Sarnia looks south for workers

When it comes to attracting workers, Sarnia’s trades community is facing stiff competition from Alberta’s booming economy.

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LONDON

When it comes to attracting workers, Sarnia’s trades community is facing stiff competition from Alberta’s booming economy.

And that has meant having to import workers from the U.S., says Jim Bradshaw, president of the Sarnia Building Trades Council.

But having to go across borders to obtain workers is not necessarily a problem, Bradshaw says.

“When the work’s done, they go home and the community settles down,” he says, pointing out the practice of using travelling workers means the local trades community doesn’t become overpopulated.

There have been 1,000 to 1,500 travellers in the area over and above the local workforce of about 4,000 within the past year, he says.

Many are pipefitters, boiler makers and carpenters.

And while many of those in the community are describing a modest building boom, major turnaround work in the area’s large industrial sector — projects such as major maintenance of facilities and physical plant overhauls — is what has been driving the demand for workers to date, Bradshaw says.

However, at the recently completed Suncor Energy Products’ ethanol plant in St. Clair Township south of Sarnia, worker availability has caused some headaches, admits a company spokesperson.

“We were able to finish on time and on budget,” says Jason Vaillant. “Overall, we’ve been able to achieve our objectives. However, there has been not only on our ethanol project, but also at our Sarnia refinery (which went through a turnaround earlier this year) a real demand on labour.”

Vaillant said the company has tackled the situation by planning ahead and working with the Sarnia Construction Association “to ensure as much local labour is available at the key times.”

Whether the area’s construction boom is winding down or just beginning to heat up is of some debate in this lakeside community.

“There are a lot of other irons in the fire.”

Jerry Weedenburg, St. Clair Township

While the amount of money being invested in building projects is up so far this year compared to last year, Michael Schnare, the city’s director of planning and building, noted a large percentage of that activity reflected expansion of existing businesses.

“The commercial activity is certainly higher than some of our previous years,” he says.

There are also a lot of other prospects “still out there; we’re just waiting for the applications to come in,” he says.

Of these, a $130 million hospital development will be “the biggest project we’ve had here in many, many years,” Schnare says.

Jerry Weerdenburg, St. Clair Township’s building inspector likewise says, “there are a lot of other irons in the fire that haven’t really made announcements yet.”

With its large industrial sector, the township is home to some major projects every year, he says. Even at that, last fall, it “really started to heat up,” with plant upgrades and construction on the Suncor ethanol plant driving much of the activity.

John DeMars, the township’s director of administration, says building trends in the municipality have shifted in recent years, explaining up to two years ago, most activity was centred in the township’s industrial park.

The provincial government’s goal to promote environmentally friendly power generation and to replace coal-fired plants, such as the Lambton Generating Station, are the main reasons for the shift, he says. To date, two plants that will use natural gas to generate power will be built in the township.

Work began last winter on the Greenfield Energy Centre, which will generate 1,005 megawatts. Greenfield Energy Centre L.P., a partnership between CM Greenfield Power Corp., MIT Power Canada LP Inc., and Calpine Greenfield Commercial Trust, is developing the centre. It is targeted to be in service by 2008.

Construction is scheduled to begin this fall on the 570 megawatt St. Clair Energy Centre.

It is being developed by Chicago-based Invenergy LLC and is also expected to begin operations in 2008.

There is also talk of a major expansion by a petrochemical company that already has a presence in Lambton County, DeMars says.

DeMars says local landowners have told him they have been approached by a land agent representing a petrochemical company to buy options on their property.

Local media reports have suggested the company is Shell Canada, which has recently announced plans to expand its Athabasca oilsands project in Alberta.

Simone Marler, a company spokesperson, said Shell is in the very early stages of evaluating expansion of its refineries in Eastern Canada. The refineries are located near Corunna in Lambton County and in Montreal.

When asked whether taking out land options might be a part of the evaluation process, Marler said, it was premature to talk about the specifics of what the company’s evaluation process might contain.