McDonald’s proud of work record

Re Thank God I’m a city boy Column, Nov. 8. As a proud, 33- year employee with McDonald’s Canada and its current president, I take extreme offence to the way in which columnist Ariel Teplitsky categorizes a job at McDonald’s.

If Teplitsky were more familiar with McDonald’s, he would be aware that, unlike some of the other jobs and lifestyle choices mentioned in the article, the opportunities for advancement at McDonald’s are limitless. For example, more than 50 per cent of the top management at McDonald’s Canada, including me, began as crew working behind the counter, including on “ deep fryer duty,” as did approximately 25 per cent of our franchisee community nationwide and well over 60 per cent of our current restaurant managers. McDonald’s is proud of our employment record. We offer employees a dynamic, fastpaced, challenging and fun working environment — where they can work alongside their friends. In recent years, we have been recognized as one of the Top 50 companies to work for in Canada in a study conducted on behalf of Report On Business Magazine. In addition, McDonald’s teaches critical life skills that people maintain forever, including reliability, teamwork, responsibility and interpersonal skills and provides opportunity for advancement in the growing food service and hospitality industry. We take our responsibility as a leading employer of youth in Canada seriously, which is why we are the employer of choice for more than 77,000 Canadians today. Louie Mele, President, McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Limited, Toronto