Some Canadian Business Leaders Want To Go On Using Harper’s Foreign Workers Program To Maximize Profits At Any Cost To Canadian Jobs – We Shouldn’t Let Them

A Commentary by Doug Draper

You have to marvel at the nerve of some of Canada’s business leaders.

A strong Canada? Stronger for Harper’s business elite, importing foreign labour to kill Canadian jobs.

Canadian businesses, as much as some of them continue to complain that they are not getting enough of a boost from senior levels of government, have benefited in this country from one round after another of corporate tax cuts, grants and subsidies, and they continue to benefit from roads, highways, airports and other  infrastructure paid for by Canadian taxpayers.

Yet some of these same businesses have no qualms whatsoever about using the ‘Temporary Foreign Workers Program’, established by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper , to replace Canadian citizens with foreign workers that they can pay far less and have no responsible for in terms of health, pension or any other benefits.

Of course, that is not what many Canadians were led to believe by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives that the ‘Temporary Foreign Workers Program’ was for. We were told that it was there to assist businesses operating in this country, if they can’t find Canadians with the proper skills to keep their operations alive, or to fill job positions, like harvesting crops on our farms, that Canadians may not necessarily want to do.

What we have learned, since the CBC recently uncovered the story about the Royal Bank of Canada using or abusing this program to replace some of their Canadian employees with foreign workers those Canadians – mostly computer technicians – were instructed by the bank to train to take their jobs, is that the use of this program by businesses across this country for replacing or displacing Canadians who desperately need a job is pervasive.

Stories in major Canadian newspapers and phone-in programs on CBC and other radio stations have revealed that this federal program is being used or abused by numerous businesses, big and small, to import people from India and other developing countries to fill jobs at lower wages than even our minimum wage laws would allow.

Disgustingly, Harper’s program is even being used by fast-food restaurants and other businesses for non-skilled jobs that could be filled by Canadians, including our college and university students who are desperately seeking jobs to help pay their academic costs – young people who, according to statistics Canada, are suffering an unemployment rate about twice as high as the average for Canadians over the age of 25.

Young people in Canada – young Canadians among us who are racking up tens-of-thousands of dollars in debt as they try to pay their way through college and university – are even being deprived of unskilled, retail jobs here while some businesses take advantage of this Harper program to import people who will work for something less than minimum wage. They are graduating and increasingly finding out that even if they have a Master’s degree, they may be luck to find volunteer work in agency or business in their field.

But it is sure is okay for Harper and company to import foreign workers to displace them, alright.

And now, even after Harper was shamed into saying he will review the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, even after his government has been told by Canadian workers who have lost their jobs to it – over and over again over the past three or more years – that it is costing their jobs, his government’s buddies in the business field are asking him not to go so fast.

According to a recent story in the Globe and Mail, one of the more prominent business leaders in Canada, Harper’s business friends are already biting back on any reform to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

“Given the negative press and the comments of the Prime Minister and others, we are worried about a potential pull back on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which is incredibly vital and has been a godsend for many small companies, particularly in Western Canada Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, told the Globe and Mail.

 “I think it’s insulting,” added Joyce Reynolds, executive vice-president of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, in response to concerns over jobs in the fast-food industry that were first raised last week by the Alberta Federation of Labour.

“A typical restaurant may operate seven days a week and some 24 hours a day so there are a lot of people that have to be scheduled and managed and you have to be trained and you have be skilled in order to manage that,” she said.

Hey Joyce Reynolds, perhaps someone ought to train you and other snakes taking advantage of this Harper slave farm (and that’s what it really is) program that Canadians, including young Canadians desperate for a job are out there, willing to put in those hours. And they can flip burgers and wash you bloody utensils too. Although you would have to pay them Canadian wages.

This whole blood thing is disgusting and is traitorous, quite frankly. We have a federal government in Ottawa right now who cares more about allowing some businesses, who have no allegiance to this country or its people, use this program over and over again to displace our Canadian people.

The Harper government has minions in this Niagara region – MPs that usually have nothing more to say than the talking points they get from Harper’s office – which should be made to account for them. Among them are Conservative MP Rick Dykstra of St. Catharines and Niagara Falls MP Rob Nicholson.

What gets me is that these MPs have the nerve to go out to Canada Day and Remembrance Day ceremonies and talk to the rest of us about patriotism for this country, and yet they are sitting back and accepting a program from their leader, Stephen Harper, that deprives and displaces Canadian citizens from jobs in this country.

How bloody patriotic is that Mr. Dykstra and Mr. Nicholson, and company?

I think that every time you see Dykstra or Nicholson or any other Harper MP in public, you should go up to them and ask when they are going to scrap a Temporary Foreign Workers Progam that their business budies are using to kill jobs for Canadians.

When are they going to stand up against a displace Canadians for cheaper foreign help program and stand up for their fellow Canadians? fellow Canadians.

Call, email and slam your federal MP on this one, if you have to. The future of decent jobs for Canadians in Canada depends on it.

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