A Commentary by Doug Draper
Okay so which is it? Is the job picture improving in Niagara, Ontario or is it still in the tank?
Rick Dykstra, federal Niagara area Conservative government member, says jobless rates are looking up.
And if it is improving – if we are actually seeing “a record number of jobs” being created in Niagara – who or what deserves credit for that? Should we credit the federal government, the provincial government or a combination of both, or should we just be thankful to global forces that have seen a general upturn in job opportunities (reflected in recent July job figures reported for the United States) across the continent?
If the jobs picture remains bleak in Niagara and other regions of the province, who should we blame for that? Should we blame the federal government, the provincial government or the vagaries of a world where global, corporate forces now rule?
The confusion around answering this question at the moment is compouded by recent media releases from Conservative MP Rick Dykstra, a federal representative for the Harper government in Ottawa, boasting that a “record number of jobs” have been created in Niagara and, of course, the government Dykstra worked for had something to do with that. Then, on this same August 16 date, you get a media release from the Ontario Conservative Party of Tim Hudak, arguing that “reckless overspending” by the province’s Liberal government has cost jobs in the province.
At first blush, when you read these releases, you ask yourself; ‘Are these people – all members of the same political party – casting these messages from different planets or is there some kind of a split-brain thing happening here?
You’ve got federal Conservative MP Rick Dykstra saying; “It is good to see that so many people in our community are going back to work,” and you’ve got Ontario Conservative leader and Niagara area MPP Tim Hudak reporting out of a caucus meeting in Grimsby, Ontario this August 16 saying that “this government (meaning the Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty) has taken a tough economy and made it worse. … deterring investment and driving away even more jobs.”
Now what are we to make of this except to suggest that if you are the government in power things are looking up. If you are an opposition party looking for a government to blame, things are looking down.
“This government has taken a tough economy and made it worse – and only the Ontario PC Caucus has the new ideas to get our fiscal house in order and our economic fundamentals right,” Hudak said. “Without a bold new path, we face a debt that’s set to triple by 2017, deterring investment and driving away even more jobs.”
Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak blames the province”s Liberal government for joblessness in Niagara/Ontario.
Now as a gatekeeper for news that comes through here, I am left saying; ‘What do I do with two media releases received on the same day that are so contradictory. So I have decided to do what I am doing now – run this commentary and leave you with the following thought; that perhaps a governing federal Conservative government wants to put the best face possible on job numbers for this region and others across the country, and that an opposition Conservative government in Ontario wants to put a bleaker face on job numbers to argue that the governing Liberals in the province are responsible for those suffering from un- or under-employment.
The real picture may be that we are linked, for better or worse, to a global economy that allows the outsourcing of good jobs to sweatshop regions of the world and that, on a moments notice, could gut the economy of our small region of the world even further. In other words, if the Arab uprising leads to a disturbance in oil imports to North America from Saudi Arabia, and Arab countries that drive gas prices at the pump up to more than four dollars a litre or $10 a gallon U.S., causing the bottom to fall out of the economy, who or what are these two Conservative parties in Ottawa and Queens Park going to blame then – a province in Canada, hedge funds being traded on Bay and Wall Street, or what?
The bottomline is this is about partisan politics, pure and simple. If you are the federal government and there is an up-take in hiring for a month or two, you want to take credit for that. If you are an opposition party in Ontario, and the overall employment statistics still look bleak, blame it on the government in power.
None of this does a service to people in this Niagara region or anywhere else in this province still suffering from an ongoing global recession that sees unemployment figures here still hovering around a tragic eight per cent or so, (and that only records those who have not given up of finding a job), and unemployment for our young people at a staggering 14 to 15 per cent.
Quite frankly, both Dykstra and Hudak ought to do some reflection on taking a still worrisome unemployment rate in the region they serve and cherry picking figures from it to serve some partisan purpose. Why not do something more meaningful and hold public meetings – and I mean real town hall meetings on not just ones where partisans are invited – to discuss what can be done to bring some good jobs back to this region? Why not do it in a way that soars above placing blame on party opponent? be ashamed of themselves to indulge in such rancid partisan politics while so many in this region, including increasingly number of people who have lost there homes and now live in their cars or out on the street, suffer.
