EDMONTON—Accommodation camps for oilsands workers around Fort McMurray could soon be phased out completely at the request of the region’s mayor.

Mayor Don Scott of the Wood Buffalo Regional Municipality — where over 100 oilsands industry work camps are located — put forward a motion at a council meeting Tuesday night that looks at imposing a moratorium on the building of new work camps within 120 kilometres of Fort McMurray, and halting permit renewals for existing ones.

In an interview with StarMetro on Wednesday, Scott said his motion comes from years of frustration at the trend of fly-in, fly-out work that has become “normalized” in the region. He referenced 2015 census data, that shows there are about 38,000 workers living in 109 camps in the region — roughly 30 per cent of the total population.

Article Continued Below

“These statistics speak for themselves, and the situation is completely unacceptable,” Scott said. People living in these camps are mostly in the region for work, and are not permanent residents of Fort McMurray, which Scott said has a tremendously negative impact on the city economically.

“We want people living in our region,” Scott said. “Those extracting resources from our region should live in our region.”

The percentage of the population living in work camps around Fort McMurray exceeds the 10 per cent limit set by the Wood Buffalo Municipal Development Plan in 2011, Scott said. “The situation is just going from bad to worse, in my view,” he said.

Read more:

Article Continued Below

Link between rural work camps and violence against women is real, researchers say

Click to expand

Study looks at strain between Fort McMurray residents and fly-in workers

The motion was met with little opposition at council when it was proposed, and is slated to be debated on Jan. 22. But oilsands workers say they are not happy with Scott’s plan for work camps, which they believe will do more harm than good for the region if it’s approved.

Karim Zariffa, executive director of the Oil Sands Community Alliance (OSCA), an organization representing oilsands producers based in Fort McMurray, said he was “surprised and disappointed” after hearing of Scott’s motion to put an end to work camps.

“It’s discouraging for development, and doesn’t respect the spirit of collaboration we had between industry and the (municipality),” he said. Zariffa added this motion comes at an exceptionally volatile time, when the “industry is being challenged to attract capital to the oilsands.”

In a statement, Premier Rachel Notley said her government has been “unequivocal” in supporting the province’s energy sector, but she understands the need for a balance in meeting both the needs of the industry and the communities that surround it.

“We hope that in this case, the municipality and industry can arrive at a solution that defends the long-term sustainability of the industry, while addressing the concerns of the region’s residents,” Notley said.

Work camps have been the preferred living arrangement for oilsands workers, Zariffa said, because they provide adequate accommodations for sites that are often remote. They are also created out of safety concerns for workers who fly in and fly out for work.

“Industry already has a hard enough time attracting and retaining people who choose to actually rotate in and out,” he said. “If you eliminate the camps, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to recruit and retain people.” He added this will drive up industry costs for companies, as it will impact their operations.

Zariffa said phasing out work camps could also indirectly impact local businesses that provide services to those camps.

But Scott maintains that the high population of residents living in work camps is the reason Fort McMurray has had a challenge in attracting businesses from out of town to open shop in the region. He added work camps have also contributed to a high rate of home foreclosures in Fort McMurray.

“It’s killing our economy,” said Jeff Peddle, Ward 1 councillor for the Wood Buffalo municipality, who heavily supports the mayor’s motion. “(The workers) use our resources, the hospitals, the water ... and we don’t get the benefit of them because they’re not actually residents.”

Beyond economic impacts, research from the Firelight Group, a collective focused on issues affecting Indigenous communities, has found that work camps contributed to a sharp increase in both the sex trade and sex trafficking in Fort McMurray. This is attributed to the social isolation of workers from their families, and the “hypermasculine context” of camps.

Work camps have also been shown to strain already limited health services in northern Alberta, according to the group’s research, with health professionals noting the influx of camp workers can flood medical services at regional hospitals.

Of the 109 existing camps around Fort McMurray, 56 will see their permit applications expire in 2022, which Scott said provides a timely opportunity to discuss their impact and the possibility of shuttering them.

He said he remains a big supporter for the oilsands industry in the region, “but there needs to be a balance.”

“I would’ve preferred a different route, but now that we’re at this point, there’s got to be a major change,” Scott said.

Zariffa said he and oil producers from OSCA will be at the Jan. 22 council meeting to debate the mayor’s motion.