Stephen Harper's Advice: 'Don't Believe What You Sometimes Read'

That little gem was delivered by Dear Leader at a gathering of true believers outside of Hamilton the other day as he offered this confabulation:

"There are more people going to good-paying jobs today than in any other time in our history."

About the deplorable sellout he engineered in his sweetheart deal with U.S. Steel, he had this to say:

"We know there are still challenges in the labour market. We read about some today in this area. That's because we are part of a global economy."



While the party faithful applauded his words, a retired Hamilton steelworker voiced a sentiment that I think is felt by many, many Canadians :

Harper does nothing as U.S. Steel ‘shafts’ workers

I am truly shocked that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives can sit back and let foreign ownership of our industries walk all over Canadian workers and not say a word.

I worked at Stelco-U.S. Steel for 31 years. When I retired, I was told this is your pension for the rest of your life. A lot of people don't realize that a lot of our pension is deferred wages paid by employees. Our pensions are not some handout by the company.

Stelco was making a profit when U.S. Steel purchased it. The union continued to take concessions from the company and faced consecutive lockouts when they were ready and willing to sit with this company and negotiate a fair deal for all concerned.

U.S. Steel continues to shaft every Canadian worker and this federal government sits back and does nothing. We must send a message in the next federal election that Canada is not for sale under any circumstances. Harper and his cronies should start touring the soup kitchens and the missions to get a taste of what they are doing to hardworking Canadians who paid taxes all their lives only to get shafted when it's time to retire and enjoy the fruits of their labours.


John Sanislo, Hamilton

The Real Face Of Stephen Harper

As we embark upon a year-long election campaign, we will increasingly be exposed to propaganda from all parties vying for our vote. But the propaganda emanating from the Harper government will deserve special scrutiny.

To be sure, we are constantly told how much better off we are under the compassionate ministrations of the cabal than we ever were under previous governments. Such claims, of course, ring hollow to anyone who has followed the machinations and manipulations of the regime for almost the last decade.

Nonetheless, many seem unwilling to engage their critical faculties when it comes to politics, and will respond best, not to facts, figures and allegations, but rather to the human toll exacted by a government whose demonstrable concerns rest almost exclusively with the business agenda.

The following brief news video, about a corporate betrayal aided and abetted by the Harper regime, perhaps speaks loudest of all. The tale of U.S. Steel's purchase of Stelco, granted with some severe stipulations under the Foreign Investment Review Act, is a graphic reminder of where the Prime Minister's true loyalties lie.

What U.S. Steel Shutdown Reveals About Harper

While all of us continue to be riveted by the ever-deepening pit into which the duplicitous Prime Minister is digging himself over the Duffy scandal, other events are equally revelatory of Stephen Harper's dark psyche. One of them is the announcement by U.S. Steel that it is permanently shuttering its steel-making capacity in Hamilton.

Briefly, in 2007 the Harper government permitted the takeover of the troubled Stelco by U.S. Steel on the promise of certain undertakings, including employment guarantees, which I talked about in previous posts.
Those guarantees were never honoured, and despite the fact that the government took the company to court and won, it essentially gave a free pass to U.S. Steel, which then made new and unfulfilled promises to keep the plant going until 2015 and make capital investments of $50 million by the end of that time.

The charade of co-operation is now at an end, and as Thomas Walkom writes in today's Star,


From the federal government came a deafening silence.

A spokesperson for James Moore, the current industry minister, said only that the government doesn’t involve itself in the day-to-day business decisions of private companies.

And with that kiss-off, a steel-making operation that has defined manufacturing in Canada for 103 years came to an end.

Why should this be of broader concern to Canadians? In my view, it exemplifies the total disregard that the Harper regime has for the social and economic costs involved in industry betrayal. By dismissing such events as merely the result of implacable market forces, we perhaps have a window into what the so-far still secrecy-bound details of CETA have in store for even more employees and Canadian citizens in the near-future.

