According to BC Hydro’s most recent employment survey, the $9 billion hydroelectric dam project employed a total of 1,547 workers in May. Of that number, 1,223 were from B.C., which would put the B.C. workforce at 79%.
"Government made a commitment to ensure British Columbians would benefit from Site C,” B.C. Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett said in a press release. “Today's announcement - that 1,000 B.C. workers are
on the job - reflects that commitment."
The BC Buildings Trades has disputed BC Hydro’s claims. At the end of March, the organization obtained employment numbers as a result of a freedom of information request that put the percentage of B.C. workers employed on the project at 67%.
That percentage was based on employment numbers from December, 2015. BC Hydro has stated that those numbers were just a “snapshot” and that the percentage of B.C. workers on the site would fluctuate from month to month. The more recent numbers show a much higher percentage of B.C. workers, including local workers from the Peace River region, where the dam is being built.
According to Pat Pimm, the Liberal MLA for Peace River North, close to one-third of the 1,223 British Columbians currently working on the project are from the Peace River region, which has been hit by both coalmine closures and a downturn in natural gas drilling activity.
"In May 2016, there were 443 workers on the Site C construction site from the Peace River Regional District and that's great news," said Pat Pimm, MLA for Peace River North. "The northeast has been affected by the slowdown in oil and gas, and Site C construction is providing job opportunities at exactly the right time."
Tom Sigurdson, executive director for BC Building Trades, does not quibble with the 79% figure. But he said it could easily be 100%, as there are still qualified B.C. trades people who are unemployed who could be working on the project, and likely would have been had BC Hydro used the same project labour agreements it has used in the past, but which was not adopted for the Site C project.
"So there's 324 workers from B.C. that should be on that project," Sigurdson said. "We wouldn't have any problems supplying that number."
