If Only Our Politicians Felt This Sense Of Shame

Perhaps it's time to send Pamela Wallin and Diane Finley to obedience school?

More On The E.I Whistleblower

The other day I wrote a post on Sylvie Therrien, the government employee suspended because she leaked documents that revealed federal investigators were told to find $485,000 of Employment Insurance fraud every year.

The “fraud quotas” were just one aspect of an office culture that encouraged cutting benefits from as many people as possible to save money, Therrien said in an interview Monday.

“My values just wouldn’t allow me to do that,” she said. “It was so unfair. These people are like everyone else. They have children, and we send them to the streets.”

Her act of conscience means she will likely be fired (and no doubted added to the ever-growing Harper regime's 'enemies list.')

Steve McCuaig, national executive vice president of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union, promised to defend Therrien if she is wrongly dismissed.

“The message (to whistleblowers) is: ‘Be afraid, be very afraid,’ ” he said. “Employees are asked to do jobs, and they’re asked to never say anything about that job. We wonder why.”

Typical of the soulless and technocratic regime that masquerades as our government, Harper enabler Amélie Maisonneuve, spokesperson for Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, offered the following justification for the harsh measures taken against Therrien:

Civil servants are allowed by law to disclose information to the public only if there is “insufficient time” to contact the integrity commissioner, and it constitutes a serious offence or poses an imminent risk to public health or safety.

Sometimes there are moral imperatives that transcend such narrow allowances, prompted by circumstances that I doubt few supporters of Mr. Harper's cabal could ever understand.

You can read the full story here.

Cancer, E.I., and Government Hypocrisy

The Faces Of Common Humanity

Without doubt, to battle cancer must be a grueling and depleting experience. But to face rebuke and betrayal at the hands of one's government because of the circumstances of that battle must be almost as traumatic.

Such is the almost unbelievable tale of Jane Kittmer, diagnosed with breast cancer while on maternity leave and denied E.I sick benefits. Having fought a 2½-year appeal battle over those benefits, an E.I judge ruled in her favour last December, a month after Parliament voted unanimously to amend the Employment Insurance Act to ensure those on maternity and parental leave are also eligible for sickness benefits. Yet despite that ruling and that legislation, the Harper regime is appealing the decision to give the benefits to Kitmer.

This, despite the fact that the precedent for the legislative change in favour of people like Kitmer was established in 2011, when an E.I. judge ruled in favour of Toronto mother Natalyal Rougas, stating that government officials have been misinterpreting the spirit of the original 2002 law.

Rougas, who was diagnosed with breast cancer during maternity leave in 2010, was awarded the maximum 15 weeks of sickness benefits in addition to her combined 50 weeks of maternal and parental benefits. The award amounted to about $6,000, or $400 a week.

Ottawa did not appeal the Rougas decision and began working on a legislative fix, introduced last summer as Bill C-44.

But of course, one should never underestimate the Orwellian cant at which the Harper government has proven consistently adept:

In response to an inquiry from The Star,

... a spokesperson for Human Resources Minister Diane Finley would say only that the government is helping families “balance work and family responsibilities.”

The government is “offering new support measures to Canadian families at times when they need it most,” Alyson Queen added in an email Friday.

It has been said that a society can be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members. By that standard, the Harper regime is unquestionably beyond denunciation.

The Face of Uncommon Hypocrisy

Thomas Walkom Opines on E.I. Changes

To this Conservative government, anything that might interfere with the mythical free market — and particularly with the market’s downward pressure on wages — is anathema.

The above is just a brief excerpt from Thomas Walkom's column in today's Star, additional food for thought as I continue trying to critically assess these recent changes to Employment Insurance rules.

A Good Environment For Mushrooms, Not Democracy

Government policy conducted in dark secrecy, as I suggested in my last post, is difficult for the critical thinker to evaluate; that task is made even more arduous when it is hidden within an omnibus bill, as is the case with the reforms to Employment Insurance eligibility.

However, one piece of information has emerged that perhaps makes the job a little easier. The CBC's Allison Crawford reports that a new Social Security Tribunal will replace about 1,000 part-time members of the Employment Insurance Board of Referees and 32 umpires, and that same tribunal will also hear appeals from Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security claimants.

Under the current system, most appeals on denials of benefits are heard within 30 days. Under the new Tribunal, to be in place next year, it is difficult to see how complaints will be dealt with expeditiously, since it will consist of only 74 members, half of whom will hear the E.I complaints.

University of Ottawa law professor Lucie Lamarche says the new measure, which comes on page 196 of the more than 400-page budget implementation bill, is "well-hidden," and she fears that under the new system, applicants will have to hire lawyers. She says it appears that under the legislation, people will have to make more technical, legal arguments.

So, a little more information, ferreted out by diligent journalists and citizens, has perhaps helped in my quest to critically assess the 'new and improved' E.I. program.

What is Truth?

An age-old question without a firm answer, it is one I find myself regularly pondering as I continue striving toward an ideal I know I'll never attain, that of being a consummate critical thinker. Bombarded by information as we are, it is often difficult to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff and arrive at satisfactory conclusions. And of course, there is always one's own biases to contend with as major filters of that information.

Take, for example, my deep antipathy toward the Harper Conservatives. So used to their tactics of denigration, disparagement, denial and deception am I that part of me strongly believes truth in any form is alien to them, that their actions are driven not by any concern for us as a nation, but only as the subjects of a grand neo-conservative experiment.

