Canada imports more workers.

[SurplusElect]

You can work at Taco Time, serving the mine owner his 45 taco's for lunch while telling him they were "mined fresh today!"

Too bad you cant get a job at the mine - those jobs are for the Blue Light 15% Off Chinese Workers Special.

[Glacier]

This is a joke. Canada, home to 60% of the world's mining companies doesn't have the resources or expertise to use it's own citizens? Bullspit! These coal mines are nothing but robbery. The People's Republic of China is sure getting a sweet deal here. They send their workers over here to extract OUR resources, and ship it all back to China without Canadians reaping much of a benefit. What a flippin' joke.

Here's an idea, maybe if we don't have enough workers we should slow down and stop raping our resources. You know, extraction at a sustainable and controlled level. Ever heard of Lady Fern? We are losing billions of dollars in wealth because we aren't behaving like proper stewards of the land. Ever heard of the atlantic cod fishery? Every heard of the what is happening to water in Arizona?

Don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to mines and pipelines, but things have to be done in a responsible manner. Economists will tell you that temporary foreign workers are a horrible option 9 times out of 10. Do these people in government not understand basic economics? Don't they think before bending over? It'll only hurt for a little while, you say? So freekin what, you're still getting violated to high heaven.

Don't these policy makers understand that natural gas isn't the only commodity that tanks when we open up all the mines at once? Please read the Lady Fern link.

End rant. I have pop another pill. Adiós, amigos.

[grammafreddy]

I heard the Chinese workers will be able to come for four years and bring their families with them. Any child born in Canada is automatically a Canadian citizen.

I am soooo opposed to this. These jobs should be for Canadians - not temp Chinese workers. They are bringing in the Chinese because they will work for less pay and perks and because the Chinese corporation can threaten them with being sent back to China and to make them work beyond what Canadian labour laws allow.

This is so wrong in so many ways.

[Sn0man]

This is a joke. Canada, home to 60% of the world's mining companies doesn't have the resources or expertise to use it's own citizens? Bullspit! These coal mines are nothing but robbery. The People's Republic of China is sure getting a sweet deal here. They send their workers over here to extract OUR resources, and ship it all back to China without Canadians reaping much of a benefit. What a flippin' joke.

Embrace the future! Where Canadians pay taxes to our Chinese owners and English is a third language behind Chinese and Punjabi.

[GrooveTunes]

"Our country has long relied on immigration and every demographic indication suggests we must continue to do so. So why have our governments abandoned the traditional immigration programs in favour of the TFW program? It’s simple, to give employers a cheap, indentured labour force".


http://blogs.theprovince.com/2012/10/29/jim-sinclair-b-c-jobs-plan-abandons-local-benefits-and-exploits-workers/

[The Green Barbarian]

"Our country has long relied on immigration and every demographic indication suggests we must continue to do so. So why have our governments abandoned the traditional immigration programs in favour of the TFW program? It’s simple, to give employers a cheap, indentured labour force".


http://blogs.theprovince.com/2012/10/29/jim-sinclair-b-c-jobs-plan-abandons-local-benefits-and-exploits-workers/

Sinclair just has a bee up his bonnet because these aren't unionized workers. He could care less about Canada, it's all about maximizing the union dues. I've actually heard from farmer friends that the unions are now trying to bully and intimidate Mexican workers into unionizing, despite there being legal contracts in place already - what a surprise. So far, the usual union bully tactics haven't worked, but you know that this immigration program is driving the union kingpins crazy.

[GrooveTunes]

Didn't take long for GB to hijack another thread into a union bashing thread. What a surprise.

[The Green Barbarian]

Didn't take long for GB to hijack another thread into a union bashing thread. What a surprise.

it's not union-bashing - I'm just pointing out which side Sinclair's bread is buttered - but of course the apologists have to cry whenever the truth is exposed. Trying to portray Sinclair as some kind of advocate for Canada is extremely weak sauce, and you know it.

