The House That Ronald Built

... seems to be undergoing some serious perturbations these days. Earlier in the month came the story of three McDonald's outlets in British Columbia abusing the Harper regime's TFWP (Temporary Foreign Workers Program) by hiring temporary workers instead of available local people and reducing the hours of Canadian employees.

Now comes word from Edmonton of more abuse by the hamburger giant, this time of its temporary workers. CBC News reports the following:

Foreign workers recruited from Belize are accusing McDonald’s Canada of treating them like "slaves," by effectively forcing them to share an expensive apartment – then deducting almost half their take-home pay as rent.

Records from three employees show they made $11 an hour working at various McDonald’s locations and the company took $280 from their pay for rent, bi-weekly. Their remaining take-home pay for the same pay periods was roughly $350.

“[The apartment lease] contracts are signed by McDonald’s. All of our bills – utility bills – were billed [to us] under the name of McDonald’s,” said Montero.

“They brought us here and they are this big huge corporation. We felt that we didn’t have a chance to even voice our opinion to them because they had brought us here so they could ship us back whenever they wanted to," said Montero. "It was like modern day slavery."


You can read the full tawdry tale of corporate malfeasance here, and watch a video report below:

Kind of takes away your appetite for when the next 'Mac attack' happens, doesn't it?

This Has Nothing To Do With Canadian Politics

It is a tale of corporate indifference on the part of Porche, and how the 'little guy' attempts to rectify it:

Getting Their Tunics In A Twist

I was very pleased to read that Honey Maid has joined the 21st century, evidence of which can be seen in the following television commercial:

However, those mired in an earlier time are not so happy. You can click here to see why they have gotten their tunics in a twist, but I'll offer you just a hint from this excerpt:

Jennifer LeClaire, news editor at Charisma, an evangelical online magazine, wasn't amused: "Nabisco's brand is no longer wholesome," she wrote in a piece titled "Gay-Affirming Nabisco Is Shoving More Than Oreos Down Our Throats."

LeClaire pointed out that members of the conservative American Family Association's One Million Moms group were "up in arms": "The American Family Association-linked group insists Nabisco should be ashamed of itself for the cracker commercial that attempts to 'normalize sin.'"

"One Million Moms stands up for Biblical truth which is very clear in Romans 1:26-27 about this particular type of sexual perversion," the group stated. "Honey Maid is also using the hashtag #thisiswholesome. There is concern about the way this ad is pushing the LGBT agenda, but an even greater concern is the way that they are changing the meaning of the word 'wholesome.' This is truly sad. If this is what Honey Maid thinks is wholesome, then my family will no longer purchase Honey Maid or Nabisco products."

And below is how Honey Maid responded to those residing in that earlier time of absolutism and intolerance in the name of an apparently very angry and very limited deity:

CPC slogan 2015: “No grounds for criminal charges.” *

* H/t Dan Gardner

In the twisted morality of the Harper universe, it will be claimed and conveyed as a complete vindication of the Prime Minister.

That the RCMP has found no grounds upon which to lay criminal charges against Nigel Wright in the $90,000 payoff-to-Mike-Duffy-scandal does nothing to dissolve the deep and abiding suspicions about Harper's influence-peddling machinations was not lost on the At Issue panelists last night:

Goodbye, Jim

The other day I wrote a post on Jim Flaherty and his 'legacy,' inspired by two columns published in The Star. On this day of his state funeral, it seems appropriate to offer the views of a few Star readers on Flaherty's record, and the posthumous accolades and state funeral offered him:


Re: Tale of two tragedies reveals Flaherty’s flaws, April 14
Re: Former finance minister made sacrifices for public, April 12

Decorum suggest that we be gracious in remembering long-serving parliamentarians such as Jim Flaherty. True, he was a talented politician who impacted many people in his professional life. And as a private citizen, friends and family will greatly feel his loss.

Unfortunately for myself and probably legions of other voters, his public persona didn’t quite match all the glowing private tributes. What stands out is a hyper-partisan politician willing to take no prisoners in dealing with the opposition, any opposition.

Who can forget his public brow beating of Dalton McGuinty regarding his belief in the need for lowering corporate taxes. And ultimately, what good did lowing corporate taxes do for the greater good of the country?

The facts are, he served prominently on two of the most mean spirited regimes in living memory — Mike Harris in Ontario and Stephen Harper in Ottawa. Once in Ottawa as finance minister, he presided over the dismantling of federal government fiscal capacity and has ultimately tied the hands of future governments in instituting programs that will actually help large numbers of people.

In this regard, he played a large role in radically reshaping this country. This is joy to Conservative supporters, but not so much to the progressive majority.

Pietro Bertollo, Brampton


The passing of Jim Flaherty has been notable for several reasons. While certainly condolences go out to his family and his loved ones, the sugar-coating of his record as a public servant has been awful.

First, the greatest accolades have come from the corporate class, and why shouldn’t they: he has cut their federal and Ontario taxes ferociously. But every day Ontarians and Canadians have paid dearly for these cuts and Flaherty’s own ideology.

He wanted to make homelessness illegal, but he laid off tens of thousands of public servants in Ontario and throughout Canada. He was a key member of the Eves government that lied outright about the “balanced budget” that was really a $5.6 billion deficit, as attested to by outside auditors.

