Ontario Tech president: doubling Canada's power grid a 'huge' workforce challenge

Ontario Tech University president Dr. Steven Murphy says producing enough nuclear engineers and skilled tradespeople to prepare Canada for its energy future will be a 'huge challenge,' after the federal budget set aside more than $50 billion to double the country's electricity supply over the next quarter-century.

'It is good news, for sure,' Murphy said, 'but nowhere in the budget does it talk about the people needed to do it.'

Murphy's Oshawa school is the only Canadian university offering a nuclear engineering degree program. He said doubling the system will take technologists, line crews, operators, cybersecurity specialists and AI experts, as well as nuclear engineers, which will take years to train.

With most of the federal funding arriving after 2031, 'the time to build that workforce is now,' Murphy said, adding that a share of the electricity strategy's funding should be tied to workforce development.

'If every university in the country pumped out more engineers it still wouldn't be enough to meet the needs of what we're planning,' he said. 'Human resources seems to be the afterthought with all these discussions.'

With the small modular reactor build at Darlington and a proposed full-scale nuclear plant in Wesleyville, just east of Darlington, in the works, Murphy said nuclear will play a major role in supplying Canada's energy needs in the decades to come, and Ontario Tech will do its part to have its nuclear engineers ready.

Engineering graduates at the school have doubled in the past nine years and 'it could probably double again,' Murphy said. 'We will still need more, but we can't grow unfettered.'

Murphy said he would talk to Ontario Power Generation boss Nicolle Butcher, who would tell him she needs more engineers, and construction giant Aecon, who would tell him, 'don't poach all our engineers.' He added that a pipeline project in B.C. will also require engineers and skilled trades, and that 'poor labour data' makes it harder for sectors to know what they will need in the future.