Canadian Politics Thread

[Bob Long]

58 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

 

You have not been paying attention in class.

'You can solve any problem by throwing money at it!'

 

What businesses are you fearful that we would lose?

 

 

not "fearful" just don't like to see a local restaurant have to go out of business, if its avoidable. We'll just end up with shitty chains and McD's. 

 

[Bob Long]

48 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

I'd argue restaurants are a prime example of the problem. Where I live the amount of mediocre and overpriced restaurant food is ridiculous. They are a dime a dozen and most wouldn't even be noticed if they disappeared.

 

so if they are that unimportant to you, why do you care if they hire a TFW? I thought you wanted a kid to get that job as well?

 

[Optimist Prime]

12 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

 

not "fearful" just don't like to see a local restaurant have to go out of business, if its avoidable. We'll just end up with shitty chains and McD's. 

 

people seem to like shitty chains though, odd but true. A relative owns and operates Mr Mikes in Langford. It is nothing to write home about but they tend to be packed for lunch and dinner hours most days. I like the Mike's Burger for nostalgic reasons but even so I only get one every year or six months, and last time she comped the burgers i picked up to bring home, awwww, but still, twice a year max for me, though they ahve their regulars like Cheers, hahaha... 

There are worse places and better places but I enjoy House of Boateng in Langford and Syriana in Esquimalt, both owner operated one of a kind restaurants that are well worth your time and money to sample, if not haunt. OOOO and Sabhai Thai in Langford and out near Sydney is also amazing for good feeling awesome tasting flavours, the Panang Curry Chicken is <chefs kiss>

[Bob Long]

9 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

people seem to like shitty chains though, odd but true.  owns and operates Mr Mikes in Langford, a suburb of Victoria. It is nothing to write home about but they tend to be packed for lunch and dinner hours most days. I like the Mike's Burger for nostalgic reasons but even so I only get one every year or six months, and last time she comped the burgers i picked up to bring home, awwww, but still, twice a year max for me, though they ahve their regulars like Cheers, hahaha... 

 

its true, people do like that stuff. 

 

9 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

There are worse places and better places but I enjoy House of Boateng in Langford and Syriana in Esquimalt, both owner operated one of a kind restaurants that are well worth your time and money to sample, if not haunt. 

 

So many good places around the Victoria area. 

 

This part of the thread is funny to me. You have Skippy on one side yelling about teens. You have the left saying let them die  I just want good Thai food. 

 

Edited August 26 by Bob Long

[Coconuts]

3 hours ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

 

Case in point:
there are 2000+ retail positions available on indeed.com for Richmond BC right now -

 

600+ of which were posted in the last 2 weeks:

 

meaning that there have been 1300 job postings or more that have been sitting there for over a couple of weeks still waiting to be filled (many may be hiring for more than one person).

 

There's even more for hospitality - 3000+ postings, with about 2000 or more between the "15+/hr" and "25+/hr" range, and about 1500 or so that have been sitting there for more than 2 weeks (deduced by subtraction of available positions).

 

So is it really a lack of available jobs?  Or is it a lack of desirable jobs?  I suspect for locals, it's more of the latter than the former.

 

Bingo, that was my experience during a lot of my 20's while living in Nanaimo. My experience of having grown up there is that Nanaimo is very much a retail/customer/food service city, there's no shortage of these jobs, but they don't typically pay very well. That was a pain prior to Covid and house prices skyrocketing, which is tethered to rent having risen as well, it's harder nowadays. This is the experience of a lot of folks around Canada, and not just the younger folk. 

 

Folks will bitch about folks not wanting to work nowadays, when a more accurate statement is that folks don't want to work for poverty wages that haven't kept up with the rising costs of living. I've done the part-time jobs, the retail jobs, the big box corporate jobs, the seasonal jobs, the evening and graveyard jobs. I'm thirty-four years old, I've done all of these things over the past ten years; and throughout all of these jobs I've had coworkers in their teens, 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's working as my coworkers trying to survive the same economic rat race on roughly the same wages. I had a coworker at a bottle depot who was a former accountant, dude was in his 70's and was making a tad over minimum wage to subsidize his and his wife's retirement. Great guy, deserved better. 

 

The lowest point was me being laid off a seasonal job and having to live off a combination of EI and a plant watering job at Lowe's that gave me 4-5 hour shifts that began at 5AM, it was the first thing I could find and I just barely got by. There were no shortage of part time jobs in Nanaimo at the time and all I could do was hang on til I managed to find full time somewhere, and that can be tough to find. 

