RBC outsourcing highlights labour laws
Re: Less about foreign workers, more about outsourcing; RBC similar to other firms looking to cut costs, Column, April 10
The “displacement worker” practice is not typical cost cutting. Rather it is a kind of usury, more properly known as rent seeking.
Corporations with engorged profits, like the Royal Bank of Canada, are enlarging their margin, not by producing new goods and services, but by transferring wealth from their employees. They are making money by doing nothing to earn it. The dividends of this manoeuvre are bloated bonuses for the corporate elite. The dividend for our country is increasing impoverishment, inequality, discouragement and ultimately an increasingly unpleasant place to live.
JIM HARRIS Burnaby
RBC’s designs to outsource dozens of Toronto jobs overseas raise a number of questions.
In light of the recent changes to the Employment Insurance plan, will workers whose jobs are outsourced be eligible for benefits?
And if they are, will they have to take a job that pays 70 per cent of their previous wages and have to travel as much as an hour away from their homes?
Doesn’t the fact that the government lowered the corporate tax rate more than five years in a row make RBC’s decision all the more outrageous?
And when will the federal government stop subsidizing employers to the tune of five to 15 per cent of labour costs on the backs of temporary foreign workers and at the expense of Canadians?
These are just some of the questions that clearly show how Canada favours the powerful over the middle class. I personally think that it’s high time we protest against this “system” and make it loud and clear that “we’ve had enough!”
ROBERT BOUVIER President, Teamsters Canada
Re: Royal Bank CEO apologizes, tells Canadian workers they won’t be axed, April 11
The silver- tongued head of RBC finally got around to apologizing for the foreign workers controversy swirling around his bank. No, Gord Nixon did not have an epiphany on the road to Ottawa and suddenly become a born- again believer in his Canadian workers. He is in damage control mode. He made a strategic decision to diffuse the current ( and he hopes short- term) uproar to protect his company’s bottom line.
Corporations have been intentionally abusing the foreign workers program and Harper’s government was happy to assist them until the issue exploded into a political liability.
Many Canadian are outraged by the rapidly expanding use of low cost foreign workers. Instead of allowing companies to pay foreign workers 15 per cent less than the going rate, Harper’s government should make the companies pay a 15 per cent surtax based on their foreigner workers’ wages.
Mister Harper should be enticing ( or forcing) Canadian corporations to actively participate in apprenticeship and technical training programs. Canadian workers spend their money in our country; foreign workers send a large portion home. Profit- driven corporations are enhancing the technological skill sets of workers from counties that are Canada’s global competitors.
That doesn’t seem very clever.
LLOYD ATKINS Vernon
The Temporary Foreign Worker Program has been the subject of a wide range of accusations, citing employer abuse of the program.
The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association fully supports the federal government review of the program, and a thorough investigation of claimed program abuses.
Our members also support use of the TFW program only when Canadians are not available to fill the job. We want the reputation of the program enhanced because it is vital to our industry.
Short- term foreign workers have been a lifeline to many of the country’s food service operators.
Our members would prefer to hire Canadians to do the job rather than navigate the expensive and at times cumbersome TFW application process. It is, simply, far more cost effective to hire Canadians.
But for some of our members, hiring a temporary foreign worker is their last option to staff jobs such as kitchen food preparation and counter service, particularly in the west and isolated northern communities, or on the “graveyard night shift.”
Continuation of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is vital to our industry remaining a major contributor to Canada’s economy and a leading source of jobs for Canadians — from chefs and servers to accountants and IT professionals.
GARTH WHYTE President and CEO, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
Budget officer key to government credibility
If our government thinks they can hide from public scrutiny they will be more likely to do things Canadians don’t want.
In March 54,500 Canadians lost their jobs and the government’s budget cuts are going to make it harder for Canadians to find work.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty promised the cuts wouldn’t affect Canadians, but independent research shows that Human Resources & Skills Development will lose nearly a third of its workforce at a time when Canadians most need training and jobs.
When Prime Minister Harper ran for office in 2006, he promised to clean up Ottawa. He created the Parliamentary Budget Office so Canadians would know what our government is doing with our money.
From F- 35s to prisons, Kevin Page, our first federal budget watchdog, showed that he could hold government accountable for fiscal mismanagement.
But Harper let Kevin Page’s term expire just before his government released this secretive and misleading budget, and the entire process to replace him is veiled in secrecy.
