Hon. Seamus O’Regan, P.C., M.P., Minister of Labour: There is another phrase, too: “just transition.” The just transition came from the labour movement itself. It is just so disruptive, it addles so many people and it creates so much anxiety that it is redundant; it actually sets us back when we use it.

Another phrase that we came across, and have been using in reports, is “decent work.” There are two ways of saying the word “decent,” and words matter. We’re all in public life; we’re all in politics. Decent work in a more European and French sense, I think, is a very positive thing; it is decent. But in Newfoundland, if you ask people what the weather is like — and it’s grey and mauzy — the answer would be “decent.”

So when we started to use the phrase “decent work,” it was being taken as “okay.”

I will tell you how I believe we can’t go wrong: The people who built up this industry with all of their know-how, derring-do, acumen and guts are the workers, so we go back to the workers in terms of what training they think needs to happen. Often, it does not mean having to leave the industry at all.

None of us in this room — hardly anyone in Ottawa — know where to tighten the screws on a pipeline to make sure the methane doesn’t leak. I’m talking about that kind of work.

When I was the Minister of Natural Resources and COVID hit, my first concern was the workers — specifically, losing workers from the industry, not transitioning them to another industry. We have too much work ahead in the industry — in the oil and gas industry. So we came up with the orphaned and abandoned wells program and, in Newfoundland, the low-carbon $400-million fund.

Keep them there.