Plan to hire foreign oil sands workers causes furor

Canadian Natural under fire from unions

DAVE EBNER
Globe and Mail
Friday, February 17, 2006

CALGARY -- Labourers from China could soon be in northern Alberta to help build Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.'s $10.8-billion Horizon oil sands project, a prospect that has angered union leaders in the province who say the work could easily be done by locals.

The Alberta Building Trades Council and the Alberta Federation of Labour obtained minutes of a meeting between Canadian Natural and China Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering Corp. that the unions say shows Chinese labourers will be part of the work force building Horizon.

"There are unemployed Canadians that should be able to do this work," said Paul Walzak, executive director of the building trades council. "We feel it's a dangerous precedent to hire a foreign contractor and bring a foreign labour force to do work that Canadians can and should be doing."

Canadian Natural said no decision has been made yet and added that a project as large as Horizon will have Canadian contractors as well as those from outside the country.

"It is the contractor's responsibility to provide labour and that labour must be Canadian certified and compliant with all Canadian legislations," said Corey Bieber, vice-president of investor relations at Canadian Natural.

At its peak, the work force on Horizon is expected to each about 6,500.

Foreign workers are allowed in Canada under the federal government's Foreign Worker Program and as many as 20,000 foreigners are expected to be working in Alberta this year, nearly double the figure from 2005, driven higher by demand for labour in the booming oil sands. Companies have to demonstrate that they couldn't find workers in Canada and are paying foreigners the same rates as Canadians.

The contract in question is for tank farms, 10-metre-high steel drums that are used to store oil, seen at all refineries and at other oil sands operations. The unions said that while it is reasonable to use a foreign contractor to manufacture the tanks, the tanks should be built by Canadians.

"The work of erecting tanks is, and has been for over 100 years, quite commonplace construction work," Robert Blakely, director of Canadian affairs for the AFL-CIO, said in a Feb. 3 letter to senior federal government officials. "Our members build these tanks all over Canada on an everyday basis."

To gain approval for foreign workers, a labour market study must be submitted to the federal government and Mr. Blakely said he wrote the letter to help government officials understand the issue ahead of the potential submission of a labour study.

Horizon is expected to produce its first barrels of synthetic crude oil in 2008.