendly foreign regimes?"

Blakely stated that he and others in the Building Trades are concerned about jobs today but also about getting young people into Canada's skilled trades.  Uncertainty about energy jobs means uncertainty in work force planning and significant downturns in apprenticeship opportunities. It is impossible to produce a workforce, in the numbers required, without certainty of employment, he says.

The Canadian Building Trades maintain a coast to coast-to-coast training infrastructure worth more than $650 million dollars and spend about $200 million dollars on industry training annually.