The Engineers Canada Board has approved a new National Position Statement on the role of engineers in Canada’s long-term economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Engineers Canada Board has approved a new National Position Statement on the role of engineers in Canada’s long-term economic recovery. It states that to ensure Canada’s long-term economic recovery, the federal government should make strategic economic investments in infrastructure, the natural resources and energy, sustainable development, and innovation sectors, and diversity initiatives.
With the spread of COVID-19 and ensuing restrictions put in place by governments around the world, the economic impacts of the pandemic are evident and represent one of the largest economic impacts the world has experienced in decades. This has prompted an urgent need for governments to cushion the pandemic’s economic consequences, while setting the stage for lasting economic recovery.
To ensure Canada’s long-term recovery, the National Position Statement recommends that the federal government should focus on the following:
- Investing in infrastructure: the federal government should accelerate planned infrastructure projects through the Investing in Canada Plan program and other legacy programs into the next two or three years as stimulus. By accelerating approvals, jobs will be created and the economy will continue to be supported, while ensuring that the conditions for success are in place to ensure that increased construction does not come at the expense of the quality of the engineering works and the integrity of the process leading to their construction. Additionally, the federal government must continue to invest in green infrastructure and new environmental technologies as a recovery strategy to help benefit both the economy, as well as to deliver on Canada’s climate commitments.
- Continued investments in natural resources and energy sectors: the federal government should continue to support natural resources and energy sectors as they work to transform to meet a net zero future, creating good-paying and long-lasting jobs.
- Continued support for diversity and inclusion initiatives: women have been disproportionately impacted by the effects of the pandemic. To serve the economy, as well as Canadian society at large, the federal government must continue to support efforts to attract and retain talented individuals from Canada’s diverse populations.
Engineers have played a critical role throughout the COVID-19 pandemic—from designing personal protective equipment to developing sustainable infrastructure that mitigated COVID-19 exposure such as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, physical distancing design, maintenance of facilities and others. Engineers will continue to support Canadians by playing an important role in the country’s economic recovery. Engineers are essential in the design, implementation, construction supervision, and maintenance of all types of infrastructure, as well as in safely and sustainably extracting, processing, and delivering natural resources. This gives engineers a critical role to play in connecting communities, driving our economy, and keeping Canadians safe. They will play a key role in the recommendations that the National Position Statement makes to the federal government.
Engineers Canada’s National Position Statements are consensus positions of the provincial and territorial engineering regulators on key issues that relate to the public interest. They are not only meant to provide information about the issue to members of the engineering profession, but they also are meant to facilitate discussion with government and influence public policy.
Read the full National Position Statement on Engineers Canada’s website.
