AMCC Board Chair Ken Sandmoen, and Acting President Shandra Linder met with Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean recently to discuss the vital role the maintenance industry plays in sustaining the critical infrastructure of Alberta’s energy and value-added petro-chemical processing industry.

The conversation focused on the critical nature of our members and workers to maintain the industrial infrastructure that keeps our vehicles running, heats and lights on in our homes, and ensure manufacturing facilities can export products across the country and around the world.

The association spoke with the Minister specifically about AMCC's core mission, serving as the centralized body that brings together maintenance contractors under a collective vision. Ken and Shandra described the valuable work of AMCC to address operational challenges and regulatory barriers to maximize financial and operational efficiencies across the industry for over 23 million workforce hours annually. AMCC also highlights the commitment of our member companies to provide ongoing worker safety and mental health supports to ensure a safer and more productive workforce.

Minister Jean expressed a strong desire to work with the AMCC going forward to discuss these issues and find opportunities for government and industry to work together. As one of the elected representatives for the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo Region (RMWB) the Minister spoke about the impacts to this community due to the increased number of workers required for the condensed turnaround schedule. He is eager to understand what can be done to spread this work over a longer period of time through better coordination and collaboration of project owners.

AMCC also held a recent meeting with senior staff in Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages Minister Randy Boissonnault’s office. This meeting focussed more broadly on the recruitment and training challenges facing our sector. Potential solutions to address these issues included immigrations policies, recognition of foreign credentials, as well as programs focussed on engaging new worker through diversity and inclusion efforts.

While they welcome and value our work in the natural resources sector, Minister Boissonnault’s staff pointed out to AMCC that the department and government remain very interested in new sustainable energy sources to address demands. The AMCC was encouraged to keep looking ahead and ensure that we are building a workforce for the future. Specific areas of discussion included what initiatives we have regarding the workers needed to support the renewables sector as well as other alternative energy sources such small modular reactors (SMR).

AMCC will continue our outreach efforts with both the Alberta and Federal government and establish a constructive dialogue on the policy issues which ensure the betterment of the industry going forward.