Trudeau’s contempt for Canadians & Labour…
A final report by UN investigator Tomoya Obokata concludes that Canada’s temporary foreign worker program is a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.
Prof. Obokata is the United Nations’ special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery and a professor of international human-rights law at the University of York in Britain.
“The special rapporteur retains the view that the temporary foreign worker program serves as a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights,” states the final report, which is dated July 22 and was recently posted online.
By Gregg Wall (8-31-2024)
When I first moved to Canada, I noticed that parliamentary democracy is unique, relative to the American government, in its ability to actually get things done. But like two-faced Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, parliamentary democracy is also capable of exhibiting another side or face, incredible amounts of corruption from its leaders. Mr. Trudeau has been caught in scandal after scandal, since his rise to power 2015, but his latest scandal, abusing Canada’s immigration and labour programs… essentially, abusing a flood of immigrants and Canadian workers… may prove to be his costliest scandal yet. The final straw.
At issue, the United Nations has called out Canada for abusing immigrants, under its temporary worker program, calling it contemporary slavery … as reported in the Globe & Mail:
“The special rapporteur received reports of underpayment and wage theft, physical, emotional and verbal abuse, excessive work hours, limited breaks, extracontractual work, uncompensated managerial duties, lack of personal protective equipment, including in hazardous conditions, confiscation of documents and arbitrary reductions of working hours. Women reported sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse.”
The program has exploded under the Trudeau government leading to 2.8 million immigrants (sizeable given Canada’s population of 40 million). Trudeau having recently doubled the annual quota to 500,000 immigrants per year. All this at a time when healthcare, affordable housing, and infrastructure have been underfunded and it clearly shows. As pointed out by Tony Keller in the Globe & Mail, there were two primary - unspoken - purposes to the foreign worker program: the first, is crushing Canadian wages at the bottom of the wage scale; and two, employing desperate immigrants, who will pay colleges, employers, and middlemen for the privilege of working in Canada.
But as pointed out by a younger Trudeau, back in 2014, when he was crucifying the prior Harper government for many of the same issues, it’s not just low wage workers impacted - when wages are held down by employers, exploiting a huge pool of desperate immigrant labour - but all Canadian wages are impacted. And with the explosive growth in immigration, of course, came the middle men, the racketeers, the labour pimps…. Who exploit desperate labour for huge fees ($10,000 to $180,000 CAD, as reported in Bloomberg), sometimes an immigrant’s life savings, to get them into Canada and expedite the process with jobs that don’t pay a living wage and may lead to indentured servitude. Absolutely appalling and disgusting conditions all too often accompany these jobs.
Even the Bank of Canada and its leader got in on the act. Tiff Macklem, bank governor, called for growth in immigrant labor, for employers to suppress wages, and not cave into labor demands, when the inflation crisis started up during the COVID pandemic. Tiff wholly subscribed to the nonsense that inflation was demand driven… but we now know, greed, monopoly power, and price gouging have played a huge role in soaring prices and profits. The Bank of Canada’s and the Trudeau gov’s answer to the inflation crisis wasn’t to rein in greedy employers but crush labour, with an influx of immigrants, which juiced corporate bottom lines. It seems that an immigration wave was no longer used to fill farm jobs, but low wage jobs across the economy (jobs many Canadians rely upon during times of high unemployment) … its seems that the resulting wage suppression for Canadians and immigrants didn’t translate into lower prices but greater greed, prices, and profits.
It appears Tiff and his policy prescriptions were wrong. Not only did wage-spirals not appear, but in fact, the entire episode points to at least two doom loops. Part of the case Trudeau attempted to make to justify record immigration is lack of population growth… but why aren’t Canadians breeding? Canadians aren’t breeding because the neoliberal economy is a disaster, wages are suppressed by monopoly and monopsony power, and labour and families are squeezed harder by outrageous profit taking and supply-side price spirals. Lower wages, plus higher prices equal a baby bust. Few younger Canadians can afford to bring a child into this world under the neoliberal regime, the Trudeau government, and the monopoly economy…. Successive waves of exploited immigrants, further suppressing wages, does little to help the libido of Canadian families or population growth. And so, the loop is complete: more exploitable, grossly underpaid immigrants are allegedly required. Thanks to Conservative and Liberal government mismanagement… and the BOC… 25% of Canadians now live in poverty. At the moment, blame rests squarely on Trudeau and Tiff Macklem.
The second doom loop concerns consolidation in the economy… one of my favorite topics, of course this is a problem seen throughout Western economies… and the totalitarian power of monopoly and monopsony. Depending upon the elasticity of demand, Monopoly can and does dictate price; and depending upon the number of employment options, monopsony can and does dictate wages. And guess who wins, guess who always wins… and guess who loses, guess who always loses: Canadian families, immigrants, and labour. And the more consolidated the economy becomes, resulting in fewer employment opportunities and fewer places to shop, the more Canadians will become impoverished. A process that has been underway for several decades, ever rising wage & wealth inequality. The more the Trudeau government sides with business interests and wealthy donors, against labour and Canadian families, the more Canada will become impoverished (Liberals increasingly becoming known as the political party that transfers wages & wealth to a handful of greedy corporations). The more Tiff Macklem feeds financial engineering, M&A, monopoly formation, and PE with easy money policies, the more Canadians will, again & again, become impoverished in increasingly greater numbers. The more monopolies seek growth, from an impoverished public, the more they turn to & seek out further consolidation and arbitrarily jack up prices to achieve growth, inorganically. A seemingly never-ending spiral or doom loop that folds in on itself, until it’s forced to stop, breaks the economy, or worse. Seems that Trudeau, Tiff, and Canadian oligarchs really don’t care where Canada gets its labour, as long as it’s exploitable and highly inexpensive.
There’s not enough time today to get into Trudeau cutting the legs out from under the Teamsters Canada and Canadian railroad workers… just chock it up to another example of the Liberal Party screwing labour, Canadian families, and coming down in favor of Railroad monopolies & utilities. Reminiscent of President Biden screwing railroad workers. Coincidence? Many of the problems described in this write up are alive, festering, and virulent in Europe, the UK, and the U.S.
What does it all add up to? Trudeau, a scandal plagued government, screwing Canadian families, exploiting immigrant and foreign workers, slavery, indentured servitude… the Liberal gov siding with monopolies, oligarchs, & utilities, who already enjoy an economy entirely rigged in their favor? Well, it points to a complete collapse in leadership, great ethical and moral failings by the Trudeau government. To such an extent that Trudeau and the Liberal gov’s numbers are in free fall.
Now, it’s really Mr. Singh’s call, the federal NDP’s call. Trudeau and liberals are entirely dependent upon the NDP to remain in power. With NDP numbers also in free fall, does Mr. Singh ride it out with a Trudeau government until the 2025 election? Or does Mr. Singh pull the plug? Mr. Singh having achieved all that he could apparently squeeze out the Liberal government, under a deal to keep the minority, Liberal government in power… To wit, incrementalism on dental care, incrementalism on pharma care. Incrementalism being shorthand for ‘failure.’ I hope it was worth it, Mr. Singh. Clearly, you don’t drive a hard bargain.
Ultimately, I’m not sure that the Conservative government will be any better for Canada, Canadian families, and labour (likely worse) … but how can anyone allow the Trudeau government to continue to wear, like Janus, two faces, two masks: one as a pretend benevolent actor, the other as a fraud and no friend to the Canadian people, immigrants, or the nation? The federal NDP is already smeared & tarred by its association with Justin, and the federal NDP is seen as Trudeau’s enabler and lackey. A problem that is only going to grow worse with time.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024
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