Analysis

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Time for Canadians to get back to work

By: Deveryn Ross

Posted: 05/17/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

BRANDON -- A number of years ago, a friend of mine lost his unionized job when the plant he had been working at was shut down. Two weeks later, he received an offer of full-time employment in an unrelated field for $16 per hour.

He turned it down, explaining that "I was paid $28 per hour. That's what I'm worth."

His health deteriorated as he sat at home waiting for another $28-per-hour job that never materialized. After his employment insurance benefits expired, he ended up collecting welfare. He still is.

I thought of my friend yesterday as I watched the growing controversy over the federal government's planned changes to the employment insurance system.

For those unfamiliar with the issue, the Harper Conservatives are amending employment insurance eligibility criteria in order to make it more difficult for unemployed Canadians to refuse jobs they consider unworthy, or too far away.

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty defended the changes, telling reporters earlier this week, "There'll be a broader definition and people will have to engage more in the workforce. There is no bad job. The only bad job is not having a job."

In making his argument, Flaherty has both common sense and the numbers on his side.

Though 750,000 jobs have been created in Canada in the past four years, the national unemployment rate still hovers above seven per cent -- higher than before the recession began.

How can a country create so many jobs, yet experience an increase in unemployment?

The answer appears to be jobs are being created, but too many unemployed Canadians don't want them.

That is the case in southwestern Manitoba, where a shortage of workers is affecting all sectors of the regional economy. While many job openings are going unfilled, a growing number of Westman employers have been forced to recruit foreign workers in order to address their workforce shortages.

The same is true in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the British Columbia interior. In P.E.I., fish plants are bringing in foreign workers despite double-digit local unemployment rates. Halifax shipyards are hiring foreign workers even though more than 42,000 Nova Scotians are collecting EI.

Though a plan designed to put unemployed Canadians back to work and increase the number of citizens paying taxes should be regarded as a positive step, the widespread negative reaction is perplexing.

NDP MP Peggy Nash has slammed the plan, asking "If you are a computer software developer, will you be working at Tim Hortons? If you are an unemployed teacher or nurse, will you be working in the agricultural sector picking fruit?"

I wonder how the dozens of folks working at various Tim Hortons locations in Westman feel about Nash's comments, or the thousands more who work on farms in the region.

Nash claims to be concerned about unemployed nurses and teachers, but there are severe nursing shortages in Westman and throughout the country and plenty of teaching jobs as well. Given those realities, a system that encourages able-bodied nurses and teachers to accept EI benefits instead of working is a broken system.

Though Liberal MP Marc Garneau attacks the government's plans as "insulting" to unemployed Canadians, the real insult is the suggestion jobless Canadians are better off collecting EI benefits than they would be working at a job that gives them the dignity of a regular paycheque.

What is happening to this country? Have we become a nation of entitled whiners who would rather collect EI benefits than work at jobs, or in regions, that we deem beneath our dignity?

If we aren't, how do we explain the situation in Manitoba of unemployed Winnipeggers refusing to move to Brandon for work, and of unemployed Brandonites unwilling to take good jobs in Virden?

In the 1930s, jobless Canadians rode boxcars across the nation in search of work. To them, pride was less important than feeding their families. The same is now true of the increasing numbers of foreign workers who come to Canada each year, willing to toil at jobs that too many unemployed Canadians think they are too good for.

With the changes to the EI program, the Harper government is delivering a much-needed wake-up call. It's time for Canadians to check their egos and stop looking down their noses at jobs and at regions where work is available.

It's time to get back to work.

Deveryn Ross is a political

commentator living in Brandon.

deverynrossletters@gmail.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 17, 2012 A11

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