 

It's easy to talk about how many total jobs are out there, another thing entirely to speak about the number of jobs out there providing livable wages and benefits, let alone benefits that aren't absolutely bare bones. 

 

Thing is, I've since gone to school so as to get myself to a place where jobs have no choice but to offer me more, and they will, but I think all the folks who haven't had the luxury of being able to take spend the necessary time off and take on the necessary dept to do what I'm doing should be able to do more than just scrape by. Folks like to shit on gigs like retail, food service, customer service, and other "non-skilled" labour jobs, but they'll probably still spend money in malls, engage with servers at restaurant's, and utilize services that these folks help provide, it's ridiculous but folks will shit on "non-skilled" jobs while simultaneously utilizing services provided by those working said jobs and demanding that they be available. Couples shouldn't have to work multiple jobs each to pay rent and raise children. 

 

Folks who've suffered and went through tough times in life, economically or otherwise, and believe that others should suffer too because they turned out alright probably didn't turn out alright. We should want things to be better for folks, not go down the "I got mine" route, if things can be changed so that others don't have to live some of the tougher realities we've lived, economically or otherwise, that's fantastic news. Hell, I've never worked a job that's provided much in the way of dental coverage and will have gotten myself far enough ahead that I won't benefit from Canada's incoming dental program, but I'm still ecstatic that folks out there may not have to always pay dental costs out of pocket the way I always have. 

 

The argument that immigrants are somehow stealing jobs is a shit one, because in my experience it's often immigrants and people of colour who are ones actually willing to take on the jobs that others turn their noses up at. They're often the ones working these shit paying part-time gigs, working multiple jobs, but working just not quite enough hours that they don't qualify for benefits of any kind; this happens a lot in food service and retail, you'll get a few key people who work full-time and the rest of the roster will be made up of part-timers. It's bogus. 

 

[Ricky Ravioli]

21 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

so if they are that unimportant to you, why do you care if they hire a TFW? I thought you wanted a kid to get that job as well?

 

Because importing cheap labour has other unintended consequences too. Like wage suppression. Like putting more pressure on our crumbling health care. Making a difficult housing market even more so. We lack the infrastructure to support these people. We don't need to be importing people to work at McDonald's and Tim Hortons... We should be importing doctors and other skilled workers 

Edited August 26 by Ricky Ravioli

[Bob Long]

6 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

Because importing cheap labour has other unintended consequences too. Like wage suppression.

 

not if there was no one to fill the job here. 

 

6 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

 

Like putting more pressure on our crumbling health care.

 

anything to back this up? 

 

6 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

 

Making a difficult housing market even more so. We lack the infrastructure to support these people.

 

maybe you have something with this point, although I'm not sure. Do we have any data on where these folks are being housed while they are here? 

 

6 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

We don't need to be importing people to work at McDonald's and Tim Hortons... We should be importing doctors and other skilled workers 

 

why not both?

 

[Ricky Ravioli]

15 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

not if there was no one to fill the job here. 

 

 

anything to back this up? 

 

 

maybe you have something with this point, although I'm not sure. Do we have any data on where these folks are being housed while they are here? 

 

 

why not both?

 

Why does that job need to be filled? And why can't it be done by one of our young?

 

Try seeing a health care professional for any ailment. Now add a bunch of temporary workers who also may need access as well at some point.

 

They have to live somewhere no?

The national vacancy rate is 1.5% 

 

Why do we need both? It's pretty obvious we are very short in healthcare workers. Should they not be the focus when we are soo lacking in housing and infrastructure?

 

[Bob Long]

Just now, Ricky Ravioli said:

Why does that job need to be filled? And why can't it be done by one of our young?

 

because the business wants to operate? again, this is for places that can't find employees. It does legitimately happen. 

 

Just now, Ricky Ravioli said:

Try seeing a health care professional for any ailment. Now add a bunch of temporary workers who also may need access as well at some point.

 

dunno, I've never seen a horde of TFWs in the ER. Maybe you have a different experience? I thought most of the complaining was about over doses. 

 

Like I said, I'd like to see some actual numbers to this, not conjecture. 

 

Just now, Ricky Ravioli said:

They have to live somewhere no?

The national vacancy rate is 1.5% 

 

Why do we need both? It's pretty obvious we are very short in healthcare workers. Should they not be the focus when we are soo lacking in housing and infrastructure?

 

 

again, show me the study that these folks are the ones causing the bottlenecks.

