A Timely Message For Mr. Trump And His Fellow Travellers

Trudeau Town Halls: Baubles Of Distraction, Not Questions Of Substance

Prime-Minister-For-A-Day Kim Campbell is probably best remembered for saying, “An election is no time to discuss serious issues.” She might just as well have been talking about town halls, particularly the kind our Prime Minister is currently in the midst of.

Justin Trudeau's meet-and-greet will undoubtedly constitute a public-relations success. That success, however, will be thanks to two things: Trudeau's ease in front of large crowds, and the profound colloquialism and ignorance of the people attending these sessions. It is the latter I wish to address today.

In theory, town halls, being somewhat unscripted, are an opportunity to put the convener on the hot seat. Unfortunately, the topics thus far brought up have been tritely predictable and easily defused, no doubt because they are exactly what the PMO has prepared Mr. Trudeau for. Consider, for example, what was asked at his Sackville gathering. While the questions may be important to the posers, they lack, shall I say, a certain concern for national and international issues that the government is, in my view, badly fumbling. Here are two examples:

Abdoul Abdi’s sister Fatouma Alyaan asked ‘Why are you deporting my brother?...My question to you is if it was your son, would you do anything to stop this?’

And this one:

Why do we have medical doctors who come here from different countries who are unable to integrate into the system?

To be sure, he was also asked about his visit to the Aga Khan's private island retreat, for which Trudeau has been rebuked by outgoing ethics watchdog Mary Dawson, but again, this was a predictable and easily-handled question for which I am sure the Prime Minster was well-prepared.

The questions at yesterday's session in Hamilton were similarly trite and predicable:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a woman heckling him about Omar Khadr during a town hall in Hamilton that he, too, is angry about the multimillion-dollar settlement the former Guantanamo Bay inmate received from the government.

“The anger that some people feel, and that a lot of people feel about the payment the government made to Omar Khadr is real and quite frankly — this might surprise you — but I share that anger and frustration,” he said.

Score another one for good preparation.

Yet I can't help but wonder how Mr. Trudeau would respond if truly important questions were asked of him. Questions like the following:

Why does your government insist on protecting the rights of multi-nationals to sue our government over legislation that might interfere with their profits?

Known as investor-state dispute settlement, it is a mainstay of NAFTA and eagerly sought for the TPP. So far, Canada has been sued five times under NAFTA provisions for trying to protect the environment.

Another question well-worth posing would pertain to the government's continuing support for the immoral Saudi arms deal, arms that have been shown, in contravention of the deal, to have been used against Saudi citizens.

In July, after The Globe and Mail's reporting of conflict in Awamiyah, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland issued a statement saying she was "deeply concerned" and announced a probe of the incident.

The Trudeau government has never released the results of this investigation nor has it explained to Canadians what happened.

These are the questions I would ask on this issue:

Why have you refused to release the report, and why is your government now trying to quash the most recent legal challenge to the deal, an attempt that a federal court judge has rejected?

Finally, I would ask about the Trudeau government' attitude toward tax cheats using offshore havens:

A dozen governments around the world say they've recovered a combined $500 million in unpaid taxes so far thanks to the Panama Papers leak of tax-haven financial records in 2016.

But not a penny of that is destined for Canadian government coffers. The Canada Revenue Agency maintains it will be at least another 2½ years before it will have an idea of how much it might recoup.

When other governments are enjoying considerable success in recovering tax money thanks to the Panama and Paradise papers, why is your government and the Canada Revenue Agency so reluctant to aggressively pursue them?

So those are some of the questions that will likely not be asked at the town halls. God forbid that this government should actually have to make an honest accounting of itself to the Canadian people.

Simply Horrifying

How many times do catastrophes like this have to happen before we cast aside our hubris and realize that we are nothing in the face of nature?

UPDATED: Despite The Hysteria The Sky Will Not Fall

In an op-ed piece the other day, Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, wrote of the economic Armageddon awaiting Ontario businesses thanks to the recently-hiked Ontario hourly minimum wage to $14, to be increased to $15 next year.

While no one can fault Kelly for pandering to the interests of his constituents, his arguments apparently carry little weight with the larger public, who see nothing but good coming from paying a living wage to the people who make profits possible for our titans of business.

Star letter writer Tom Doris of Toronto offers his response:

Dan Kelly has the misguided attitude that any business creating jobs must be considered a successful business and be left alone by government despite poverty wages, denied tips and no job security for its workers.