Prime Minister Harper has to choose: either he can run an open process to pick a strengthened Parliamentary Budget Officer, or he’s proving to Canadians that his government can’t stand up to real fiscal oversight. Who does Harper work for? Canadian citizens or corporations?
Bring back Kevin Page as he was doing an excellent job. Without him we have no clue about all the waste.
BONITA POULIN Quadeville, Ont.
Why let a few bombs ruin a perfectly good movie?
Re: The best — and the rest; Films that earned Ebert’s thumbs up, thumbs down, April 5
The year was 1941, the War was on and I was 13 years old. Mum and Dad took us to the movies with them every Monday night. The movie was Casablanca.
Flashed on the screen was the message “An Air Raid is in progress. Those wishing to remain may do so. The projectionist will continue to run the film. Others wishing to use the Air Raid Shelter, please follow your usherette.”
We remained seated. After a few minutes we could hear the bombs. Dad said to Mum, “Lilian, I think we should go in the shelter. Mum’s reply was, “Just let’s watch the next bit.”
After a few minutes the sound of bombs got louder and my Dad said, “Lilian, I think we should go in the shelter.” Mum’s reply was the same, “Just let’s watch the next bit.”
So we watched the next bit and so on until the end of the movie.
When we went out of the cinema we were the only ones remaining, and the trams and buses were no longer running. It was the night of the Manchester blitz and we were just five miles away in Stockport.
I am 84 years old now and when Casablanca was on TV recently I watched it with fond memories of my Mum saying, “Just let’s watch the next bit.”
JUNE SHAWCROSS Abbotsford
Speak up for minority languages and cultures
Re: Readers speak out on race, racism; Reactions to column on signs range from an entirely opposite perspective to ‘ disbelief’, Column, April 9
Did First Nations get mentioned even once among the dozens of responses to Pete McMartin’s discussion of race, culture and the Richmond sign law issue?
We need to remember in this debate those cultures’ languages receive little protection today and they were dominant at the time of contact.
That representatives of English and French used their majority in 1969 to make their languages “official” is no reason to expect them to retain this status permanently.
What’s more, even the Official Languages Act gives no more rights to English- speakers expecting to see their language on business signage than it does to French- speakers in B. C. wanting professional medical service in theirs.
So in this nation whose complexity makes it great, let us be tolerant of minority cultures lest we become one ourselves.
LUKE MAYBA Vancouver
Women can get away with belittling men
Thank you for gracing the front page of your newspaper April 9 with such a misandrist and childish quote by Margaret Thatcher: “If you want something said, ask a man ... if you want something done, ask a woman.”
It made for great fun in the workplace as the belittling of men by women becomes completely acceptable in mainstream society.
DAVID SUSSMAN Vancouver
StatsCan cuts not as bad as they might sound
Re: More front- line jobs to be cut: report; Reduction of 29,000 positions will hit Canadians harder than first thought, April 8
The story reports that from 2012 to 2016 Statistics Canada is facing a 35 per cent staff cut. While technically correct, this statement is highly misleading.
More than three- quarters of the decrease can be attributed to the regular census cycle. Full- time equivalent employees ( FTEs) peak in census collection years, then decrease until the next census.
Total FTEs at Statistics Canada in 2011- 12, a census collection year, were 6,461. By 201516, FTEs will decrease by 2,230. Of these, 1,711 worked for the Census, accounting for 77 per cent of the overall decrease in FTEs.
The reduction in FTEs due to Budget 2012 is 413. This reduction was announced in Budget 2012, and implemented in 2012- 2013. There are no new reductions as a result of Budget 2013. As well, the reassignment of Statistics Canada employees to Shared Services Canada that was announced last year accounts for much of the rest of the decrease.
GABRIELLE BEAUDOIN Director- general, communications, Statistics Canada
Get involved in the B. C. election by voting
When you watch the evening news or read the daily paper these days, you are likely to ask yourself why we are going to all the expense and bother of a provincial election. The result has apparently already been determined. Polling companies have conducted surveys.
We have just begun the democratic process in which time is set aside for the candidates and the electorate to communicate with each other.
We are able to hear what each candidate is proposing, let them know what is important to us and make an informed decision which is reflected in the ballot box, not on the evening news over a month before the election.
Please don’t be misled. Your opinion matters. The only way the next session of the legislature can truly reflect your values and work toward your goals is if you have actively participated.
Inform yourself of the issues and vote. Let’s make the next term four years a reflection of the values of all British Columbians not just a select few. Your opinion matters — express it!
ANDREE D’ANDREA Maple Ridge