Is Harper really talking tough on temporary foreign workers?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has delivered a scathing critique of the controversial Temporary Foreign Worker program, saying the government has been "assisting these companies to work around the marketplace in a way that disadvantaged Canadian workers only for the sake of the bottom line profit."
In an audio recording leaked Wednesday to a Vancouver newspaper of a recent roundtable discussion with local ethnic media, Harper's blunt analysis of the troubled program raises the question: will the Conservative government follow through to crack down on employers that abuse the TFW program — after facilitating its rapid expansion since 2006.
Most recently, new regulations governing the TFW program dropped a provision from an earlier draft that explicitly banned employers from accessing the TFW program if they were convicted of human trafficking, or of assaulting or uttering threats to an employee.
Meanwhile, Employment Minister Jason Kenney remains a defender of the program to tackle what he says is a skills shortage in Canada.
Listen to Harper for yourself. Is Harper blaming the bureaucracy and the previous government for the whole debacle?
https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/129707027&color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true
Here's an extract of Harper's comments on Jan. 6 to Vancouver ethnic media:
Let me be very blunt about this. Several years ago, before we took office, [the TFW] programs were expanded, and before this government took office and since, those programs have grown in the last decade and a half very dramatically, and largely because I think they existed and the bureaucracy worked to really adapt to the needs of companies.
But what did we see? We saw numerous examples of abuse of this program, outright abuse. Companies importing workers for the sole purpose of paying less than the prevailing wage; companies importing workers for the purpose of permanently moving the jobs offshore to other countries; companies bringing in foreign workforces with the intention of never having them be permanent and moving the whole workforce back to another country at the end of a job...
We have seen very blatant examples of companies using this in ways that were not in the interest of Canadians.
That kind of abuse cannot go on.
There must be plans for companies to transition to a permanent workforce. What I say is if you really need temporary workers permanently, then that means we need permanent workers who become Canadian. And they have a right to stay here, and they have a right to bargain with their employer, and they have a right to be treated fairly, and they have a right not to be sent back to where they came from the first time they don't like something.
Photo: primeministergr. Used under a Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0 licence.
Surprise! Fraser Institute comes out against living wage
What Stephen Harper is really trying to say on 24/Seven
That didn't take long.
Less than a week after Stephen Harper released his inaugural "24/Seven" weekly video, "Truth Mashup" has responded. Watch the 90-second clip:
//www.youtube.com/embed/euCm9KG2VDw
Neil Young keeps rockin' the Conservatives' world
After leading national newscasts on Sunday night, Canadian rock icon Neil Young was back at it on Monday, poking holes in the Conservative government's talking points on the tar sands.
Just before the first of four concerts to benefit the Athabasca Chipewayan First Nation in Northern Alberta, Young kicked off the war of words with a scathing critique of the Harper government and the unfettered development of the tar sands.
The "Honor the Treaties" benefit concerts are raising money for their legal defence fund to fight the expansion of the tar sands on their traditional land. One of them, Shell's Jackpine, got the go-ahead last month, despite Ottawa's finding that it's "likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects."
The Prime Minister's Office hit back against Young late Sunday, claiming that only projects "deemed safe for Canadians and the environment" get the go-ahead.
The PM's spokesman Jason MacDonald, who probably figured this admission would never come back to haunt him, added: "Canada's natural resources sector is and has always been a fundamental part of our country's economy."
Oh, and rock stars need oil to fly around in their fancy jets. The "lifestyle of a rock star relies, to some degree, on the resources developed by thousands of hard-working Canadians every day," MacDonald said.
On Monday, Young decided against letting the PMO's talking points stand.
"Our issue is not whether the natural resource sector is a fundamental part of the country," Young said in a statement. "Our issue is with the government breaking treaties with the First Nation and plundering the natural resources the First Nation has rights to under the treaties."
Oh, and "rock stars don’t need oil," said Young, who pointed out that he drove his electric car from California to the tar sands, and on to Washington, "without using any oil at all.
"My car’s generator runs on biomass, one of several future fuels Canada should be developing for the post-fossil fuel age."
And when it comes to "the thousands of hard-working Canadians," Young explained that "we have respect for all working people. The quandary we face is the job they are working on. They are digging a hole that our grandchildren will have great trouble digging their way out of...."
Here's the 1-minute clip that got this whole thing started:
//www.youtube.com/embed/F6nK7W4riyU?rel=0