“She will not be missed.” So says the headline on the CTV News website on December 17, 2024. The words are from Donald Trump, the president-elect of the United States, and they are in reference to Chrystia Freeland’s sudden withdrawal as the Finance Minister of Canada. Yesterday, just before Ms. Freeland was supposed to deliver the government’s fall economic statement, she submitted her letter of resignation from the Cabinet to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as resigning her position as Deputy Prime Minister. In her resignation letter, which was posted on the CBC website on December 16, 2024, Ms. Freeland cited her main reason as differences with the PM over how to prepare to deal with the economic nationalism our country will face when the administration of Donald Trump takes over power on January 6, 2025.
As we all know by now, Trump is threatening to hit all Canadian exports to the U.S. with a 25% tariff. Canada, he claims, has been taking advantage of the U.S. economically for a long time, and further has failed to sufficiently fund our military forces, and secure our border with the U.S. against illegal immigrants and drugs flowing down south. Ms. Freeland stated in her letter to the PM, “That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war.” Also, she said, “On Friday you told me you no longer want me to serve as your finance minister and offered me another position in the cabinet. Upon reflection, I have concluded that the only viable and honest path is for me to resign from cabinet.”
I am not surprised to hear Trump make such a miserable comment about Chrystia Freeland. He remembers Ms. Freeland from the time of his first presidency (2016-2020). In 2016 Trump was saying the same thing about how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a bad deal for the U.S., and that the U.S. was being taken advantage of by Canada. Trump placed a 10% tariff on a number of Canadian goods exported to the U.S.A., and demanded a renegotiation of NAFTA on terms more favourable to the U.S. Chrystia Freeland, as our Minister of Foreign Affairs, stood up to the Americans; first by establishing our own tariffs on American goods coming into Canada in conjunction with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and second by strongly defending Canadian interests in the new NAFTA negotiations.
The Americans did not like Ms. Freeland for her obstinacy and effectiveness, and that was clear from the following comments by Trump, published in a Financial Post article on September 27, 2018: “We are very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada. We don’t like their representative much.” In that same article, written by Tom Blackwell, a source informed him about the feelings of Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative, towards Ms. Freeland: “Lighthizer can’t stand her.” Further confirmation of Lighthizer’s experience with Canada can be found in Lighthizer’s memoir, called No Trade Is Free, released in 2023. A review of the book, published in The Globe And Mail on July 6, 2023, found Lighthizer stating that, “Ottawa refused to make a single meaningful concession for the first nine months of negotiations.”
Trump did not want to have to deal with Chrystia Freeland again in his planned negotiations for a new trade agreement with Canada in 2025. She surely would have been involved in those negotiations as the Minister of Finance, just as her predecessor in that position, Bill Morneau, was also involved back in 2017. This time around she would be just as obstinate and effective in opposing Trump’s efforts to screw Canada. So Trump got what he wanted when Prime Minister Trudeau removed Ms. Freeland from her position as Minister of Finance, and ultimately her resignation from Cabinet. As he further said in the CTV News article from December 17, 2024, “Her behaviour was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals, which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada.”
Her replacement as Minister of Finance is Dominic Leblanc, who was sworn in almost immediately after the resignation of Freeland. When Justin Trudeau suddenly travelled to Florida to see Trump, before Trump even took up office in the White House, the only Cabinet member Trudeau took with him was Leblanc. The Minster of Foreign Affairs, Melanie Jolie, and the Minister of International Trade, Sandra Ng, were absent, as was Chrystia Freeland. That likely means that Leblanc will be a key figure in future trade negotiations with the U.S. He is untested in such negotiations, while Freeland is a tough veteran. We need her skill and personality even more this time around, as Trump is seemingly going to be even more aggressive than he was back in 2017. To me at least, she will be missed.
On top of getting rid of his best asset, Chrystia Freeland, Prime Minister Trudeau is in a considerably frail political position compared to his time in 2017. Today he sits as head of a minority government, and is lagging well behind Pierre Poillievre and the Conservative Party in recent polling. Many in the Liberal caucus want him to step down as party leader as soon as possible. His firm stance against the Americans back in 2017, when he fully supported Chrystia Freeland, may be absent today. He is preoccupied with his own political survival. As a result, future trade negotiations with the U.S. might be a real shit-show for Canada, and there is a great deal at stake. Perhaps the CTV headline should have read differently, perhaps it should have read, “Trump Just Got Lucky, Canada Not So Much.”
