SUCKING & BLOWING SIMULTANEOUSLY

Foreign workers are cheap, easily controllable labour


I'm sorry but neither our Federal nor Provincial governments can keep on speaking out of both sides of their mouths. This is in regards to temporary foreign workers in Canada. Today's Waterloo Region Record has a opinion piece by Tim Harper titled "Treat foreign workers with fairness". Gee only in Canada you say. I really don't know what planet Mr. Harper is from. Yes the title sounds almost humane, liberal even. Is it actually 2012 and we aren't treating foreign workers properly? Holy crap I've got news for you Mr. Harper. There is no law currently being enforced in Canada right now that guarantees any such thing for non union workers (ie. the majority) in this country. Why the hell should foreign, temporary workers get a better deal than born and bred Canadian workers?

Recently here in the Advocate I posted a story about a Chinese mining company in British Columbia advertising for workers fluent in Mandarin. Mr. Harper refers to it in his article. Regarding my rhetorical question at the end of the preceding paragraph; foreign workers don't get a better deal. Afterall why do you think employers want them? They'll work for less. Less everything. They are more desperate than most Canadian workers and show me a desperate person who won't undercut the going rate if it will get him the job.

Here's where the sucking and blowing comes in. Our governments tell us that our home grown native sons and daughters are afforded a world class education here. To the best of my knowledge our native Canadian sons and daughters are generally born with one head, two arms and hands and two legs and feet. What competitive advantage do foreign workers have over Canadians? Oh yeah, they are more desperate. Or would our politicians, they of the indexed pensions, short work weeks and no accountability while on the public payroll, perhaps like to tell us that our sons and daughters lack the will to work? Would they like to tell us that our sons and daughters are inferior, mentally, physically or emotionally for these jobs? Would they like to tell us that our sons and daughters are too spoiled to get their hands dirty? Do they forget that Canadians came to Canada from originally Great Britain, Ireland and Scotland? Do Irish immigrants from the potatoe famine that literally killed millions in Ireland tell their children and grandchildren, now don't get your hands dirty? How about European immigrants after World War Two? Are we to believe that they or their descendants have an aversion to honest labour?

What I believe is that our politicians at both levels are simply damned liars looking out for the interests of their benefactors. Their benefactors are not you and I. Their benefactors are corporations here in Canada who have set up shop for the purpose of bleeding every nickel they possibly can out of Canada. If they are in a labour intensive industry then that means sucessfully lobbying politicians for labour policies that will benefit them and their wealthy colleagues. Throwing sucessive generations of workers under the bus is a time honoured method of maximizing your profits. Keeping unemployment high, labour unions weak; all the while bringing in either immigrants or temporary workers is all in a day's manipulation of the citizenry. Lying to the voters is a time honoured tradition and here in Canada our politicians are world class at that.