Why don’t they get together and do something useful to involve the people of Niagara, including members of unions and ordinary members of the public, including our young people, in an open, town hall discussion to come up with real solutions to our economic challenges? By e ngaging in partisan politics in their media releases, what makes them any better than the parties they oppose?
When are our federal and provincial politicians going to put the people of this region, who are suffering the most from what is an economic dump of a global nature, first? Stop playing cheap partisan politics and do something to help these people out!
In fairness to all sides, Niagara At Large is playing the full media releases from the Rick Dystra and Tim Hudak camps below, starting with the Dykstra release.
Record Number of Jobs in Niagara!
ST. CATHARINES — Statistics Canada’s most recent data shows that theree 204,800 people employed in the St. Catharines-Niagara community in the month of July. This mark sets a new record for local jobs in Niagara.
“We were hit hard by the recession,” said St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra, “and it’s good to see that so many people in our community are going back to work.”
The data from Statistics Canada shows that 19,500 net new jobs have been created in the St. Catharines-Niagara community between July 2009 and July 2012. Nationally, 750,000 net new jobs have been created across Canada in that span.
July 2012 was also the third consecutive month where St. Catharines-Niagara posted over 200,000 jobs, a mark which had not been reached since September 2008, before the global economic crisis caused a worldwide recession.
“The economic challenges faced by our largest trading partners – the United States and Europe – have had a strong impact on Canada,” said Dykstra, “but our government’s job-creating policies are keeping Canada’s economy strong.”
Dykstra cited investments like the Hiring Credit for Small Businesses, research and development funding announced in Budget 2012, and local investments like the Downtown Performing Arts Centre, Carlisle Street Parking Garage, and Brock University’s Cairns Family Health and Bioscience Research Complex, as catalysts to helping Niagara’s economy recove
THE TIM HUDAK STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 16, 2012
RECKLESS OVERSPENDING COSTS JOBS, CALLS FOR URGENT ACTION
GRIMSBY – Ontario can again achieve its full potential as a magnet for job creation and investment, but only with urgent action to stop government overspending and focus on job creation, PC Leader Tim Hudak said today.
“This government has taken a tough economy and made it worse – and only the Ontario PC Caucus has the new ideas to get our fiscal house in order and our economic fundamentals right,” Hudak said. “Without a bold new path, we face a debt that’s set to triple by 2017, deterring investment and driving away even more jobs.”
Hudak made the comments as he welcomed his Caucus to Grimsby in the Niagara Region – which has suffered a whopping 39 per cent drop in manufacturing jobs in the last decade, leaving it with the highest unemployment rate in Ontario at 10.9 per cent. Hudak’s team is meeting to build on the Ontario PCs’ comprehensive plan for a more prosperous province. “We’ll be bringing forward more bold ideas to get Ontario working again,” Hudak said. “As this government digs us even deeper, we know complacency is not an option – given the magnitude of the challenges we face.”
The government continues doubling-down on the same failed policies that have the province careening toward a $30 billion deficit. These include canceling job-creating tax relief, continuing with costly energy policies that are driving up electricity rates and driving away businesses, and voting against the Ontario PCs’ mandatory public-sector wage freeze legislation to save $2-billion annually, among others.
“This government’s reckless overspending has put the things we value – like dependable health care and excellence in education – at risk,” Hudak stressed. Interest payments on our massive debt sap money from the front-line services we depend on. High debt loads also deter job creation, because they tell investors we can’t afford the things that make us an attractive place to do business, like low taxes and solid infrastructure.”
As evidence, new Statistics Canada data shows that Ontario has now lagged Canada in job creation for 67 consecutive months, Hudak noted. “But it doesn’t have to be this way. Ontario can do better, and my team will continue to bring forward positive ideas for as long it takes to ensure Ontarians can find good-paying jobs again.
Those ideas include treating energy as a cornerstone of economic growth, tax relief for businesses, changing the attitude of government by welcoming job creators – not deterring them with regulations and red tape – and a bold revision of this province’s 1940s-era labour laws that hamper Ontario’s ability to compete, as proposed in the Paths to Prosperity: Flexible Labour Markets white paper.
