Employment – mackaycartoons

Thursday October 12, 2017

October 11, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 12, 2017

Tough Times for Sears and CRA

Sears Canada workers are feeling confused and angry after learning on Tuesday that the retailer plans to close its remaining 130 stores.

June 23, 2017

If Sears gets court approval, it would start liquidating the stores as early as Oct. 19, putting the retailer out of business and about 12,000 employees out of work.

“Many of us feel frustrated, anger, betrayal,” a Sears manager told CBC News in an email on Tuesday. He and another employee interviewed asked that we not publish their names because they still work for the retailer and fear retribution.

“People don’t know what to do,” said the manager about staff at his location. “Many people went home already as they were physically upset and needed some personal space.”

A Sears memo sent to staff Wednesday said workers will lose their jobs as early as within the next few days, but that some will stay on for a few months. It also explained that employees will lose their benefits as soon as they’re terminated. (Source: CBC)

Meanwhile, The federal government appears to be doing away with a controversial tax policy interpretation that would have seen employees taxed for discounts they get at work.

Amid a growing controversy, a spokesperson for National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier said Wednesday that the government will pull the new wording at the heart of the debate from the Canada Revenue Agency website.

Spokesperson John Power said the CRA made the original decision to change the wording, not Lebouthillier.

“This document was not approved by the minister and we are deeply disappointed that the agency posted something that has been misinterpreted like this,” he said in an emailed statement.

The CRA will hold an internal review on the wording change, which will be followed by a consultation on the issue with industry groups, Power added.

The former wording in the employer’s guide on the issue of employee benefits was to be reinstated as early as Wednesday afternoon. (Source: Toronto Star)

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Friday September 2, 2016

September 1, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 2, 2016

Trudeau and Chinese premier explore possible free trade deal

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has brought Canada closer to China after agreeing with the Chinese premier to deepen the countries’ relationships — and explore a possible free trade deal.

After meeting with Trudeau, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told reporters through a translator that Canada and China will launch a feasibility study on an eventual free-trade deal.

A senior Canadian official later said the two countries have ongoing technical discussions on free trade, but stressed that there are no negotiations under way at this point.

“This year marks 45 years of diplomatic relations between Canada and China,” Trudeau said as he stood beside Li in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, which overlooks Tiananmen Square.

“My father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, played an important role in establishing a partnership between our two countries when he was prime minister. So, I’m very happy to be extending that effort now.”

The countries also agreed to hold annual meetings between the Chinese premier and the Canadian prime minister on a range of issues, including national security and the rule of law. (Source: Toronto Star)

Thursday April 24, 2014

April 23, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 24, 2014

Service sector sees spike in temporary foreign workers

The number of temporary foreign workers in Canada’s hotel and restaurant sector has exploded under the Conservative government as the latest figures show the industry is the biggest user of the controversial federal program.

Recent allegations of abuse in the program – some involving three McDonald’s franchises in Victoria and others tied to a pizza place in a Weyburn, Sask., hotel – have federal Employment Minister Jason Kenney on the defensive and vowing to crack down on offenders. The minister is also musing about new restrictions that could make it harder for fast-food restaurants in urban areas to access the program.

Mr. Kenney’s spokeswoman Alexandra Fortier told The Globe on Tuesday the minister is planning to announce further changes to the program “in due course” that will go beyond new penalties included in the government’s latest budget bill.

According to data compiled by Mr. Kenney’s department, the number of foreign workers in the “accommodation and food services” sector has grown from 4,360 in 2006 to 44,740, an increase of 926 per cent. The actual number of foreign workers in that category is likely higher because the statistic captures only people working under a federal Labour Market Opinion (LMO), a process meant to ensure that no Canadian workers were available.

There are several ways for employers to bring in foreign workers without an LMO, such as through existing trade deals.

More than 200,000 workers were brought in through LMOs in 2012, but data from Citizenship and Immigration show 491,547 temporary foreign workers either entered Canada or were still present in Canada that year.

NDP MP Jinny Sims said the rise is “outrageous” and shows the need for a major review of the program, especially given that youth – who would be obvious candidates for restaurant jobs – face a 13.6-per-cent unemployment rate. Liberal MP John McCallum wrote to the Auditor-General on Tuesday asking for an audit of the program as soon as possible. (Source: Globe & Mail)

REPUBLISHED in iPolitics, The Thunder Bay Chronicle, The Lamont Leader (Alberta), The Red Deer Advocate, The Calgary Herald, The Melville Advance (Saskatchewan), The St. John’s Telegram (Newfoundland)

Thursday, December 19, 2013

December 19, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, December 19, 2013

Pamela Anderson, Simpsons’ Sam Simon offer cash to sealers

Philanthropist Sam Simon, one of the creators of The Simpsons, is offering $1 million in cash to Canadian sealers so they will retire and end the hunt.

Simon, though, was heckled and mocked at a St. John’s news conference Tuesday that he staged with Canadian actor and anti-sealing activist Pamela Anderson and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Simon and Anderson slipped an oversized cheque for $1 million under the door of the Canadian Sealers Association. Simon said the money, pledged through his charitable foundation, will go straight to CSA members if the group “facilitates and achieves a long-buzzed-about government buyout of the failing international seal trade.”

But Simon and Anderson came in for a rough ride before the gesture, with leaders of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union, which owns the building, and other fisheries advocates questioning their campaign.
“Please leave us alone. Take your insane group, and go away,” said Jim Winter, a longtime fisheries advocate.

“All of this is is a media event, a stunt, to provide a YouTube moment for fundraising for animal rights. That’s all it is,” Winter said.
Simon disagreed.

“This is a real thing, an attempt to end a horror show that shouldn’t be taking place in the 21st century,” said Simon, who created The Simpsons — which coincidentally debuted 24 years ago on Tuesday — with cartoonist Matt Groening and veteran Hollywood producer James L. Brooks. (Source: CBC News)

Friday, May 3, 2013

May 3, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, May 3, 2013

Temporary foreign worker flood to continue

Governments rarely acknowledge mistakes. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has managed, with the help of a dictation-taking media, to shift blame for the mess in the temporary foreign worker program onto employers. But they did only what they were allowed to do — hire guest workers from abroad, in droves, even as the economy was going down after 2008.

The government is responsible for this boondoggle.

Flooding Canada with foreign temps drives down wages, robs Canadians of jobs and creates a two-tier society — as in Germany, with its debilitating economic, social and political consequences.

Canada should not be importing poor guest workers, period. If we need workers, we should bring them as immigrants. Ottawa should learn to process immigrant applicants as efficiently as it has been ushering foreign temps in.

Notice how he has not announced any reduction in the number of foreign workers, estimated officially at 338,000 as of December last year but unofficially at 500,000.

Notice also how there’s no change in the program’s most reviled feature — the mass importing of foreign temps by restaurants and others in the service sector, even though the scheme was ostensibly designed mainly to ease high-skill shortages.

Notice, too, there’s not a word about improving the working conditions of the temporary workers, who are subject to much abuse, especially in the agricultural sector.

No word also on how many temporary foreign workers could apply for landed immigrant status, so that both they and Canadians ultimately benefit from their work experience here. Nor is there a commitment to rigorously enforce the rules. (Source: Toronto Star)