My business has existed in…

My business has existed in one form or other for 27 years. Eight years ago, we added capacity to focus in the recruitment of sustainability and clean-tech professionals in the hopes that would become a trend. In particular, we specialize in the recruitment of executives and sales and business development leaders for emerging clean tech companies and clean energy companies.

For six years we have had some varied success in building business in that sector. The industry needed to achieve a critical mass and the economy reach a certain tipping point before 3rd party search firms become a necessity.

Since the cap and trade legislation was introduced, two years ago, my overall business has increased about 300% and had it's best quarter ever in the sustainability and clean tech sectors earlier this year. With some investment already deployed, and another literally $6 billion (yes - $$ SIX BILLION) in investment lined up and ready to go across Canada in support of the business objectives brought forward by the "stick & carrot"of cap and trade, we were excited - and looking at an unprecedented growth opportunity, not just for ourselves but for our clients and Ontario workers.

The legislation triggered significant new hiring in all 3 of the clean tech, real estate development, and green energy solutions sectors. (including many that needed no revenue via a FIT program).

The day after the new government announced its immediate cancellation of the Cap and Trade, 5 assignments on which we were retained were cancelled, as were at least another 30 plus less senior positions for which my clients were hiring using other methods. Numerous future roles on which we expected to be retained were now in limbo.

These roles were significant. Here's a significant real world example of how the announcement cost a significant number of new jobs - and saw one transferred to BC from Toronto.

One of my clients has $250 million dollars from a pension fund it planned to invest in building geo-thermal energy solutions for new condo and commercial real estate developers; Solutions that would replace (in an average building), one million dollars worth of boilers and chillers manufactured elsewhere in Europe, China or North America with two million dollars worth of heat pumps and tubing - and significant amounts of construction labour. As the busiest development market in the country, Toronto was deemed the prime target.

Some (and eventually most) of those tubes and some of the heat pumps would be sourced and manufactured here in Ontario - but far more importantly: the immediate engineering jobs on every site would be filled by Ontarians. The surveys, the construction jobs to install the tubes, the implementation and the maintenance of all those systems would be filled by Ontarians. Great paying, highly skilled construction jobs. Companies gaining world-leading expertise on the construction, deployment and management of world leading zero-carbon energy solutions. Expertise we could export world wide. A slew of benefits in the form of new jobs in an emerging market, and the expertise to go with.

The decision to deploy such solutions was driven in significant part by developers looking to avoid paying expected future Carbon taxes. - taxes which over the 40 year lifetime of the systems would be significant. My client gets their money back by charging the building for the zero-carbon energy the solutions would provide, and at a net SAVINGS to the end consumer. Making Canadian business more competitive.

If you are indeed serious about reducing energy costs for Ontarians, this was a perfect way to do so!

Other Key benefits: a) significantly less draw on the grid for the chillers b) elimination of natural gas for heating.

The day the Government announced the end to cap and trade, of the 4 senior roles for which we were recruiting on behalf of this client, 3 jobs we were working on went on hold, and 2 have since been cancelled. A third remains in limbo but likely moves to BC where carbon taxes are still in place. They moved the role and then hired a Vice President- Business Development with our candidate from Vancouver for the fourth role. His mandate now includes a significant focus on finding projects in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York.

My client is now more focused on finding similar projects in BC, Quebec and the USA. The indirect jobs at engineering firms are likely to move to those locations as well - as (obviously) will the construction jobs.

The pension plan looking to invest $250 million in Canada is now looking to see if my client can transition the opportunities elsewhere, or a significant portion of the capital will disappear. At best, it will be deployed over a longer term. More likely it will go to other jurisdictions.

So net - here's a classic example of the impact - probably 30 net new, high paying jobs in business development, planning, engineering, surveying and construction over the next 12 months now lost. And hundreds more over the next 5 years.

The ill-conceived plan to cancel cap and trade has massive negative consequences for our province and is simply exporting the best jobs to other more forward looking jurisdictions.

Please reconsider...