Indeed, his arguments lead me to conclude that his membership has not the capability to create vibrant, living-wage jobs. As well, he appears to be insistent that workers in this province should be thankful for any position no matter the wage, treatment or security.

By contrast, jurisdictions throughout the western world have thriving small businesses that pay living wages (not just a sham attempt at such). He and his membership need to learn how to be successful without exploiting workers.

Meanwhile Ken Fitzsimmons of Toronto has a clear-headed suggestion that that could quell Mr. Kelly's rising hysteria:

Dan Kelly doesn’t get much sympathy from me.

His examples of businesses that are paying the price for the increase in the minimum wage are dry cleaners, coffee shops and mechanics. Seriously? That’s ridiculous. All these shops have to do to cover the increased expense is to raise their prices. Now, don’t try to tell me that this will make them uncompetitive. All their competitors are in the same situation and will have to raise their prices as well. The people that will actually bear the cost are the customers themselves and that is as it should be. It is a small burden to pay so that all employees can have at least a half-decent wage. The extra cost would be minimal as it is spread out among the general public, not the business owners.

Having said that, there are businesses that will suffer and I do feel sorry for them and they should be given some consideration. They are businesses such as retailers that compete with online business that don’t have the same employee expenses. It’s also tough to compete with low wages from other countries, but that doesn’t give employers the right to keep wages low in Ontario. There are other ways to combat unfair labour practices abroad.

Sure there are problems to be resolved, but this outcry from a lot of business groups that the sky is falling is mostly just nonsense.

One line from the above letter bears special emphasis: The people that will actually bear the cost are the customers themselves and that is as it should be. It is a small burden to pay so that all employees can have at least a half-decent wage.

Anyone taking issue with that sentiment should at least be honest enough with themselves to admit they prefer that some toil away in economic enslavement so they don't have to pay a little more for the things they want and need in life.

UPDATE: For those interested in making their voices heard over some of the despicable retaliatory practices being enacted by business, I just got this notice from LabourStart Canada:

SOLIDARITY RALLIES FOR ONTARIO TIM HORTON'S WORKERS ON WEDNESDAY

On the heels of the $15 and Fairness campaign victory in Ontario that saw the minimum wage rise to $14/hr a number of Tim Horton's shops are cutting worker benefits, breaks and other entitlements. Employers are preserving their profits by making workers pay for the increase.

But you know this because you read our news pages and follow our social media feeds. So let's cut to the chase.

If you live in Southern Ontario then on Wednesday you have 3 demos in support of the Timmy's workers to choose from (OK, there may be more by the time you read this so contact your local Labour Council. If there isn't one near you suggest it):

COBOURG: 5pm @ the Timmy's at 970 Division St, Cobourg, Ontario K9A 5Y5.

DUNDAS: 5pm @ the Timmy's at 38 York Road, Dundas. L9H 1L4

WEST TORONTO: 8am @ the Tim's at 1094 Bloor West M6H 1M5

If you are at the Cobourg demo look for me. I'll be wearing an Australian union toque and scarf. I'll buy you a coffee if we can find a place. :-)

Not an Ontario resident? Wish us luck because, unless you live in Alberta where the rate has already gone up, you'll be facing the same, soon. If we can win this it might just be a little easier for everyone else.

In Solidarity,

Derek Blackadder
LabourStart Canada

UPDATED: You Get What You Pay For

That fundamental truth is grasped by two small-scale entrepreneurs, much to the shame of much larger entities like Tim Hortons which, as widely reported, are taking out their outrage and venality on their employees.

Gilleen Witkowski, who operates a dog-walking business in Toronto, has this to say:

“I’m a millennial and my whole working life, the minimum wage was frozen or close to frozen. That’s my context,” says the 32-year-old co-founder of Walk My Dog.

“I’ve seen people attempt and fail to make a living on just minimum wage, and watched people struggle in the new economy to get good jobs with their degrees.”

Her decent work strategy, she says, has proved a success.

“I totally understand the concerns around cost because I am a small business now. But I think the benefits outweigh the cost. The loyalty I’ve seen from my staff is incredible.”

“It’s doing the right thing, but there are tangible benefits and that is my low turnover,” she added.

Those truths were something that took Damin Starr longer to discover. Originally employed by his hard-nosed father, who taught him that the bottom line is the only thing that really matters, Starr eventually started his own company, PreLine Processing, and retained his father's chief tenet,

leaning heavily on minimum wage temp agency workers.

The epiphany, he says, came when he returned from Toronto having secured a $40,000 contract, only to find $10,000 worth of mistakes on his shop floor in Lincoln, Ont.