Union Betrayal At Nanticoke

Threatening to withhold strike pay, The United Steelworkers International is forcing the members at Nanticoke to vote on a contract demanding concessions to U.S. Steel. Surely this is an illustration of what Chis hedges has to say in his book, Death of the Liberal Class.

There's No Business Like Snow Business

When I was young, there used to be a polite term for B.S. We called it a snow job, and that seems as apt a description as any of the latest Harper government capitulation to the cancerous tentacles of unfettered capitalism running virtually unchecked throughout this country thanks to our 'leader's' diseased love of all things corporate.

As I wrote last evening, despite the fact that U.S. Steel lost its appeal against the federal government, it is essentially getting a free pass for its Hamilton operation by promising to keep the plant going until 2015 and promising capital investments of $50 million by the end of that time. Of course, for those able to think critically and not simply trust to the magnanimity of a company that already betrayed its employment promises and locked out its workers for almost a year after it was given permission to buy the former Stelco, these promises mean nothing.

The failure of the Harper government to show any integrity in attempting to put the force of law behind foreign takeover promises does mean something, however, to those affected by this sell-out.

Consider the following:

Opposition politicians and workers: outraged by a deal they say contains no specifics on employment or production in Canada and offers nothing to workers harmed by the company’s failure to keep its original promises.

Leaders of the United Steel Workers: “blindsided” by the deal, even though they have intervener status in the action to seek back wages its members would have earned under the company’s original promise to employ an average of 3,105 workers for three years after purchasing Stelco.

“We didn’t know any of this was going to happen and yet we’re the ones affected by their failure to live up to their promises,” said Rolf Gerstenberger, president of Local 1005, which represents workers in Hamilton. “Where’s our redress now? Our members were unjustly laid off and they should be made whole.”

Bill Ferguson, president of Nanticoke’s Local 8782: “incomprehensible” for the government to drop the case without ensuring workers got some kind of compensation.

“We are shocked that our government has cut this secret deal, without even the decency of consulting those who are most affected,” he added. “Our communities and our working families — particularly those whose jobs have disappeared — have been abandoned by U.S. Steel, and now our own government.”

Ken Neumann, Canadian director of USW: “This is a complete abdication of the government’s responsibility to Canadian workers,” he said. “It’s just outrageous that we have no commitment to jobs now.”

Local MPs Wayne Marston and Chris Charlton, both of the NDP, said they were troubled by utter lack of detail in the settlement announcement.

“The government is dropping this lawsuit in exchange for more promises after taking the company to court for not keeping its promises in the first place,” Charlton said. “For all we know this just allows the company to fatten the calf for three years and then sell it.”

Of course, the Harper government's local cheerleader, M.P. David Sweet, a practising Christian blithely untroubled by anything his government does, even its export of death, I mean asbestos, to third-world countries, described the capitulation “as an “extraordinary” achievement that ensures steel production in Hamilton through the next three years.

“By agreeing to this (U.S. Steel) has indicated that they are here for the long term,” he said. “Agreeing to invest that kind of money sends a very positive signal that they are here for the long term.”

And of course, with the current band of renegades holding the reins of power federally, the voices and opinions of Mr. Sweet and his ilk are the only ones that matter here, aren't they?

Tim Harper on the One-Year Anniversary of U.S. Steel's Hamilton Lock-out

We are approaching the one-year anniversary of U.S. Steel's lockout of the workers from its Hamilton plant; the lockout would seem to be in contravention of the guarantees that the company undertook when seeking approval from the Harper government for its foreign takeover of the steel-making facility. (We citizens, of course, are not allowed to know the details of the agreement.)

The Star's Tim Harper offers his analysis of the situation in an article entitled Broken promises and impotent government hurt Hamilton
and reminds us that last year, while in a minority situation, the Harper government promised a review of the Investment Act, responding to prompts by the NDP and Liberals. Needless to say, now that he has achieved a majority, Mr. Harper has backed off from that promise.

I guess he doesn't want to send the wrong signal to the corporations. As for the locked out workers? Well, they don't really count, do they?

Please sign this petition urging Prime Minister Harper to stop threatening Michaela Keyserlingk and to stop exporting asbestos.