A disaster waiting to happen

Re: LNG accord includes use of foreign workers, April 1 At the signing of a deal with the federal government to use its Temporary Foreign Worker program to help build the liquefied natural gas industry, Premier Christy Clark said only “when we have maxed out every opportunity to put Canadians to work on these projects we will need to begin to look oversees for temporary workers.”

However, B. C. Jobs Minister Shirley Bond all but announced in an interview with The Sun that the reason for using the TFW program is to help employers keep Canadian wages down. She says there were “significant issues” with wages paid to skilled Australian workers during a period of labour shortages there.

There is no general shortage of skilled labour in Canada. In our own trade — construction, maintenance, shutdown and start- up of huge natural resource facilities — there are two brief periods a year when we use temporary workers to supplement our permanent workforce.

There seems to be a definite shortage, however, of politicians willing to recognize the value of the skilled labour that Canadians, trained in one of the world’s best and most rigorous apprenticeship systems, already offer.

You wouldn’t ask a home plumber to install a high- pressure valve for liquid natural gas. Does Ms. Bond expect the person who does have those advanced skills to work for less than they can get elsewhere?

Importing workers who are frequently unqualified for the jobs they’re asked to do may be acceptable in the fast food industry. With liquid natural gas, this way of thinking has “catastrophe” written all over it.

JOSEPH MALONEY International vice- president, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers