The provincial government is looking at putting temporary foreign workers into the natural gas industry to fulfil immediate labour needs.
"We are in ongoing discussions with the federal government to make sure we have an immigration system that matches labour market needs," said Shirley Bond, Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training.
Her ministry later confirmed that these discussions would include the idea of temporary foreign workers to fill immediate LNG labour needs.
This idea was also supported by Prince George-Peace River MP Bob Zimmer.
"We actually have some legislation to present to the immigration ministry about this very thing for high needs areas in Canada," he said. "There's a need for workers in the north and resource rich areas."
"What I see it as, is regionally based system for tiers based on unemployment rate in that particular region," Zimmer added. "If it's high employment in our area, where (the unemployment rate) is four per cent or less, they would qualify as region A."
These jobs would be "everything that is in demand" whether it would be in the restaurant industry, oil and gas industry, or anywhere else there would be a need.
Zimmer said that proposal is waiting to hear back from the Citizenship and Immigration Ministry, but that its minister, Chris Alexander, was "very receptive" to the idea.
Questions sent to Alexander about this were not returned as of press time.
For the provincial government, building a skilled workforce for the LNG sector is a very serious issue, according to Bond.
"LNG means up to 60,000 jobs at peak construction and more than 75,000 permanent jobs across our province once the five proposed plants are fully operational and nowhere is the need to align training with the jobs of tomorrow more critical than in the LNG sector," she wrote. "We are developing a comprehensive workforce projection for the LNG sector, and will continue to invest in skills and trades training to ensure British Columbians are trained to fill these jobs. However, we also know that despite our many efforts to train workers locally, we’ll still have to fill some jobs through immigration."
The move to fill some of these jobs with temporary foreign workers was also supported by Peace River South MLA Mike Bernier.
He said that temporary foreign workers have assisted a lot of businesses in Dawson Creek stay afloat.
"You look at the Filipino community, there are some amazing people who are really interested in becoming part of the community," he added.
Despite this new push by the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training, Bernier said that he was still interested in having British Columbians first for these type of LNG jobs.
"Every company I know said they want to hire British Columbians; they want to hire local people," he said. "The catch to that is to make sure people are ready....there's a lot of opportunity (in Dawson Creek)."
Asked if he was concerned about the possibility of abuse of the program or temporary foreign workers potentially lowering the wages around the area, he said he "(didn't) see that as something that is of concern to me right now" given the prevailing preference for people to hire locals first.
"A lot of these companies are telling me in order to be successful they need to find people to work," he added. "This is a way better problem to have than no money coming in and no jobs."
Opposition jobs critic Harry Bains said the move showed how the B.C. government was failing provincial workers.
"They told the public before the election how LNG jobs will solve all of our problems," he said. "Then when it comes with filling those jobs they have no plan."
Bains said that the government should be doing more to train workers given the province's current unemployment rate.
"They are allowing companies to go overseas and abuse the temporary foreign worker program, to get temporary foreign workers at lower wages and get exploited and if they complain they get shipped back," he added. "That’s not what Canada’s all about."
While he did not rule out having immigrant workers filling LNG jobs, he felt those jobs should be done on a more permanent full-time basis with all the same rights as Canadian workers.
The move came after a report from a provincial jobs board which included the recommendation, among many others.
The B.C. Jobs and Investment Board, made up of a variety of business leaders from around B.C. appointed by the provincial government, was asked "to assess where future investment and jobs might originate and what policies and actions are needed to optimize our opportunities," according to outgoing chair Ray Castelli.
The report touched on a variety of issues through eight industries around B.C., including forestry, mining, and natural gas.
For natural gas in particular, the industry was either mid-range or competitive for many areas, with the exception of labour availability and costs against the U.S. or Russia.
The report called for the use of temporary foreign workers also called for other changes to the natural gas industry.
It also asked the provincial government to change the carbon tax for the natural gas/LNG industry, and harmonizing it with the federal regulatory approach.
"While we acknowledge the fiscal implications involved, we recommend implementing these modifications as soon as possible," the report states. "In addition, we recommend considering extending PST exemptions for machinery, equipment and chemicals to ensure the competitiveness of the upstream natural gas and LNG sectors."
It also calls for the creation of a database of skilled workers in small and medium sized service companies to support LNG development and upstream activities.