“I was working all sorts of extra hours because I had inexperienced workers making mistakes,” he says. “I’m not blaming the workers. I blame myself. What a miserable environment I had.”

After sitting down with his permanent employees, Starr made some 'radical' changes:

... [H]e dumped temp agencies and ramped up wages. Together with his employees, he calculated a living wage for his region — which in 2012, he figured to be $15 an hour.

“We decided that you couldn’t work for us for less,” he said, noting his base rate is now more than $17 an hour.

“People were thrilled with the fact that there was a commitment to ensure that nobody wouldn’t be able to pay their bills at the end of the day,” he added.

“Something occurred during that time that made me proud of the business and proud of the staff.”

Change is never easy. However, despite the loud protestations of some businesses, it seems that treating one's workers with respect and dignity is not the money-losing proposition the reactionary right would have us believe.

UPDATE: Still not convinced? Take a look at what Ivan Gedz is doing in Ottawa for his restaurant employees:

A Centretown restaurant is boosting base wages for its kitchen crew to $16 an hour, a move that will affect half-a-dozen staff while making a “negligible” difference in prices for customers, its co-owner says.

Corporate Crocodile Tears: A Guest Post

In response to my post yesterday about CBC bias in its reporting on Ontario's minimum wage increase, the Mound wrote a detailed commentary that I am featuring today as a guest post. Following his piece I reproduce a letter from a Star reader pillorying corporate hypocrisy.

"Government should function on the expectation that corporations will act in their own economic self-interest." That point is inarguable. The corporate self-interest, however, has to be subordinated somewhat to the public interest. The political caste is elected to represent the public who voted them into power and those voters who preferred someone else. They are not elected to put corporate interests ahead of the public interest but to balance the conflicting needs of labour and capital recognizing, as Lincoln said, that "labour is by far the superior."

That principle, stated by Lincoln, is especially relevant today in this era of early-onset automation that is going to become a more dominant factor in our industrial economy. Galbraith addresses this in "The Predator State."

Ours is a consumer economy and there's really nothing else we can substitute for that. The corporate sector collapses without access to markets sufficiently large to purchase and consume their wares. Henry Ford knew that it was essential that his workers earned enough to be able to afford to buy his cars.

Commerce today engages in nihilistic pursuit of unsustainable profits at the expense of even its own mid- and long-term interests. Executive compensation is based on what the company takes in today, not how it may be positioned to fare in the next decade or the one after that.

A month before the Republican tax cuts were passed, corporations were gearing up for the anticipated windfall. They weren't hiring new employees or adding additional machinery, they were organizing share buy backs. They were using the newfound money to buy back outstanding shares sending share prices soaring, hence increasing executive compensation. And the US government is funding this nihilism with an additional 1.5 trillion in borrowings. Call it "the art of the deal."

In the era of globalism our neoliberal political caste thought they could finally wash their hands of responsibility for the balancing of public and private interests, delegating this fundamental responsibility to "the invisible hand of the marketplace." Only that hand no longer works as they fantasize.

We think fondly of the era of Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, the vision they brought to our country. That began to wane under Mulroney and Chretien but it was crushed under Harper and, sadly, now Trudeau the lesser. Now when we desperately need leaders of vision again, leaders who can navigate us through these enormous challenges of the day, that quality is no longer on offer.

And from Robert Bahlieda of Newmarket:

Starting salary for top CEOs? $2,489 an hour, Wells, Jan. 2

Kudos to Jennifer Wells for exposing the other side of the coin. The sadness of the headline is that we have all accepted and internalized the bizarre logic of capitalism and can see no way out. We read the article and then move on.

The logic of a free market is to convince everyone that extreme wealth is good and necessary, so extreme relative poverty must be its alternative. But even here, there is deception. This is reflected in the salaries of CEOs and of the minimum wage for workers. The $14 minimum wage is held out as either a pariah or a godsend.

The business community warns of job losses while it pays its CEOs handsome salaries and perks. But if paying a living wage is that critical, businesses that are stretched so thin should close their doors. The whole point of business is not to create wealth for the business but also a good quality of life for workers. If businesses cannot pay good living wages, health care, pensions and other basic aspects of daily living, they should not be in business. It’s a false capitalist logic to say we can only operate on minimum wages while profits are booming and the senior suite is golden.

CEO salaries are the same. They have increased every year for the past 40 years while workers’ wages have remained stagnant. Everyone knows this lie. The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report (2016) noted that the top 1 per cent owned more than half of the worlds’ assets and the bottom half owned virtually nothing.

