Living quarters at an oil sands work camp
North of Fort McMurray. (Narwhal)
Alberta has the largest fluctuations in internal migration from one
province to another of any province or region, with people moving to
Alberta during boom times and leaving the province when oil prices
crash. Statistics Canada reports, "Since comparable data was available
beginning in 1971/1972, Alberta and
British Columbia have been the two primary recipients of net
interprovincial migration in Canada. From 1971/1972 to 2015/2016,
Alberta has gained 626,375 net interprovincial migrants, while British
Columbia added 602,233 migrants."[1]
Internal
migration to Alberta is strongly related to the need for workers in the
oil sands and other oil and gas projects. Workers came from all over
Canada and around the world as bitumen extraction grew 376 per cent
from 2000 to 2018, creating a construction boom. Many came from the
regions where the rip and ship forestry was in crisis.
From 2004 to 2008 alone, the number of workers from other parts of
Canada grew from 67,500 workers to 133,000. By comparison,
approximately 59,500 Albertans drew a portion of their income from
outside of the province in 2008 -- most often in British Columbia,
Ontario and Saskatchewan.[2]
At present, more people are leaving Alberta than coming to Alberta
from other parts of Canada. Even though production continues to
increase, there are fewer jobs in the oil sands in both construction
and extraction. But workers continue to "commute" to work in the oil
sands as "rotational work" has become a permanent feature, not only for
construction and periodic maintenance, but for year-round work in
extraction and processing. Working on the oil rigs in conventional oil
extraction has also always been rotational but seldom involved workers
traveling from out of province or long distances. A "rotational worker"
is defined as a worker who does not return to his or her permanent home at
the end of each day's work.
From 2000 to 2014, the mobile labour force in the Regional
Municipality of Wood Buffalo grew nearly ten-fold to more than 50,000
rotational workers housed in more than 100 camps established anywhere
from 20 to 100 or more kilometers from the nearest population centre,
with some clustered around a nearby airstrip. While these numbers
have decreased since the downturn in oil that began in late 2014, a
fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) workforce many thousands strong remains core to
the sustained operations and maintenance of established oil sands
facilities.[3]
While many workers in the oil sands live in Fort McMurray as their
permanent home, there are a large number whose permanent homes are far
from the oil sands. Workers come from as far as 5,000 kilometers away.
Those working close to Fort McMurray have temporary accommodation in Fort
McMurray, but the majority live in work camps.
Together, these workers are referred to as the "shadow population" of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo includes the
"shadow population" in its municipal census, defined as people who live
in the municipality for at least 30 days a year, but have a permanent
home elsewhere. According to the 2018 census, there are 75,000
permanent residents in Fort McMurray, and a "shadow population" of
36,678 in Fort McMurray, of whom 32,855 lived in work camps. Fort
McMurray's population declined by 10 per cent from 2015, following the
wildfire in 2016 that destroyed thousands of homes. The "shadow
population" has also declined by about 15 per cent since 2015 following
the oil price crash. Those not living in work camps may live in
hotels or motels, RVs or campers, rent a room or apartment in Fort
McMurray, or even couch surf. The census is a snapshot in time, but
does not identify how many workers actually come and go during the year.
A study conducted by PetroLMI in 2015 surveyed 12 oil sands
companies with 26,874 employees. Ten of the twelve companies had
rotational work arrangements, and the majority expected the rotational
workforce to increase. In-situ extraction (where the bitumen is deep in
the earth) is the fastest growing sector of the oil sands and is
heavily
reliant on rotational workers.
Most of the in-situ projects as well as newer mines are more than an
hour's drive from the outskirts of Fort McMurray, and some are quite
remote. There are estimated to be 100 or more work camps, which house
from 20 to 1,500 workers each. The workers who cook and work in the
kitchens, clean and maintain the camps also work on
rotation, often with very long shifts. The Mayor and town
council have called for many years for sufficient resources to provide
services to this "shadow population," a demand ignored by the
provincial government.
It is estimated that about 15,000 workers work in fly-in, fly-out
projects. Most projects have their own private aerodromes owned by one
or more monopolies, or workers fly to and from the Fort McMurray
regional airport. A study conducted by a consortium of companies
operating in the oil sands found that about two thirds of these workers
live in Alberta, with five per cent in the Wood Buffalo region, and the
rest mainly in Edmonton (25 per cent) and Calgary (22 per cent),
followed by British Columbia (13 per cent), the Atlantic provinces (nine
per cent), and Saskatchewan (five per cent), and a small number from
Quebec, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
As many as 10,000 workers are involved in the annual scheduled
maintenance known as shutdowns or turnarounds, many from out of
province. The turnarounds require many trades, including pipefitters,
boilermakers, carpenters (scaffolders), heavy equipment operators,
insulators, and labourers. Work at one site usually lasts for about 45
days,
and workers may work more than one turnaround. Shifts in 2021 were as
long as 24 days with no days off. This year the turnaround at CNRL saw
the largest workplace outbreak of COVID-19 in North America, with more
than 1400 workers becoming infected, and tragically, two deaths.
Notes
1. Report on the Demographic Situation in Canada - Internal Migration: Overview, 2015/2016, Statistics Canada
2. Statistics Canada, 2011 National Household Survey, Catalogue no. 99-012-X2011033
3. Nichols, Applied Management, 2018; Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, 2018.
This article was published in
June 28, 2021 - No. 62
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO08622.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