But to interpret everything they do according to that restrictive framework is also to deny true critical thinking and is simply to be as reactionary as the right-wing.

And so, in the spirit of honest inquiry, I seek to make an honest assessment of the changes to Employment Insurance announced yesterday by Human Resources Minister Diane Finley. Is it, as Star columnist Tim Harper suggests, a reform that curiously dovetails "with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation view that a bunch of lazy layabouts are milking the system and forcing more ambitious offshore workers to do the work they won’t do" ?

Or is it "all about matching Canadians hungry for work with employers hungry for employing Canadians instead of foreign workers," as the government insists?

Another question: what commitment does Ottawa have to improving and expanding access to retraining programs for those seeking to upgrade their skills? And how do the E.I. changes affect them?

Like all policy conducted in secrecy instead of collaboratively with the public, this legislation invites the worst of interpretations, whether or not those interpretations are wholly warranted. Such is the price to be a paid by a regime committed to restricting the flow of information and treating those it 'serves' with palpable contempt.

That kind of philosophy of government certainly doesn't make it easier to be a critical thinker these days.

Just a Coincidence?

Surely there can be no other explanation for the fact that at the same time that Human Resources Minister Diane Finley has announced new rules for those claiming E.I. benefits, her department has cut off the flow of some key employment data that the public has a right to.

Now being withheld from public scrutiny is information showing the total dollar amount of benefits paid to each province and the average weekly payments by province. As reported by the CBC, the official explanation involves some inconsistencies in the Human Resources raw data that were discovered over a year ago, but, strangely enough, inconsistencies that did not prevent Statistics Canada from doing its usual job of aggregating data over the past year. However, as of May, that data has been cut off by the Harper government.

One can only hope that these 'inconsistencies in data' are resolved soon, lest uncharitable thoughts should emerge to undermine this government's 'credibility'.

The Harper Perversion Of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program

In what looks like yet another invitation by the Harper regime to corporate thievery in Canada, Human Resources Minister Diane Finley last week announced that employers will now be able to pay temporary migrant workers less than would be paid to Canadians doing the same job.

What is especially alarming about this, beyond the obvious exploitation of foreign workers, is how migrant labour is being defined these days. As reported by The Star's Thomas Walkom,

The temporary foreign workers program began as a stop-gap measure in 2000, specifically to deal with a shortage of software specialists. But under pressure from employers — particularly in the Alberta oil patch — it has vastly expanded.

By 2011, there were some 300,111 temporary foreign workers of all kinds in Canada — 106,849 of them in Ontario.

He goes on to discuss how these workers are now doing a variety of jobs ranging from serving coffee to working in Maritime fish-processing plants, and of course, in Alberta's oil fields. Coupled with the latest changes in the rules governing Employment Insurance, the implications are worrying. Walkom writes:

[Jason]Kenney has warned that unemployed workers who refuse to take low-wage jobs will have their EI benefits cut off. If Canadians agree to work for less, he explains, Ottawa won’t have to bring in as many low-wage outsiders.

If the great Canadian slumber continues, watch for more regressive legislation from this 'Prime Minister.'

UPDATE: Here is a sector that appears to heartily approve of this downward pressure on wages.

And While We Were Concerning Ourselves About Tory Crimes of Voter Suppression

...That go-to party loyalist, Tory minion Diane Finley, has just made it harder for our young people to find summer employment.

Thomas Walkom Warns About The Real Cost of OAS Reform

While Stephen Harper stooge Diane Finley does her master's bidding by sowing the seeds of conflict between young and old over Old Age Security, Star columnist Thomas Walkom warns that it is the young who will pay the price for Tory tampering.

The Latest Conservative Effort at Fostering Division and Discord

It would appear that Human Resources Minister Diane Finley is in the vanguard of the Harper regime's latest ploy to sow dissension and suspicion, the ultimate goal being to pit Canadians against Canadians.

Finley, whose inept handling of the Employment Insurance backlog earns her zero credibility in my book, seems now to be trying to ignite a war between younger and older Canadians. Using the now familiar Tory ploy of absolutism, she gave an address yesterday to students from Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary School of Scarborough in which she painted a grim picture of their future supporting retired Canadians unless her government acts decisively on the OAS file. You can read the full account here.

By the way, we don't know how the students reacted to her hyperbole - they were barred from speaking to the media, presumably another example of the muzzling this government is becoming infamous for.

Never Let Facts Get In The Way Of Ideology: The Conservative Credo

That's the only inference I can draw after reading about the report by Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page that there is no crisis in the current funding of Old Age Security, despite proclamations by Human Resources Minister Diane Finley and her dear leader, and hence no need for raising the age of eligibility.

Merry Christmas, Diane Finley

Actually, the title of this post was just to get your attention. I would indeed be an unfeeling man were I to wish the minister of Human Resources and Skills Development the best of the season when so many Canadians are suffering as a result of her inept attempt to streamline and make more efficient the distribution of Employment Insurance benefits by closing 98 employment insurance processing centres and firing 1,200 Service Canada workers.

With record wait-times to receive benefits, many unemployed are missing bank and mortgage payments, overdrawing their accounts, etc., all of which puts to the lie Finley's claim that all is well and working better than ever. Her employment with Harper, Inc. (as one astute reader referred to the government in today's print edition of The Star) as the good functionary carrying out her overlord's directives with nary a whimper of protest or twang of conscience renders her, as it does all of Harper's underlings, unfit for continued employment by the people of Canada.

Click here to read of one man's experiences thanks to Finley's 'improvements.'