“The march to a more prosperous future for Ontario begins here today,” Hudak concluded.
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Niagara At Large 
My question for both representatives centre around some major employers that once existed in this province. For some reason the various governments have allowed steel plants that were supposed to remain open to close, and mines to ship jobs out of the province, thereby seeing well-paying jobs to disappear. For instance the steel plants in Hamilton clearly aren’t doing all that much business. We know why because the agreements that were supposed to be in place to see those jobs continue have been ignored to the detriment of our own citizens. Similarly the situation is mirrored in Sudbury. Extraction of ores out of the north should see processing of the minerals here, not shipped large distances elsewhere.
The proposals just announced re: Kitimat’s oil refinery to make the Alberta pipeline more palatable raises the question why this province has so few refineries.
While some might suggest that planning for services is a communist idea, it does speak to the fact that as Canada’s most populous province having good paying jobs to support the economy would make good sense.
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Christel one reason we do not have many refineries in Ontario is because of a Petro Canada decision to shut down its refineries rather than reduce the amount the parts per million of sulpher they produced . This was after spending millions to reduce the amount from 150 parts per million to 30 ppm. The government wanted 15 ppm which would have required more investment but most of the leg work had been already done . But instead they closed down refineries that had become world class because of their low sulphar production and decide to IMPORT MIDEAST CRUDE to be refined in its Quebec refineries. You have to ask yourself how much LESS WORLD GREENHOUSE GAS LEVELS would be produced if we refined OUR own Alberta Crude in New Ontario refineries with the worlds best standards as opposed to the 100 year old refineries in the Southern States and lets not think about the standards of the Chinese refineries. We should Refine every thing in Canada to Profit from all the value added that comes from selling the distillates of crude and not just from the shipping of crude to other Countries to be refined in a substandard way!
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John is dead-on. Why is it necessary, according to the PC’s to build that huge, dreadful pipeline throught the US and Canada to refine oil? why can’t it be refined here in Canada? Seems as a tremendous waste of $ to me!
I guess the Conservatives still think that their own people are still only good as drawer of water and hewers of wood!
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While watching an interview on TVO It was made clear that the rerouting of crude through to the west coast of B.C. for shipmednt to China was according to the person being interviewed by a TVO regular the price of oil was $S20.00 more expensive on the open market as opposed to what they do receive from the U.S. thus the dollar speaks once again and Harper plays his fiddle as Canada Bleeds.
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It is such a joke. I haven’t seen too many jobs being created here in Niagara, especially the kind that can support families and bring people out of poverty. As long as we continue to trudge along the path that we are trudging along on, small businesses will be going next … as it is people with money (aka jobs that pay enough money) that keep the small businesses alive. Sooner or later, the small businesses start laying off or closing down all together. I have yet to see the large companies reinvesting the trillions they had received in corporate welfare and tax cuts into new jobs for people, especially around here.
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The big lie! give more tax cuts to big business and the super rich and jobs and money like water will trickle down to the masses, give them what they wan’t and we shall all proper, the truth about money it literally flies to Bermuda,Switzerland and the Caymans.also our jobs under free trade flew off to Mexico, China and India. this was the idea pushed by the Chamber’s of Commerce of Canada and USA. The old NDP called these Corporations welfare bums,look at the huge amount’s of taxpayers money is given to the energy sector, oil and gas companies If trickle down worked, we would not be thirsty and need a job.the only thing we swallow is the crap they spew out.
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Niagara at one time could have supplied alot of the piping needs to the oil sands. But since our manufacturing sector was ALLOWED to decline there are very few Companies that can supply the needed materials to refine and ship OUR CRUDE . Allison Redford ( Alberta Premeiere) Has called for a Canadian energy strategy. It just shouldn’t be about moving unrefined crude to the States and China . WE as a Country should DEMAND that we source the material to build the oil sands from Canadian sources and refine as much CANADIAN CRUDE in CANADA as possable! It doesn’t Take long to build new piping mills in Niagara and it wouldn’t take long to start up the old Stelco to supply the steel if there was a requirement for Canadian Steel — The States has no qualms about Buying American — why is Canada being the Patsy on this —– For the sake of our young people Blog and write the Government on this Matter!!!!!
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