Powering a just transition: why Canada’s clean energy workforce needs a recharge

Canada can’t decarbonize without people. And we can’t build the workforce we need with the systems that created exclusion. Ontario’s SMR project at Darlington shows how clean energy can power economies, but without inclusive workforce development, that promise falls short.

Since 2012, employment in renewables has quintupled with wind and solar now generating more than seven per cent of Canada’s electricity. Yet the sector faces a 13 per cent job vacancy rate, high turnover, and a workforce that doesn’t reflect the diversity of the country, write Stacey Noronha and Misha Goforth. Photograph courtesy of Pixabay

Opinion

BY STACEY NORONHA, MISHA GOFORTH

June 6, 2025

As the urgency to meet climate targets grows, Canada risks missing a critical piece of the energy transition: the workforce powering it. Renewable energy is no longer a futuristic ambition; it’s a current economic engine. Unless we tackle systemic exclusion, labour shortag...

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