Here we go again with Bill Morneau. For those of you who might not remember the name, he was the former Minister of Finance under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He seems to so easily get in the Canadian news. On this occasion, December 15, 2024, it is some comments from him about what he wants Canada to do to appease Donald Trump in the face of his threatened 25% tariff on Canadian goods exported to the United States. As Morneau stated in an interview with Vassy Kapelos on CTV’s Question Period, he believes that, “If the Canadian government wants to make headway with the incoming U.S. administration, it should look at scrapping some sticking-point policies, such as the controversial digital services tax (DST).” “I would move away from that”, Morneau went on to say, “and think about the other places where we have a mutual interest in moving forward.”
The DST has only recently been implemented by the Trudeau government, as pointed out by the journalist who summarized the interview in an article; Spencer Van Dyck. Its purpose was to impose a three per cent levy on revenues from tech giants earning money off Canadian content and users. Quoting a previous statement on the matter from Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s current Finance Minister, the article said, “Canada’s position is really simple. The reality is, many of our allies – the U.K., France, Italy - currently have a digital services tax in place. They are using that tax to collect revenue to make necessary investments in their own countries, investments in things like public transit.” Furthermore, she stated, “We know our country needs investment. We know it costs money and Canada will not accept not being on a level playing field with our partners and allies.”
Continuing from his above statement, Mr. Morneau said, “And do that in a way that’s calm and that recognizes that we need to have an enduring ability to work together.” Later in the article he argued, “I think we need to be very worried, but we also need to recognize that the way to deal with it is to focus on our interests. And our interests are about recognizing the long-term positive relationship, and trying to make sure that is forefront in our mind, and do the things we know are in the best interest of Canada and in the best interests of that relationship.” In his own abstract way, Morneau is saying that he understands Canada’s “best interests”, he understands the big picture, and that we should be prepared to acquiesce to the demands of Trump wherever necessary to keep relations between us and the U.S. positive.
Why the hell should we drop the DST? Filthy rich companies, like Facebook down in the United States, should not be allowed to take advantage freely of any news reporting done by Canadians. Increasingly people are getting their news from sources such as Facebook, and this results in a decline in the Canadian media landscape. Instead of getting our news from the original journalistic source, we are getting it from social media. Why would we want the Canadian media landscape to decline? Rather, we should want Canadian media to flourish. Whatever its faults, the media is essential to maintaining our democracy. They did a good job of holding Mr. Morneau to account for his involvement in the WE charity scandal during the pandemic, and one can see his irritation at this fact in his political memoir, called Where To From Here: A Path To Canadian Prosperity (2023).
Even before the U.S. presidential election, Morneau got into the Canadian news with his recommendation that Canada needed to spend more on defence as a way to satisfy the U.S. While at the U.S. Democratic National Convention in August of 2024, Morneau said to Vassy Kapelous during an interview that, “We need to think about what really matters to Americans. We need to think substantively about our approach to defence. The world is more dangerous. We’re not meeting up to the challenges that we need to meet up to as a country. That matters enormously to the United States.” He wanted to maintain good relations with the U.S., a country where he has friends leftover from Trump’s first presidential term, and where he briefly worked as a lecturer at Yale University after getting pushed out of his position of Minister of Finance.
The U.S. is also the model of society that he wants Canada to follow. Before entering Canadian politics in 2015, he was head of his own company providing health benefits; Morneau-Shepell. In his memoir he constantly talks about the need for Canada to follow a business model of society, which is one where a privileged hierarchy of manager elites exists, and there is no tolerance for opposition or democracy. Taxes on corporations, like the DST, and on rich people are supposed to be low. To the degree that politics exists in society, it is to cater to the interests of this small privileged group of people. America is the shining example of this business social model. Mr. Morneau would benefit very much if Canada moved substantially in the direction of the U.S., especially if Canada was to adopt the same system of privatized healthcare found in America.
I don’t mind that he is given a public platform through Canadian media to state his opinion. The man has had some experience in representing Canada diplomatically in negotiations with the first Trump administration on the matter of economic trade. His opinion on how to handle diplomatic relations with the second Trump administration is probably worth something. Moreover, it should be said that he is not the only Canadian that is more or less calling for appeasement with Trump after Trump takes over the presidency in 2025. Several Canadian politicians have been in the news saying that we need to spend much more on military defence and border security, as demanded by Trump. So to have several Canadian academics called for us to give in to Trump’s demands, along with business groups, at least one former Canadian ambassador to the U.S., and a retired Canadian Army General.