 

[Ricky Ravioli]

3 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

because the business wants to operate? again, this is for places that can't find employees. It does legitimately happen. 

 

 

dunno, I've never seen a horde of TFWs in the ER. Maybe you have a different experience? I thought most of the complaining was about over doses. 

 

Like I said, I'd like to see some actual numbers to this, not conjecture. 

 

 

again, show me the study that these folks are the ones causing the bottlenecks.

 

So? I'm supposed to care why? There's already a McDonald's and Tim Hortons on almost every city block across Canada? Why should I care if they can't find staff due to offering shit wages? You do care about people making a fair wage for their work no?

 

Health care is in shambles. Adding more demand without supply is just basic mathematics. Not every thing needs some dumb study.

 

Re same answer as above. You can't add more and more people when supply doesn't match

[bishopshodan]

1 hour ago, Bob Long said:

 

 

not "fearful" just don't like to see a local restaurant have to go out of business, if its avoidable. We'll just end up with shitty chains and McD's. 

 

 

The major retail and restaurant chains are the ones using the cheap foreign workers though.

 

Not so much the local restaurants. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 26 by bishopshodan

[The Lock]

1 minute ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

So? I'm supposed to care why? There's already a McDonald's and Tim Hortons on almost every city block across Canada? Why should I care if they can't find staff due to offering shit wages? You do care about people making a fair wage for their work no?

 

Health care is in shambles. Adding more demand without supply is just basic mathematics. Not every thing needs some dumb study.

 

Re same answer as above. You can't add more and more people when supply doesn't match

 

I would agree with you to the point where immigrant workers are making it difficult for Canadian citizens to get employment. These workers are not just getting hired in places that need the workers. Businesses are often doing it because it's cheaper than hiring local workers.

 

However, to say you don't care why... that part I don't agree with at all. You still have to give businesses a reason still to hire local. Being ignorant of businesses solves nothing.

 

There is one caveat where we do need foreign workers: health care. You have to consider they fact that healthcare workers need a reason to want to come to Canada. Each healthcare worker who is here means they are not somewhere else. This means there is competition out there for these healthcare workers and if we don't look nearly as appealing, it all becomes meaningless in the end. You can say we need supply all we want, but with that you have to consider where we are going to get that supply from. Obviously we can educate some, but that's not going to be nearly enough.

[Bob Long]

11 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

 

The major retail and restaurant chains are the ones using the cheap foreign workers though.

 

Not so much the local restaurants. 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh didn't know that, thx.

[Bob Long]

20 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

So? I'm supposed to care why? There's already a McDonald's and Tim Hortons on almost every city block across Canada? Why should I care if they can't find staff due to offering shit wages? You do care about people making a fair wage for their work no?

 

I thought you were pro business Ricky. My mistake. I'll save this for when people say fuck AB oil.

 

20 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

Health care is in shambles. Adding more demand without supply is just basic mathematics. Not every thing needs some dumb study.

 

Re same answer as above. You can't add more and more people when supply doesn't match

 

Young people don't stress the health system Rick. 

[RupertKBD]

Ah yes.....every day seems to have it's "low hanging fruit".....

 

I see that today's is that good old standby: Immigrants taking our jobs!

[Bob Long]

15 minutes ago, The Lock said:

 

I would agree with you to the point where immigrant workers are making it difficult for Canadian citizens to get employment. These workers are not just getting hired in places that need the workers. Businesses are often doing it because it's cheaper than hiring local workers.

 

However, to say you don't care why... that part I don't agree with at all. You still have to give businesses a reason still to hire local. Being ignorant of businesses solves nothing.

 

There is one caveat where we do need foreign workers: health care. You have to consider they fact that healthcare workers need a reason to want to come to Canada. Each healthcare worker who is here means they are not somewhere else. This means there is competition out there for these healthcare workers and if we don't look nearly as appealing, it all becomes meaningless in the end. You can say we need supply all we want, but with that you have to consider where we are going to get that supply from. Obviously we can educate some, but that's not going to be nearly enough.

 

We'd be really in trouble right now if it wasn't for the Philippines and the awesome healthcare workers we get from there.

 

As in all things there's a balance to all this, and government is a blunt instrument. It overshot, and now it's correcting. It wouldn't surprise me at all if in a year we are raising the number back up a bit.

 

The only thing that surprised me today is the screw business theme. 

[The Lock]

1 minute ago, RupertKBD said:

Ah yes.....every day seems to have it's "low hanging fruit".....

 

I see that today's is that good old standby: Immigrants taking our jobs!

