Canada’s resource sector wants to be centred in federal COVID-19 recovery plans

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — A new push is on by Canada’s resource sector to try to convince Ottawa to start directing more money and policy changes its way to help with post-COVID recovery.

Stewart Muir with the Resource Works Society — an industry lobby — says they’ve assembled a task force, which will be coming up with a series of recommendations over the next couple of weeks.

“[We’re going to] talk about the issues in recovering the economy from the point of the view of the natural resource sector, which also includes manufacturing, and transportation, because we feel that this is such a big part of the economy. We need to do some work here to make sure that no stone is left unturned as we look for solutions to go through the recovery phase,” he says.

The ‘Task Force for Real Jobs, Real Recovery‘ has several members from B.C. including the mayor of Fort St. John, and an elected chief of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation who is part of the First Nations LNG Alliance. Organizations in the province that support its work include the Surrey Board of Trade and the B.C. Construction Association.

The province’s resource sector directly employs over 100,000 people and accounts for around 12 per cent of British Columbia’s overall GDP.

Muir says restarting resource extraction and export is key to economic recovery.

“I think the things that we can do that are in front of us, that are accessible, are the things we should be doing first. One thing we do have is a lot of natural resources in the country — sometimes there are obstacles, it takes time to resolve social issues, environmental issues, make sure we’re doing things right — but those are things that we possess. We’ve got to act quickly in the next 12 to 18 months to have a proper economic recovery, otherwise, Canada is going to be in a long, slow, frustrating recovery, and that’s too long,” Muir says.

“If only we can get it together to develop the mines, forests, oil, and gas — getting those things to market — because the world still really does need our resources.”

He notes balancing economic concerns with environmental ones will be key.

“The need to ensure the environment is protected, climate issues are acknowledged, we can not ignore those issues. They’re really at the heart of everything we can do,” he says.

“We’ve had all kinds of different reasons that have led to Canada not being as quick as other countries to seize the opportunities that really are easy ones for us to be able to bring forward while also protecting the environment. If there was a simple answer we wouldn’t need to have the 20 experts that we’ve got.”

Muir expects demand for exports from Canada to begin to ramp up as lockdowns ease and economies open up.

“We do know that the ships are in the harbour, anyone that looks out at English Bay today you can see you know 15, 16 ships. These have come from all over the world to bring things back that we produce here. The world needs that, and we have an opportunity to make sure the supply is there right now,” he says.

“Oil and gas alone is 10 per cent of the national economy, then you add the minerals that we export. The more we can export, the more dynamic an economy we can have.”

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