This Is The Best They've Got?

Many Ontario residents of a certain age will be aware of the fact that the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party ruled the province for forty-two years, from 1943 to 1985, a time during which the term 'progressive conservative' did not constitute an oxymoron.

That was then. This is now. A headline in today's Star reads: Tim Hudak best leader for Ontario PC party, poll shows.

How the mighty have fallen.

The Struggle For Dignity

All of us have a right to respect and dignity. Many of us do not receive it. Having been 'educated' in the Catholic system at a time when the application of both verbal and physical abuse was regarded as proper corrective methodology, I experienced many times in my younger life situations where respect and dignity were denied. I suspect it was one of those foundational experiences that has made me so acutely aware of various forms of injustice as an adult.

Countless people around the world are denied dignity, many of them within North America, the most prosperous part of our planet. Particularly vulnerable to debasement are minimum wage workers, many of whom toil in the fast food industry about which I have written previous posts.

Yesterday, thousands of fast-food workers in nearly 60 cities across the United States staged strikes to protest poor wages as they call for a doubling of the minimum wage from an average of $7.25 to $15 per hour.

Organizers of the action, Low Pay Is Not Ok, are also calling for the right to unionize without fear of retalaiation; one of the obstacles to unionization is the fact that many work in 'right-to-work-states' that make it optional to join unions and pay dues, even in unionized environments. It is a law that Ontario's would-be premier, the young Tim Hudak, salivates over and promises for those foolish enough to consider voting for him.

I encourage people to educate themselves on this issue, striking as it does at the very heart of respect, dignity, and the capacity to live a life at the very least slightly above the poverty line. Perhaps statistics put into perspective the denialism that is the reflexive reaction of the corporate world whenever there is any discussion of improving the wages of those who make possible their massive profits:

Workers want their hourly pay more than doubled from the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to a more livable $15 an hour. Organizers of the rally say the top eight fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s — made $7.35 billion in profit last year, yet most of their employees didn’t make more than $11,200.

Seems doable to me and I imagine just about everyone else who believes in a little justice and equity for humanity.


* On a personal note, we are taking our Cuban friends to see Niagara Falls today, after which we will visit my sister-in-law in Niagara-On-The-Lake. If you post comments here, they will not appear until later today, when I have computer access at her place. I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend.

More Lies From Harper Inc.

By now, most Canadians are probably aware that truth and the Harper regime are total strangers. Whether talking about the cost estimates of F-35 jets, knowledge about the Wright-Duffy-Wallin Senate scandal, reasons for taking rides from military helicopters to return from the cottage, spending $50 million on gazebos, everything the government says is suspect. People become used to such dishonesty, deceit and contempt, but I hope they never become inured to these egregious signs of overweening pride and arrogance from the people who 'serve' us.

Recent claims of revisions to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program that would ensure employers offer jobs to Canadians first appear to be yet just another lie issued by the government to quell widespread discontent. A story in today's Edmonton Journal reports the following:

Hundreds of Alberta employers are being allowed to bring temporary foreign workers into the province at minimum wage despite a federal government requirement they be paid at or near market rates.

Internal documents reveal officials at Human Resources and Skill Development Canada are letting businesses like big restaurant chains and large nurseries pay imported employees as little as $9.75 an hour.

The Alberta Federation of Labour, which gained the truth through a federal access to information request, says of the foreign workers,

“They’re being used as pawns by employers who don’t want to respond to the market signals that are telling them they need to raise wages”.

And the implication of this deceitful practice has implications far beyond the temporary workers directly affected:

Don Drummond, a former chief economist with TD Bank and deputy minister with the federal finance department, worries the documents show the TFW program is being used to artificially suppress wages in the province’s labour market despite a robust economy.

“If this program is creating a substantial number of positions at minimum wage,” said Drummond, “it’s dragging down wages throughout the province’s entire economy.”

Predictably, Dr. Kellie Leitch, the federal labour minister, did not respond to written questions about why this is being allowed.

Slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the Consitution. Apparently it continues under another name in our own country today.

Oh I Can Think Of So Many Ways This Is Relevant

About Upper-Class Twits and Peter MacKay

Yesterday, over at Northern Reflections, Owen had a trenchant post on Justice Minister Peter MacKay, a man who has always struck me as one of the most profoundly incompetent members of the Harper cabinet. After reading the post, I couldn't help but think of one of the classic skits by Monty Python, The Upper-Class Twit of the Year.

Enjoy:

A Reminder Of Our Place

As our Cuban friends' visit continues, we are trying to give them a sampling of life in Canada. Yesterday we went to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; the first exhibition hall we entered there was the one devoted to Canada's aboriginal peoples, where we came upon a work by Norval Morriseau entitled Migration, depicted above.

As the human race continues its ruthless and relentless exploitation of earth's resources to the point of exhaustion, as our heedless behaviour warms the earth to the point of profound and probably irreversible, disastrous change, Migration offers us a succinct reminder of how everyone and everything is interconnected and interdependent.

It is a simple and profound truth, the implications of which far too many choose to be willfully ignorant.

Will He Or Won't He?

2015 is not very far away. It may be the year of liberation, the year Canada reclaims its collective soul, or it may be the year in which Canadians elect to continue their enslavement to the neo-conservative agenda. (Please forgive the rather overblown rhetoric in the previous sentence, but in my heart it sums up what lies before us.)

The question of whether Stephen Harper will run in the next election is on many people's minds. Some are entirely convinced that he will, while I am of the view the public opinion surveys and their consistency will be a heavy influence on his decision. If they suggest that he is held in wide and consistent public odium, I suspect he will choose to forgo another election. Like Brian Mulroney before him, and the detested former Ontario premier Mike Harris, whose massive egos didn't blind them to the likelihood of defeat at the polls, I suspect Harper will decide to cut and run (the contemptuous term Harper always used to when anyone suggested we get out of Afghanistan) rather than confront the truth about himself: that despite his delusions, he is a leader who has failed abysmally in inspiring anything but division, rancour and selfishness within the country he was elected to serve.

A letter in today's Star offers this view:

Re: Harper resignation no longer a far-fetched notion, Aug. 25

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not risk the humiliation of losing the next election as the momentum is building against him across the country. Harper will not run in the 2015 election.

He may be able to prorogue Parliament to avoid a confrontation in the House of Commons and the intense questioning over Senators Pamela Wallin, Mac Harb, Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau. But he cannot prorogue the fact of his alienating Quebec.

He is unable to prorogue the 2015 election and will not want to preside over the break-up of the country.

Robert G. Sheehan-Gauthier, Ottawa

Of course, my political instincts are not what they once were, and I could be completely wrong. For a more nuanced and detailed analysis of the factors that will influence Harper's decision, take a look at the CBC's Greg Weston's piece here.