 

Well, low-hanging fruit does generally mean there's going to be some merit to it, otherwise it wouldn't be low-hanging fruit.

 

That being said, being STILL unemployed and having gone through a lot of ups and downs over the past few months, I would hope it would be understandable that I'd rather not debate it at the moment. A lot of stress right now due to so much competition out there.

[RupertKBD]

2 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

We'd be really in trouble right now if it wasn't for the Philippines and the awesome healthcare workers we get from there.

 

As in all things there's a balance to all this, and government is a blunt instrument. It overshot, and now it's correcting. It wouldn't surprise me at all if in a year we are raising the number back up a bit.

 

The only thing that surprised me today is the screw business theme. 

 

It's South Africa where I live....at least 50% of our doctors....

[Ricky Ravioli]

21 minutes ago, The Lock said:

 

I would agree with you to the point where immigrant workers are making it difficult for Canadian citizens to get employment. These workers are not just getting hired in places that need the workers. Businesses are often doing it because it's cheaper than hiring local workers.

 

However, to say you don't care why... that part I don't agree with at all. You still have to give businesses a reason still to hire local. Being ignorant of businesses solves nothing.

 

There is one caveat where we do need foreign workers: health care. You have to consider they fact that healthcare workers need a reason to want to come to Canada. Each healthcare worker who is here means they are not somewhere else. This means there is competition out there for these healthcare workers and if we don't look nearly as appealing, it all becomes meaningless in the end. You can say we need supply all we want, but with that you have to consider where we are going to get that supply from. Obviously we can educate some, but that's not going to be nearly enough.

I mean the why is usually directly linked to the wage being offered.

 

I agree in respect to health care workers. Why do you think we have such a hard time attracting health care workers?

[The Lock]

1 minute ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

I mean the why is usually directly linked to the wage being offered.

 

I agree in respect to health care workers. Why do you think we have such a hard time attracting health care workers?

 

So what's your solution to this? You mentioned the wage being offered. What would your action be to solve it?

[Ricky Ravioli]

12 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

I thought you were pro business Ricky. My mistake. I'll save this for when people say fuck AB oil.

 

 

Young people don't stress the health system Rick. 

I'm pro making sure our citizens have access to entry level jobs when they need the work experience or extra funds.

 

Young people aren't the only people who need access to the health care system, so I fail to understand your position here

[Ricky Ravioli]

2 minutes ago, The Lock said:

 

So what's your solution to this? You mentioned the wage being offered. What would your action be to solve it?

Once upon a time businesses upped their offers when they couldn't find workers. Not just immediately turn to the TFW program. It's not like we are short able bodied workers here. Will that fix all problems? Of course not. It's their job to come up with a business plan that affords them the ability to pay people a decent wage.

[The Lock]

3 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

I'm pro making sure our citizens have access to entry level jobs when they need the work experience or extra funds.

 

Young people aren't the only people who need access to the health care system, so I fail to understand your position here

 

Well having had similar issue finding work during Harper's government when I was in university, this doesn't seem to be exclusively a Liberal issue. lol

[The Lock]

4 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

Once upon a time businesses upped their offers when they couldn't find workers. Not just immediately turn to the TFW program. It's not like we are short able bodied workers here. Will that fix all problems? Of course not. It's their job to come up with a business plan that affords them the ability to pay people a decent wage.

 

Like I said earlier, part of me agrees with you, but it's more complicated than just "remove the TFW" or something. If you don't care about the businesses themselves hiring these workers, then you might as well not care about the situation at all. The businesses are ultimately who you want to hire the workers; therefore it's important to put yourself in their shoes if you want to show any understanding at all of the situation.

 

Also, if your idea is to "let them fix it", then don't expect anything to be solved.

Edited August 26 by The Lock

[Ricky Ravioli]

3 minutes ago, The Lock said:

 

Well having had similar issue finding work during Harper's government when I was in university, this doesn't seem to be exclusively a Liberal issue. lol

While I sympathize with your reality, it's clear this isn't the norm.

 

"In June, the employment rate fell to 46.8 per cent for returning students aged 15 to 24.

Outside of June 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, that is the lowest rate for that age demographic since 1998.

"This marks a notable decline from the recent high of 53.7 per cent observed in June 2022," the Statistics Canada survey says.

"This indicates that students are facing more difficulties finding work as they enter the summer job market."

 

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/young-people-looking-for-jobs-are-facing-an-uphill-battle-according-to-statistics-canada-data-1.6953471