He is killing the CBC with funding cuts, and has set in motion dramatic cuts to health care to take effect soon, even as Canada spends only approximately 11 per cent of GDP on health care compared to 16 per cent by the U.S., and he has done federally what he did provincially (by association at least) and put Canadians’ lives at risk by cutting back on those government services that protect Canadians by eliminating inspector positions in certain government agencies.
This radical right wing agenda has resulted in diminished standards of living for a large number of Canadians, frittered away hard won record budget surpluses he inherited from the previous government, and added tens of billions of dollars to our national debt. He has been a champion of the hidden far-right Conservative agenda to starve government of the funds it needs to operate our cherished social programs, only to declare later that they are unaffordable because government lacks the funds to pay for them.

It’s a con game Flaherty played a key part in. I am sorry he has died, and my sincere condolences go out to his family. But let’s look at his record with clear, cold eyes.

Tony Delville, Stoney Creek

Am I the only person in Canada who finds this hyper eulogizing of former Conservative finance minister Jim Flaherty over the top? It appears that the Ottawa beltway and the whole of the Canadian media are falling all over themselves to don sackcloth and ashes bemoaning the death of this man.

Maybe in life outside politics he was “a nice man.” But this “nice man” is, in part, responsible for the Conservative party’s attempt to balance the budget by their giving gigantic largesse to the big corporations right on the backs of the Canadian people.

He was present in the U.S., deliberating and consorting with primary financial elements of the Bush regime. He brought what he had learned back to Canada. With Harper, a willing disciple of the ultra-right-wing Fox News as his partner, he then proceeded to make life doubly difficult for the Canadian working people. He stuck to a right wing bullying Conservative political agenda to the bitter end. This has brought untold misery to a vast number people throughout Canada.

For the media to compare him to the great Jack Layton, a politician who really cared about the Canadian people and put his humanity into practice throughout his life, is absolutely stomach turning. And to waste the public’s money on a state funeral for this Robin Hood in reverse is a real insult to the people of Canada — and another slap in the face to Canadians who believe in honest democracy everywhere.

Laurence D. M. Marshall, Kelowna, B.C.

Click here if you would like to read more opinions of the late Finance Minister's legacy.

Separate But Not Equal

That would probably pretty much sum up the religious fundamentalists' attitude when comparing science to their literal interpretations of The Bible. The people at Funny or Die decided to run with that sentiment:

Funny or Die’s ‘Creationist Cosmos’: God created everything — except for gay people (via Raw Story )

Creationists who believe God created the entire universe in six days about 6,000 years ago have been aghast at the reboot of Carl Sagan’s legendary “Cosmos” series. Some creationists have demanded their views receive equal airtime on the show…

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A Tale of Intimidation At TransCanada Corporation

Despite the best efforts of the Harper government to make its own addiction to the fossil fuel agenda the Canadian people's as well, increasing numbers are voicing their concern and opposition to the expansion of the Alberta tarsands through new pipelines. And evidence is mounting that those concern are wholly justified and not simply the hysterical reaction of 'lefties, eco-terrorists and the enemies of growth' that the Harper cabal would have us believe.

The 1,047 pipeline incidents in Canada between 2000 and 2011, although only a small part of the tale, provide ample reason for that wariness and suspicion.

Now there is even more reason to worry. As reported in the Toronto Star, there has been an ongoing and concerted effort by TransCanada Corporation, the country's preeminent pipeline company, to silence employees raising safety concerns about the company’s existing and brand new North American pipeline infrastructure:

They include warnings on the original Keystone pipeline, plagued by at least 35 incidents in the U.S. and Canada since it launched commercial operations in June 2010, and they also raise questions about the company’s testing and welding procedures on its infrastructure in Ontario as well as other lines that have reported at least four separate ruptures and four separate leaks to the federal regulator, the National Energy Board, in recent months.

Records released by the Senate energy and environment committee show cases where engineers were told in internal emails to stop searching for potential pipeline defects.

Reminiscent of the O-ring alerts ignored prior to the doomed Challenger shuttle mission, the records tell a sordid but hardly surprising tale of corporate intimidation, suppression and termination. Only one target, engineer Evan Vokes, responded to Star requests for comment:

“Please stop the investigation you seem to be doing on your own,” wrote David Taylor, a TransCanada manager of materials and engineering, in a June 27, 2011, email to Vokes. “This discussion has been going on for over a month, you need to accept where we are and become aligned with where we are going as a company.”

Vokes, a man of obvious integrity, refused to heed the increasingly threatening tone of the emails, and he was ultimately fired in 2012 without cause after he informed the company he would complain to authorities. Before his termination, however, he did what any man of deep conscience would do. He persisted:

... a few months before he lost his job, Vokes sent out a written warning to managers about the dangers of allowing the installation of a pressure vessel — a pipeline component generally used in compressor stations — on a natural gas line serving the oilsands industry near Fort McMurray.

A few weeks earlier, his manager, David Taylor, warned Vokes that there could be consequences if he continued to critique safety oversight weaknesses of TransCanada operations.

Taylor had issued other warnings previously:

“Also there is no need to comment about other projects and infer that they did something wrong,” said Taylor in an email to Vokes on Aug. 10, 2009. “As we chatted on Friday those things can and generally do come back to haunt you down the road!”

You can read the full story of TranCanada's corporate malfeasance and how it thwarted the efforts of some of its other employees to promote greater safety by clicking on the Toronto Star link provided at the start of this post.