N.L. needs to be ready to fill thousands of Churchill Falls jobs, says labour leader
CBC
Thousands of jobs could be at stake in the tentative Churchill Falls hydro deal and one labour leader says the Newfoundland and Labrador government has to start planning now to ensure there are skilled workers to get the job done.
The government estimates the combined four projects — from updates to Churchill Falls' existing plant, the Gull Island project and installing transmission lines — could generate thousands of jobs, with an average of 3,000 jobs during construction, and a peak of 5,000 direct jobs.
Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour president Jessica McCormick wants the provincial government to sit down with worker organizations to develop a strategy to ensure N.L is positioned to fill those jobs once they are needed.
"That work needs to start happening right now," McCormick told CBC Radio's Newfoundland Morning.
She is asking the government to take a proactive approach to ensure there is a local skilled workforce for when these jobs are online in order to ensure the projects' benefits reach everyone.
"Both in terms of revenue to the province, but also stability in jobs for workers," she said. "So that collaboration and that transparency and developing a strategy together — that's going to be key for us."
The MOU, which is expected to be formalized by 2026, was debated last week in a special four-day sitting of the House of Assembly. Most politicians voted in favour of moving forward with the MOU, while the 14 members of the PC caucus walked out.
McCormick said a lot of work needs to be done in the school system to ensure people are trained for these opportunities when they are ready to enter the workforce.
"Now is the time to really get out there in the K-12 system and speak to young people about opportunities and construction and trades to utilize our College of the North Atlantic system — with campuses spread out across the province — to ensure that our education system is matching what our labour force needs are."
McCormick said it will also include making sure that the immigration system is also ready for an influx of skilled workforce.
"But first and foremost, we want to make sure that …Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are able to really benefit from these mega projects," said McCormick.
New jobs in Labrador could also lure back people who left the province to look for work, she said.
"This could have the potential to be really transformational for workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, if we get it right, and if we don't rush into things and make sure that we have the right benefits agreements in place and that we have the right criteria in place to protect workers and to support workers."
She said the Federation of Labour hasn't yet been invited to have discussions with the government.
A close friend of Ahmad Al Marrach testified Monday he tried to discourage the 16-year-old boy from participating in a prearranged fight outside a Halifax shopping mall that led to his death last spring.
Zakkary Reed was embroiled in a days' long fight with his fiancée — mostly via text and Facebook messages — leading up to the shooting death of Alexander Bishop.
There are only two people who really know what happened on the fateful day in June 2021 when a man allegedly killed his neighbour: the one whose remains were discovered over a month later, and the one now on trial in a Winnipeg court for first-degree murder, prosecutors told the jury hearing the case Monday.
A 36-year-old Saskatoon man is dead after a crash early Sunday in the Stonebridge neighbourhood.
Saskatchewan winters, with their short days and long nights, can make going for an evening run a dark prospect.
An Alberta judge has ordered the province to restore full-time operations at Red Deer's only overdose prevention site, less than two weeks after its hours were cut in half.
Two physician assistants have started work at the Saanich Peninsula Hospital on Vancouver Island, the first time the profession has been approved to work in a B.C. hospital setting.
A former Toronto mayor says advocates could push to make the closure of 10 supervised consumption sites a provincial election issue if Ontario goes to the polls this year.
Students at Sherwood Elementary School in Charlottetown were already expecting an extra three weeks of summer vacation. Now, they'll have an extra three days of March Break, too.
Two Jewish organizations say they are outraged after a kosher restaurant business was broken into at two locations in separate incidents in the Greater Toronto Area in the past few days.
Ten people were arrested and three are now facing charges after a police operation in Hay River, N.W.T., on Friday, according to an update from RCMP that links what happened to the illegal drug trade.
Former finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland is expected to announce a bid for the Liberal leadership within the week, a source has told CBC News/Radio-Canada.
U.S. prosecutors are warning that a Toronto-area man accused of co-ordinating millions of dollars' worth of cocaine shipments — on behalf of a murderous drug ring allegedly run by former Olympian Ryan Wedding — has access to a criminal network in Dubai and could flee if he's released on bail.
A Chilean man accused of defrauding Islanders in a so-called "grandparent scam" is facing nearly a dozen more charges in New Brunswick.
A high-ranking Toronto police officer has been handed a nine-month demotion after interfering in a 2022 collision investigation involving her nephew.
A constitutional lawyer said a recent court of appeal decision on Colville Lake, N.W.T.'s caribou conservation plan is following a trend in Canadian courts.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says while she doesn't want to assume anything after her meeting with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence over the weekend, Canada needs "to be prepared" that threatened tariffs are on the way.
A group of Byron residents are asking a developer to scale back a six-storey residential building proposed on a section of Commissioners Road West where larger infill developments are becoming commonplace.