[Promoted] BC Workers Ready for LNG Challenges

As Canada’s largest ever construction project – the $40bn LNG Canada development in Kitimat and its companion pipeline – stands on the launching pad, BC’s 40,000 unionized construction workers stand ready to play their part, says the head of the organization representing them.

Tom Sigurdson, executive director of BC Building Trades, says his group’s members have contributed to every major infrastructure project in the province, and they’re not about to stop now.

“Our members have literally been on every major build in BC, and many of those members have worked on other projects across Canada and around the world,” he told NGW. “While world demand and commodity prices have dictated the development of LNG, not only in BC, our members have been anxiously waiting for positive final investment decisions to be announced that will allow us to build an industry that will positively impact the economy of our province for generations to come.”

Sigurdson will deliver the opening address on Day 3 of the Canada Gas & LNG Conference in Vancouver May 12-14, at which time he will speak of the economic boost LNG will give BC and the opportunities it will provide to all workers.

“Such a large workforce will be as diverse as the population of Canada,” he said. “Perhaps for the first time though, the construction trades and LNG proponents will directly reach out to women, Indigenous peoples and other under-represented groups to develop their skills for a career in the construction and maintenance industry.”

Member organisations under the umbrella of BC Building Trades are already preparing their workers for jobs on future LNG projects, Sigurdson said. The Heat and Frost Insulators Local 118, for example, has already had several of its members enrolled in specialty training courses in cryogenic insulation applications, while several other union locals have been offering skills upgrading courses as an ongoing benefit to their members.

“Members need to stay current with technological changes and other industrial developments and do so through their union locals,” he said.

With an already diverse and experienced army of trades workers, Sigurdson is confident in the ability of Canadian workers – whether from BC or elsewhere – to meet the demands of a multi-billion-dollar LNG project. Four years ago, he said, the BC government committed to ensuring that LNG developments in the province would bring maximum benefits possible to BC and to Canada.

“Translated, that means that qualified, skilled Canadians will have the opportunity to work on the projects before any temporary foreign workers will be permitted to work on the projects,” Sigurdson said. “It only makes sense that local workers who have the requisite skills will be hired first, followed by workers from the rest of the province and then by Canadians who reside outside of British Columbia.”

BC Building Trades members, he said, recently completed a major modernisation project that required 3,500 workers on-site during peak construction. When the numbers were all finalised, only about 1% of the work was done by non-Canadians; 75% of the workers were from BC, while the remaining 24% came from the rest of Canada.

“The majority of this work was done at a time of high employment for the construction trades. Given the current level of construction work in western Canada, there should not be any need for significant numbers of temporary foreign workers.”

Tom Sigurdson, executive director of BC Building Trades, will be a Speaker at Canada Gas & LNG Exhibition and Conference - May 14-16, Vancouver, Canada.