The national Task Force for Real Jobs, Real Recovery has released a new report for Canada’s economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Securing Canada’s Economic Future asserts that global and trade competitiveness will be core determinants of the success of economic recovery and the return to standards of living for individuals and families. It also determines that a status quo approach to economic recovery would neglect opportunities to generate significant, sustained and shared benefits for all Canadians.

The group represents more than a quarter of a million businesses and three million workers across Canada.

“We need economic solutions that punch above their weight. It’s the only way to address the significant fallout to our economy caused by COVID-19,” said Stewart Muir, executive director of Resource Works. “Projections are for our economy to shrink from 6 to even 7 per cent if we see a second wave in 2020. The good news is that the resource sector can be our engine of growth, while we continue to take meaningful climate action.”

The task force noted its economic modelling indicates that with the right conditions, natural resources and manufacturing could generate up to 2.6 million new jobs and up to a 17 per cent increase in real GDP. This could amount to a nearly $200-billion increase in potential labour earnings, while still moving Canada towards a low-emissions future.

In the first quarter of 2019, resource industries directly contributed $236 billion to Canadian GDP, representing 11.3 per cent of the Canadian economy. The sector’s workers are paid the highest average annual salary of any sector. This means their pay will help to generate the demand for goods and services needed to drive employment in other sectors including retail, real estate, entertainment, hospitality and tourism.

The task force says the resource sector is also key to economic reconciliation with Indigenous communities and peoples. Indigenous-owned businesses are 40 times more likely to be involved in the mining and oil and gas sectors than the average Canadian business. The resource sector hires twice as many Indigenous employees and pays on average twice as much in wages as other sectors.

“The reality is that the resource sector is foundational to Indigenous people’s success,” said Karen Ogen-Toews, councillor, Wet’suwet’en First Nation and CEO, First Nations LNG Alliance. “It helps to provide jobs for people in their communities, provide family-supporting wages and empower our nations increasingly as co-managers. If we are going to come back from the COVID-19 pandemic, we need these opportunities.”

Some of the recommendations in the report include:

• Mobilizing resource prosperity by leveraging Canada’s industries; advancing regulatory efficiency; attracting capital investment; enhancing critical infrastructure; ensuring access to resource lands; and maximizing Indigenous economic participation.
• Building meaningful employment by ensuring job creation; building employment resiliency; advancing Indigenous employment; and enhancing skilled workforce mobility.
• Accelerating innovation and environmental competitiveness by aligning climate action and natural resource development; driving challenge-oriented innovation; advancing emissions reduction technologies and plastics innovation; supporting advancements in sustainable forestry and mining; and developing hydrogen and small modular nuclear reactor industries.

The task force plans to give its report and recommendations to the federal government, including the Industry Strategy Council, a federal initiative launched in response to the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.