The real irony is that taxpayers are paying for the minimum wage and CEO increases. The federal government is cutting small-business taxes by 0.5 per cent immediately and another 1 per cent cut is coming. They have also modified the corporate tax penalty on small business to make it non-existent. Provincial governments have chipped in cash to ease the transition as well.

But still the wailing and gnashing of teeth goes on in the business community. So stop the whining and change the system.

UPDATED: A CBC Bias?

I will be the first to admit that I get only modest amounts of my news from television. However, due to the severe cold we have been experiencing for too long here in Ontario, I have been doing very little walking, usually a mainstay of my daily routine. To compensate, I have been spending some time downstairs where I have a small treadmill and other exercise equipment. Because of exercise's intrinsically boring nature, I have taken to watching CBC News Network. Because I am not a regular viewer of such news sources, please bear in mind that the following is only my impression and may, in fact, be a distorted perception of what the network is offering.

My sense is that there is a real effort on the part of the network to placate the right-wing. Two stories, although perhaps too small a sampling to demonstrate a genuine pattern, suggest this. The first, an interview also placed on the CBC's website, examines the impact of minimum wage increases that took effect in Ontario on January 1.

Farmer Kevin Howe of Howe Family Farms in Aylmer, Ont., a small business that has been in operation for five generations, said he's already reducing the amount of crops he plans to plant this year, and fears he won't need as many workers because consumers won't be willing to pay the higher prices he'll have to charge to cover wage increases.

"Costs are always going up and we need to be able to pass these costs on to stay in business," he told CBC News in an interview Tuesday.

Some summers he hires up to 400 people to pick his strawberry crop, but this year there will be far fewer hours available as the farm has reduced its strawberry acreage by 30 per cent as a precaution. "It's definitely going to impact the amount of work available," he said. "It's going to make for shorter days [and is] definitely not going to be good for the community."

While Andrew Nichols certainly offered a sympathetic ear to young Kevin Howe, notably absent was any offer of a countervailing view by Nichols, for example, the fact that most economists seen the increase as ultimately yielding a net benefit to business because of the increased buying power customers will have. The host, instead, seemed content with feeding Howe leading questions that bolstered his position.

Not yet convinced that this is anything more than a particular host's handling of an issue? Then take a look at the following, in which Diane Buckner interviews Ian Lee, a professor at the Sprott School of Business. Start at about the 2:12mark, when they begin to duscuss the disgraceful behaviour of Coburg's Tim Hortons, bullying behaviour that now appears to be spreading.



You will note that while Buckner gamely sets up the story with a context that might provoke some anger at the franchisees' mean-spirited actions, and attempts to provide balance throughout the interview, Lee's sympathies clearly lie with the owners and their massive profits. For him, the costs entailed by labour seem to be one of those unfortunate and dirty realities to be lamented as loudly as possible. Indeed, he even goes so far as to claim, at the end of the piece, that the wage increase will result in 60,000 layoffs, an absolute misrepresentation of the Bank of Canada report. Clearly, the CBC knew what they were getting when they hired Ian Lee to occupy a pundit's perch.

My final evidence for CBC bias is an opinion piece by
Robyn Urback, a columnist for the National Post who was hired in 2016 to write and produce for the CBC's Opinion section. Entitled Of course businesses would act like businesses in wake of minimum wage hikes her view is also one of total sympathy for business owners.

Businesses exist to make money. Government should function on the expectation that corporations will act in their own economic self-interest. Instead, in the case of Ontario, officials feign shock and outrage when a business tries to maximize profits, and release silly statements like the one Premier Kathleen Wynne did Thursday afternoon, accusing one of the vacationing Tim Hortons heirs of being a "bully" for eliminating paid breaks and other benefits.

Sure, eliminating paid breaks is not very nice. But what, exactly, did the premier think was going to happen? Employers would just absorb the added costs? Dip into their own personal profits? OK, and maybe my prom dress still fits, too?

The article goes on in a similar vein for some time, but I imagine you get the flavour of it from that excerpt.

So is our national broadcaster providing fair and balanced coverage of a crucial social and economic issue? My guess would be it is not. For that, you may wish to go to this piece entitled Relax, Ontario’s minimum wage increase will not lead to massive job losses, found on the Vice website, or this thoughtful essay by Michael Coren entitled Why Tim Hortons doesn’t deserve your sympathy, on the TVO website.

UPDATED: The Hamilton Spectator's Deidre Pike also has an interesting reflection on minimum wage increases.