Enserva’s Day on the Hill advocacy trip continued with a focus on labour into our second and third days. As a recap, Enserva and a delegation of members went to Ottawa last month to champion our advocacy priorities and share the perspective of the energy services, supply, and manufacturing sector. In all advocacy efforts, our messages are centered around three overarching priorities:
- Unlocking capital
- Unlocking labour
- Regulatory modernization
Meetings Recap
Day two and three of Day on the Hill were largely spent focusing on unlocking labour, and bringing our message to the key ministries involved in employment and social development. Our conversations with various ministries consistently highlighted the significant shortfall we’re currently seeing in labour supply and the severe impact this will have if the trend continues. The energy services, supply, and manufacturing sectors present a huge spread of opportunities for good jobs that workers can build fulfilling and long-lasting careers around, and we need the government to be our partner in sharing this message.
Building on our need to grow the labour pool, we spoke to the importance of attracting young and new talent to the energy industry. Attracting historically underrepresented talent—women, new Canadians, and Indigenous people—into the industry is important to all our members, and something Enserva is working hard to incorporate into our Working Energy application, which we were excited to share with government officials.
Enserva is looking forward to launching our new job-matching platform, Working Energy, which will connect skilled workers with energy services companies that are looking to fill vacancies with candidates who possess specific skills and credentials. It will connect job seekers and companies through customizable searches and ensure the workforce is keeping up with new developments through online training and skill enhancement courses. Stay tuned for the launch in 2024, initially in Western Canada and eventually country-wide.
As shown through the creation of the app, our sector is not just identifying problems, but is proactively developing solutions.
This message was shared with both the political and department teams in the Office of the Minister of Workforce Development, Employment and Social Development Canada, and the Office of the Minister of Labour and Seniors. We look forward to maintaining an ongoing dialogue with these offices on the status of Working Energy and other initiatives to expand our workforce, while highlighting areas where we hope to see government support.
Stay tuned for more details on the Working Energy application, launching early 2024.
The delegation also met with Shannon Stubbs, Shadow Minister for Natural Resources for the Conservative Party of Canada and several additional members of the CPC Caucus. We appreciated the opportunity to highlight the initiatives our organization and members are taking to bring innovative solutions to the service, supply, and manufacturing sector in Canada.
Wrapping up our latest Day on Hill talking labour and how critical a robust service sector workforce will be to bring our industry into the future was an important message to leave with government. Canada’s energy sector—the services, supply, and manufacturing members in particular—is a pillar of the country’s economy, creating funding for community investments, health care delivery, and a strong social support system. To keep up this work and reduce emissions at the same time, we will need a strong workforce to keep innovating, finding creative solutions, and doing the boot-on-the-ground work to keep our country moving forward.
We are the energy behind the energy. Through the advocacy efforts of our 2023 delegation and all members, we will ensure our sector continues to have the tools to do this invaluable work.
With our 2023 Day on the Hill concluded, we are moving on to planning for a 2024 Day on the Hill this coming spring. We encourage any members interested in joining our next delegation to reach out to our team early in the new year.
