• A recent University of Toronto paper by Jeff Allen and Steven Farber examines work access as measured in travel time to get to work. The “30-minute job access” is a rounded-up average in all heavily populated regions in Canada.
• The 2021 census revealed that nationwide, 66.8% of Canadian workers had a one-way travel time less than 30 minutes.
• Automobiles overwhelmingly dominate work access in the reviewed census metropolitan areas (CMA) in Canada compared to public transit which trail automobiles by multiple orders of magnitude.
• Transit in Montreal performs the best with automobiles providing 30-minute access to about 3 times (300%) as many jobs as transit. On the other end, automobiles provide access to almost 10 times as many jobs in a 30 minute trip in Edmonton.
• Canada’s transit commuting share of 30-minute accessible jobs remains a fraction of those available by automobile despite vast increases in public spending designed to decrease automobile usage.
• Governments and their politicians may see this data as a challenge to be met by policies that narrow the gap between auto and transit access. However, the chances of achieving this are virtually nil. Further, the remote work revolution following the Covid lockdowns will make it even less possible.
• Politicians and policy makers would be much wiser to end their focus on forcing or urging Canadians to use transit as opposed to automobiles. From an economic development perspective minimizing work trip travel times should be a primary objective. Improving and adding to road infrastructure is a much wiser use of tax money.
Economy
There’s no free lunch.. But an O’Toole Conservative Government will pay for half of yours
News Release from The Conservative Party of Canada
Hon. Erin O’Toole, Leader of Canada’s Conservatives, released his plan to introduce a Dine and Discover program to support the tourism and hospitality sectors.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disastrous effect on Canada’s tourism and hospitality sectors,” said O’Toole. “A Conservative government will act quickly to recover the one million jobs lost during the pandemic and help these businesses get back on their feet.”
Through Canada’s Recovery Plan, a Conservative government will introduce a Dine and Discover program to encourage Canadians to support these hard-hit sectors. This initiative will:
- Provide a 50 per cent rebate for food and non-alcoholic drinks purchased for dine-in from Monday to Wednesday for one month, once it is safe to do so, pumping nearly $1 billion into these sectors.
- Launch the Explore and Support Canada initiative with a 15 per cent tax credit for vacation expenses of up to $1,000 per person to encourage Canadians to vacation in Canada in 2022, helping the tourism sector get back on its feet.
- Eliminate the Liberal escalator tax on alcohol.
“We will help Canadians deal with the rising cost of living, while supporting those who work in our hospitality sector,” said O’Toole.
If you don’t care about securing support for Canada’s tourism and hospitality sectors, you have three parties to choose from in this election. If you do, then there is only one choice – Canada’s Conservatives.
Backgrounder
To get Canadians back to work, the federal government needs to focus on helping the hardest-hit sectors, including the hospitality and tourism sectors. To support these sectors, Canada’s Conservatives will introduce a new Dine and Discover program.
“Dine”: Restaurant refund initiative
Once it is safe to do so, Canada’s Conservatives will support the recovery of the restaurant sector by providing a 50 per cent rebate for food and non-alcoholic drinks purchased for dine-in service from Monday to Wednesday.
Modelled on a similar program in the United Kingdom, this initiative will encourage Canadians to get back into restaurants on days of the week when restaurants tend to have excess capacity.
The customer will immediately receive the rebate, which will appear directly on the bill. Businesses will receive their rebate from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) within days of submitting the claim through a CRA portal similar, to that used for emergency business supports.
There will be no limit on the number of times that an individual customer may use the program, but the program would cover a maximum meal cost of $35 per patron per visit. The program will apply to a wide range of establishments, including but not limited to restaurants, pubs, bars, coffee shops, and canteens.
This will support workers by injecting nearly $1 billion into the restaurant, hospitality, and tourism industries.
“Discover”: Explore and Support Canada initiative
Canada’s Conservatives will establish an Explore and Support Canada initiative to encourage Canadians to support the recovery of the Canadian tourism and hospitality sectors. Conservatives will create a refundable 15 per cent tax credit for vacation expenses of up to $1,000 per person for Canadians to vacation in Canada in 2022.