[The Green Barbarian]

and to add further - the people I know who are using Mexican labourers are using them not because they want access to "cheap indentured labour" as the melodramatic Sinclair likes to wax on so poetically about. It's mostly, almost 100% due, to the fact that they just can't find good reliable labour from Canadians who live here. They don't want to do the jobs that need to be done, even with being paid higher wages. It's the same with my friend who is using Philippine labour in his warehouse in Edmonton. There just is no one already living in Canada who wants to do the job. You can cry and complain and make excuses that its because the farmers are "cheap" and "slave drivers" but that's just excuses. So I go back to the main point - Sinclair is mad because these labourers aren't unionized. That's the bottom line.

[GrooveTunes]

Didn't take long for GB to hijack another thread into a union bashing thread. What a surprise.

it's not union-bashing - I'm just pointing out which side Sinclair's bread is buttered - but of course the apologists have to cry whenever the truth is exposed. Trying to portray Sinclair as some kind of advocate for Canada is extremely weak sauce, and you know it.

Advocate for Canada he is just like other labour leaders I know, which in turn benefits the working stiff at large and you know it. It's the cry baby business owners that hate truth. They might have to reach into their pockets for their share of the government grants they can get to train people.

[The Green Barbarian]

Advocate for Canada he is just like other labour leaders I know, which in turn benefits the working stiff at large and you know it. It's the cry baby business owners that hate truth.

no, its our lazy entitled current generation that doesn't want to work for a living, because they've been told by losers like Sinclair that the world owes them a living. That's the truth. Almost all the money made by foreign workers goes home to feed their families. There is over a $1 billion a year going back to the Philippines every year from Canada alone earned by workers here. It's about time our generation understood a bit of pain and suffering, and why we as a country got to where it is today. Not by being lazy whiners, but by busting our butts.

[GrooveTunes]

Ya there are lazy people out there. But if it's easier and cheaper to get foreign workers thanks to Harper & company then why dip into the billions of dollars in cash they are sitting on and paying their share of the training costs? Bottom line is it brings down wages of every Canadian and thats the truth. ( and you know it)

[The Green Barbarian]

Ya there are lazy people out there. But if it's easier and cheaper to get foreign workers thanks to Harper & company then why dip into the billions of dollars in cash they are sitting on and paying their share of the training costs?

not sure we are talking about the same thing - but before we descend down a path of vitriol and name-calling that inevitably happens when unions are the topic, how about we just agree on one thing - Canada has a dramatic labour shortage when it comes to manual labour jobs, especially in Western Canada. This is a result of two things - lack of population to supply the labour, and lack of will of the dwindling population of manual-labour age to do the work required. You can blame greedy business for not paying enough, you can blame Harper, I can blame laziness and entitlement, and the answer will be somewhere in the middle. I don't know why the Chinese are bringing over labourers, but I'm sure they have their reasons, whether they are good or bad is something I doubt will get proper treatment on these pages. This entire thread reminds me of historical info I have read about how badly the Chinese in the 1860's were treated and how much discrimination they endured when the first Chinese immigrants were brought to Canada. We needed them then, or we wouldn't have a national railway, and perhaps, not even a country right now. Do we need them now? Perhaps, or perhaps not, but I definitely am not going to take the word of a guy like Jim Sinclair, that's for darn sure.

[GrooveTunes]

""Our country has long relied on immigration and every demographic indication suggests we must continue to do so. So why have our governments abandoned the traditional immigration programs in favour of the TFW program"?

Other then the person who said this, what is union about about that quote? If it was said by a union hater you would have responded the same way and you know it. It was you that immediately turned it into a "union" thread.

I quickly brought Harper into for obvious reasons because it's the truth. It's him that changed the rules. What's the reason?

[The Green Barbarian]

I quickly brought Harper into for obvious reasons because it's the truth. It's him that changed the rules. What's the reason?

well, I'm just spit-balling here based on comments from people I know who are using this program: "We need labour and we can't find it in Canada right now". That's the reason - lack of labour is affecting the economy. You may not like the fact that we have to go outside Canada, and definitely Jimmy S. doesn't like it as those workers aren't padding an already extremely fat union bank account, but that's life.