Sunday, November 11, 2012

Canada's "foreign worker program" is a threat to every working Canadian

It's been going on for so long in some industries that it's generally seen as normal. Commercial apple orchards and other agricultural industries import seasonal workers from Mexico and all around the Caribbean because none of the million plus unemployed Canadians have the skills to pick apples for less than minimum wage.

Foreign workers are also in high demand in Alberta's oil and gas industry, because Canadian workers just don't have the skills, so we are told. Chinese miners are being brought in for the same reason.

And now it seems we can't even find Canadians to pour the coffee at Timmie's.

What is behind all of this is not a lack of Canadians willing or able to do the work. Indeed, in some of the higher-skilled examples, such as pipe-welding, there could very well be a shortage of skilled workers.

If that is the case, should it not be incumbent on our government to institute the training programs that would generate the skilled work-force the country requires?

But as everyone who gives this matter any thought already realizes, the foreign worker programs aren't about skills; they're about driving down wages.

If the apple-growers can't find workers perhaps they should consider providing a living wage; that is "living wage" by Canadian, not Mexican standards. If that means Canadians have to pay a little more for a bag of apples, so be it.

If it takes a coupe of years to train enough pipe-welders, and that sets back the development of the tar sands by a couple of years, that's not too high a price to pay either.

If Chinese companies can only afford to invest in Canadian coal mines on the condition that they be permitted to bring in a captive Chinese workforce, let them invest in coal mines somewhere else.

And if Timmie's needs to charge a little more for a cup of coffee so they can provide a decent wage to local folks instead of bringing cheap labor in from Mexico, I have no problem with that either.

 

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