Slavery Canadian style

Politics and Social Issues
1

Last year I noticed an unusual change in the staffing at my local bank branch, overnight people that had been there for years suddenly disappeared and were replaced by people who in many cases seemed to have a limited grasp of English and often how to do their job in a professional manner. Now I learn that my bank along with many Canadian and foreign based companies with outlets here are using temporary foreign workers under a program that was originally set up to meet short term labour shortages. These workers are paid less and have no real ability to challenge employers or organize. In some cases they are forced to rent living accommodations from their employers leading to claims of a new form of slavery by some temporary workers.

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. “When we arrived at the airport, they said, ‘We already have an apartment for you,’ so at that point we already know we don’t have a choice of where to live," said Jaime Montero, who came to Edmonton with four others in September to work at McDonald’s. "We had to live there. We were told this is what we are doing," said another worker who didn't want to be named because he still works for McDonald's. The Belizeans said their dream of making good money in Canada to send to their families quickly shattered. Instead, they pocketed less than $800 per month – which they said was barely enough to live on. Edmonton McDonald's The Belizians worked at McDonald's locations in south Edmonton and said it took them more than an hour to get to work by public transit. (CBC) “You work for us now, so we are your owners. It’s like that, you know," said Montero. “We felt like slaves. They just brought us and threw us on the side."
An anti-TFW program website carried out an operation to find lawyers willing to break the law and bring in foreign workers even when there were qualified Canadians applying for positions, they found a number more than willing. http://www.northumberlandnews.com/news-story/4535876-immigration-lawyers-caught-in-tfw-blog-sting/
OTTAWA - A website devoted to documenting abuses of the temporary foreign worker program is on the hunt for immigration law firms that might be willing to help employers dodge rules that require them to hire Canadians first. Operators of the website NTFW.ca, which maps and identifies businesses that hire temporary foreign workers, posed as a company called Big Jimmy's Construction and sent an email to a number of law firms specializing in immigration issues. In the email, "Jimmy" says he wants to hire a Thai family member, but has been flooded with interested Canadians after posting the job on the federal government's job bank — a necessary step for those seeking to hire temporary foreign workers. "I made the qualifications as strict as possible and kept the salary as low as possible to discourage Canadian applicants. But I ended up getting 100s of resumes!" the email says. "Do you think you could help me get an LMO (labour market opinion) even though I have 100s of Canadians wanting that job?" One of the replies, which the site says was sent by someone at the firm of Toronto-area immigration lawyer Adela Crossley, came as a surprise to the website's founder, Rohana Rezel. "Trust me when I say that she would find a way around the fact that there are suitable Canadian candidates; she is very creative," says the reply.
Thousands of Canadians have already lost their jobs, the value of labour has been diminished and unions are losing their ability to effectively represent their members or even organize. It's a dream for employers like McDonalds that has been named in several provinces for abusing the system, they get low paid employees who if they cause any trouble are fired and must leave Canada. The anti-TFWs site is below, which is how I found out that my current bank has laid off Canadian employees in favour of lesser paid "temporary" workers from other countries. They're hardly temporary when they're taking permanent positions that recently were filled by Canadians. http://ntfw.ca/ Facts on the TFW program. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/temporary-foreign-workers-everything-you-need-to-know/article18363279/ There are now almost 350,000 "temporary" foreign workers in Canada. This is just one more example of a conservative Canadian government that has no respect for basic morals and ethics, let alone human dignity.
2

Holy hell, that’s crazy.
It’s a sign of social decay if third world workers are being staffed by government into fast-food jobs in the first world, IMO.
I would not call it slavery, because they are getting paid, but it’s probably not far from slavery.

3

This is one good reason why liberals and the left should not forsake every last drop of their(our) Nationalism, as they seem wont to do in the past years.
Big Mistake. The Liberal/Left is far too fragmented into too many factions. I guess it’s probably the same in Canada too.
Nationalism is not a bad word.

4
This is one good reason why liberals and the left should not forsake every last drop of their(our) Nationalism, as they seem wont to do in the past years. Big Mistake. The Liberal/Left is far too fragmented into too many factions. I guess it's probably the same in Canada too. Nationalism is not a bad word.
It's not nationalism, it's human rights. Nationalism is all too often a bad word and a bad concept. Lois
5

It’s basically about companies that are already very profitable finding ways to increase the profit margin while at the same time undercutting any bargaining power of their employees. Banks that claim hundreds of millions of dollars in profit each quarter don’t need to fire Canadians so they can hire “temporary” workers who don’t enjoy the same protection from exploitation as Canadians.
This is just one more case of our very cynical conservative government trying to re-write the social contract in favour of those who are already wealthy.
Not only has the Harper government been targeting environmental groups, it’s also been after the unions.
http://lawofwork.ca/?p=6273

In his stirring and memorable speech in the Senate yesterday, Senior Conservative Senator Hugh Segal didn’t say anything that hasn’t already be said by newspaper columnists, academics, unions, the Canadian Bar Association, and many others. However, the fact that it was a respected Conservative pointing out that recent attacks against unions by the Federal Conservatives are little more politically motivated, transparent attempts to silence dissent is very striking. Read Senator Segal’s speech from Senate yesterday here. It makes for great reading, and probably will be quoted for years to come. He was speaking about Bill C-377, which is the private member’s bill that singles out unions as the only organization in Canada that would be required to publicly disclose every single purchase made over $5000, as well as the precise amount of time spent on something called “political activities" by every union employee. I’ve talked about the Bill before.
As I've been posting, the current Canadian government represents few if any of traditional Canadian values. This puts it very well, Stephen Harper is on a single minded mission to turn Canada into the kind of country he thinks it should be no matter what the opposition or eventual consequences, it's one of the craziest things I've seen in my life. http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2014/03/the-incrementalist/
Wells’s central thesis is that Harper is a man with a mission. Contrary to Jean Chrétien’s definition of a good politician as “the one who wins," Harper is of another breed. He is, very much like Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a man who seeks political power in order to bring about a social project. To such people, political power is a means to an end. Where Trudeau and Harper differ is, of course, in the nature of the project dear to their hearts. Trudeau’s was to combat Quebec separatism, to strengthen federalism, to enhance the bilingual and multi-ethnic nature of Canada and to enshrine a number of human rights protecting the people against abuse, including abuse by their own governments. To a large extent the aim of Harper’s conservatism is to eradicate that whole platform. Wells writes:
Human rights mean nothing to a man who unquestioning supports Israel, showed not the slightest concern for the very real possibility that Canadian soldiers were likely turning captives in Afghanistan over to a government that would torture and possibly execute them without trial and the likely link of Canadian aid to the Columbian government and human rights abuses there. It's almost impossible for me to think like our current PM does as it seems devoid of basic empathy, more than a few people here are convinced we have a psychopath in our highest elected office.