Showing posts with label corporate canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate canada. Show all posts

Friday, February 28, 2020

A Vile Image

It is good that this pathetic, disturbing attempt by Alberta energy company X-Site to incite hatred and sexual violence against Greta Thunerg is being widely denounced within Alberta. Surely, there is no place in our country or anywhere else for this kind of violent, misogynistic backlash against someone corporate Canada feels threatened by.



Rocky Mountain House, Alta., Councillor Michelle Narang summed up the revulsion all right-thinking people should feel this way:
“This company represents everything that the oil and gas industry needs to fight against,” Narang said to Global News while reading what she had posted online.

“I am absolutely sickened that X-Site Energy Services would think that the hard-working men and women in the energy industry would condone this representation of a child clearly being raped.”

“We do not rape women and girls to teach them a lesson. This is not our oilpatch,” Narang said to Global News. “We can’t have this representation of the oil patch and the oil companies and of our industry be accepted as normal. People need to start speaking out about it.

“It’s not OK.”
I guess X-Site just didn't get the memo, eh?

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Yet Another Failure of The Corporate Community

We hear everyday about the grim prospects that our young people face - protracted periods of unemployment, underemployment and contract work have become the norm, rather than the exception, even for those with extensive education. Even going back to school to pursue graduate studies or certificate programs offers no guarantee of gainful employment. Indeed, my own family has personal experience with this problem. My son, with a Master's Degree, had to move to Alberta for meaningful employment, and my daughter, also the holder of a Master's as well as a post-grad certificate, is still struggling to find her place.

We are told that the culprit is a weak economy, with businesses reluctant to hire and invest during times of uncertainty.

And yet we are also told that Canada has a shortage of skilled workers, so much so that the federal government is fast tracking applications from foreign workers to take jobs in our oil, our shipbuilding, our mining, and our construction industries, to name but four.

Clearly, something is very amiss.

An article in The Globe and Mail helps to illuminate the problem. Entitled Why training workers in Canada beats importing them from abroad, it argues that training a domestic workforce is the much preferable alternative to importing temporary workers, for some pretty obvious reasons. However, it asserts that there are several obstacles to the pursuit of such a sane strategy.

One of those obstacles is the Harper regime's attitude toward temporary workers. It recently announced "that it intends to bring in an extra 3,000 skilled tradespeople next year," a decision which may elicit great delight amongst employers but one that betrays the national interest if it is being used as a cover to import workers whose only asset is a willingness to work for a lot less than Canadians.

A recent example of the above is HD Mining International, a Chinese-owned coal mine in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. that has won approval "to bring in as many as 200 Chinese workers over the next few years, even though it is paying them substantially less than the going rate, with no benefits."

This corporate interest in exploiting cheap labour, abetted by a government that seems, at best, indifferent to workers' rights, is exacerbated by companies' refusal to train workers through apprenticeship programs:

Apprenticeship – the time-honoured tradition of experienced journeymen training the next generation – remains a foreign concept for the vast majority of employers. In spite of generous government incentives, more than 80 per cent of employers who use skilled workers don’t offer any, according to the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum.

A little research confirms that the government incentives described above are indeed generous and include the following:

Ontario Businesses looking to hire and train a new apprentice in a specialized skilled trade, may be interested in filing for one of the following government grants and tax credit programs:

Ontario Apprenticeship Training Tax Credit (OATTC) – A provincial refundable tax credit equal to 35% – 45% of the salaries and wages for a qualifying apprentice or $10K per year to a max of $40K over the first 4 years of applicable apprenticeships.

Federal Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit (AJCTC) – A federal non-refundable tax credit equal to 10% of the salaries and wages for a qualifying apprentice to a max of $2K per year for each eligible apprentice.

Apprenticeship Employer Signing Bonus – A program providing $2K in non-repayable government grants for registering a new apprentice in a sectors with high demand for skilled trade workers.

Employer Bonus Program – A program providing $1K in non-repayable government grants for employers whose apprentices complete an apprenticeship program in any trade or occupation.

Despite these incentives, corporate Canada seems, as it always does, to look only at the very short-term, with no thought to any responsibility it has to the wider community. Even a company the size of Irving shipping, "which has a $25-billion deal to build 21 combat ships for the federal government", recently announced that it will spend the paltry sum of "$250,000 a year to train and recruit local students." It also promises to offer some apprenticeships, but given the fact that it will need to attract "1,500 [skilled] workers ... over the next decade," it seems like an anemic effort at best.

I will close by giving the final word to the Globe article's penultimate paragraph:

Training workers is a long-term investment. It requires patience. Research by the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, which lost its federal financing this year, shows that companies get back $1.47 for every $1 they spend on apprentices. Over the life of a four-year apprenticeship, the gain can reach as high as $250,000 for a single heavy equipment mechanic as the apprentice becomes more productive and generates revenue.

Monday, September 17, 2012

If They Won't Spend It, Perhaps We Should Tax It Back?

That is the question I am left with after reading this article in today's Star on the over $500 billion (the article erroneously describes it as $526 million) corporate Canada is sitting on, in part thanks to generous tax cuts, rather than investing some of it and creating jobs.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Harper's Lack of Vision and Corporate Timidity

Canada is cursed with a Prime Minister who pretends to be an economist, one apparently intent on returning us to an era when the country was primarily a hewer of wood and drawer of water thanks to his enthusiastic endorsement of a shortsighted prosperity achieved through oil and gas exports.

Is it really surprising then that Corporate Canada is sitting on $526 billion that it refuses to invest in worthwhile and necessary pursuits like research and development, plant expansion, new equipment, etc. etc.?