Resource Works was convenor for the Task Force for Real Jobs, Real Recovery, a Canada-wide 36-member coalition of industry, business, labour and Indigenous groups from mining, construction, forestry, labour, chemistry, transportation, oil & gas and Indigenous economic development, representing in all more than three million employees.

Release date is August 18, 2020. The report will be posted at project website realrecovery.ca. A complete French-language translation will be supplied.

The report of the task force, which conducted its work over the summer, is titled Securing Canada’s Economic Future. It summarizes a series of extensive, wide-ranging recommendations to aid in the recovery of the national economy during and after the COVID-19 pandemic:

• Mobilize resource prosperity by encouraging capital investment, improving natural resource infrastructure and maximizing Indigenous economic participation.
• Build meaningful employment by ensuring job creation, building employment resiliency, advancing Indigenous employment and enhancing skilled workforce mobility.
• Set the foundation for a low-emissions future by aligning climate action and natural resource development, driving challenge-oriented innovation, updating federal support programs and tax incentives, advancing negative emissions technologies and plastics innovation, supporting sustainable forestry and mining and developing hydrogen and small modular nuclear reactor industries.

A number of detailed policy actions are described in the report.

By acting on these recommendations as part of Canada’s economic recovery policy, the federal government can ensure that nation-building resource assets aid long- term environmental goals and help secure our economic future.