For a couple, this would mean savings of up to $300 on their next family trip if they vacation in Canada.
Eligible expenses would include:
- Accommodations, including hotels, motels, and other short-term rentals;
- Restaurant meals, including delivery fees and tips;
- Entry fees to attractions, parks, cultural events, museums, festivals, sporting events, and other attractions; and
- Travel, including car rentals, RV rentals, bus rides, taxi rides, airfare, tolls, and parking.
This program will benefit Canadian workers in hotels, restaurants, airlines, festivals, museums, and a wide range of businesses in the tourism and hospitality industries.
This will support workers by injecting over $1.5 billion into these sectors.
Quick Facts:
- Restaurants employ 1.2 million Canadians and contribute $95 billion to GDP.
- The Canadian tourism industry supports 1.8 million jobs and contributes $102 billion to GDP.
- About 533,000 workers in the tourism industry lost their jobs in 2020.
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
A recent University of Toronto paper by Jeff Allen and Steven Farber examines work access as measured in travel time to get to work.
Canadian Energy Centre
New national campaign aims to solve worker shortage in Canada’s energy sector
Donovan Doll works on a pipe at the CMR Fabricators Ltd. in Penhold, Alberta. Canadian Energy Centre photo by Dave Chidley
From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
Enserva launches new portal to train workers and provide long-term employment opportunities
Canadian energy services association Enserva has launched its solution to solve a worker shortage of more than 3,000 jobs, including labourers, drivers and tradespeople.
Having spent the better part of two decades working in the world of non-profit groups and think tanks, Enserva CEO Gurpreet Lail was taken aback after hearing about the sector’s labour struggles when she joined in 2021.
“The perception outside the industry was much different,” says Lail. “This has been an ongoing challenge for a long time and our members decided to do something about it.”
The result is a national campaign featuring the new Working Energy Portal, a sector-specific website with comprehensive job listings by the group’s 200-plus member companies and organizations.
“This is an industry-wide challenge and we’ve found an industry solution,” Lail says.
“We lost a lot of people during COVID and the downturn in energy prices and we’re now seeing employers fighting for labour regardless of the sector, be it energy or hospitality or technology,” she says.
“In addition to these factors, our sector also has to address this ridiculous idea that Canadian energy is a dying industry. That’s simply not the case. The world is going to need our energy for a very long time, and we need talented people to help us innovate and produce it responsibly.”
Enserva is hoping to connect those looking for jobs with companies that need positions filled and create a long-term solution to the shortage.
But the portal is more than a job board. It will also serve as a training hub to provide Canadians with the right certifications, courses and a pathway to rewarding careers.
“A lot of this is about educating people about what they might need so they can be successful in the industry, such as getting the right training and certificates,” says Lail.
“Many prospective employers are willing to help prospective employees in order to address their needs for skilled workers. For example, if you have a clean Class 5 driver’s license, some employers who need Class 1 drivers will pay for that training.”
She says that as the energy industry continues to transform to include a mix of oil and gas and renewable sources, it needs to fill current and emerging positions in practices like artificial intelligence, robotics, geothermal energy and environmental sustainability.
Enserva members helped create the portal in part because traditional job-search platforms didn’t always attract the right candidates or missed job seekers with real potential.
“Companies were using websites such as Indeed or LinkedIn but were finding it difficult to get the right candidates. They’d often get more than 1,000 resumes and maybe five to 10 were suitable for interview. It takes a lot of time to sift through those,” Lail says.
“We are supporting our members to create or increase awareness of their companies, and the jobs available. This way promising candidates will not miss a great opportunity and will have opportunities to learn more about energy companies.”
Enserva aims to push into new areas and communities to engage with prospective job seekers.
“We are reaching out to non-traditional areas to showcase the reality that you can have a long-term and rewarding career in this sector if you are a woman, Indigenous or come from a newer community in Canada,” Lail says.
“In addition to this outreach, we are continuing to recruit in traditional areas, such as young people entering the workforce and attracting former energy workers back into the sector.”
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