Comments from Americans saying the same thing about giving in to the U.S. demands are also being featured in Canada’s news media. Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada during Trump’s first administration, said to CBC Radio-Canada on November 4, 2024: “We will be the best friend you ever had if you get your house in order.” By that she meant that Canada has to jump forward and reach a spending level of 2% of GDP on defence. Further, she said that, “Canada they need to buckle up for the ride.” John Bolton, a former adviser to Trump, has said that “Trudeau will have to kiss Trump’s ring” this time around to maintain good relations with the U.S., comments which were reported on by CTV on December 11, 2024. So it is not just Morneau that is calling for appeasement from Canada towards the United States.
However, I would really like to see the media do a better job of challenging Bill Morneau in his views concerning our relations with the U.S. They should not assume that because he was a business owner and manager, and possibly still is, as well as being a former Finance Minister, that he is neutral and knows what’s best for Canadians. The man’s opinions are very much coloured by his own personal view of the world. He won’t come out and directly say what he is aiming for with regards to Canada. He is not going to say that he is an elitist. Instead, he is going to say that we need to be nice with the Americans, to keep the big picture in view, and further frame it in such a way that really we have no other choice. We do have a choice.
“It is reassuring”, said Kirsten Hillman, the Canadian ambassador to the United States. Mrs. Hillman, as quoted in an article posted on the CTV website on December 3rd, 2024, was responding to some recent words from Donald Trump about Canada. During a sudden visit from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Trump’s home in Florida, the U.S. president-elect said that Canada should become the 51st American state if it “can’t handle American trade tariffs”. Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Dominic Leblanc, said to the CBC News that Trump was “just teasing”, and Mrs. Hillman is telling us that Trump’s words indicate that in fact he likes Canada, and will work with Canada in a positive way down the road.
No it is not reassuring that Trump speaks of Canada as the 51st American state. Trump is not teasing or is making some kind of joke. He means it. Trump does not like what Canada represents; a society where we have had some success in dampening the worst abuses of power carried out by our business and political elites. Trump wants Canada to lose its distinct identity and become very much like the United States, a country where rich people like himself have a tremendous advantage over the broad mass of society. Trump wants the U.S. to function like a business, not a democracy, meaning like a dictatorship. Certainly he wants Canada to function in the same manner
On top of his ideological opposition to Canada, he sees Canada as a threat. Many Americans are angry at their poor healthcare system. Recently the CEO of an American healthcare company was murdered, and the online response was a flurry of posts critical of the claim denials in private healthcare. So long as a system of public healthcare exists right next to America, there is always the possibility that Canada will influence the U.S. It has already happened; the Affordable Care Act introduced by former President Obama. Trump wanted to overturn that Act during his first term as president. In front of Congress he stated that, “We are not going to let socialism come in and ruin our healthcare system.”
Of course the Canadian government is not going to annex Canada to the U.S. because of Trump’s threatened trade tariff of 25%. Trump raised U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports in 2016 during his first presidency, and the Trudeau government responded in kind. The Liberal government stood up to Trump, equally raising our tariffs on U.S. imports, which infuriated the Trump administration. Canada’s retaliation led to a renegotiation of NAFTA, where the Canadian Minister of International Trade, Chrystia Freeland, held firm against American demands. Indeed, the Canadian government held so firm that White House Trade Adviser, Peter Navarro, said there was a “special place in hell” for Trudeau. The resulting USMCA was only somewhat weaker for Canada than the previous NAFTA.
It is imperative, however, that in 2025 our government and Ambassador Hillman are not “reassured” by Trump’s comments about Canada becoming the 51st American state. They should be under no illusions about Trump’s real feelings and intentions towards Canada. Trump has nothing good in mind for his relations with Canada in the future. Through his threatened 25% tariff, Trump aims to force Canada to spend more money on defence, and more money to prevent illegal immigrants and drugs from crossing into the U.S. He claims that the situation is out of control with regards to illegal immigrants and fentanyl, and that he will maintain the tariff in place at least until this situation is brought under control by Canada.
Already Trump has had some success in his goals, and he is not yet even in the Whitehouse. Canada’s provincial premiers, fearful of the economic impact of a 25% American tariff, immediately called for a special meeting between all of the premiers and the Prime Minister to demand that he spend dramatically more money on Canadian defence and securing the Canadian/American border. The premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, has openly declared that Trump is right in his concerns over Canada. Francois Phillipe-Champagne, our Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, has said Canada “will be more visible on the border” in response to Trump. Bill Blair, our Minister of Defence, has agreed that Canada must accelerate our military spending.
Canada must realize that we are in a fight with Trump, and hold firm again. As one Canadian, I do not want Canada to become like the United States. I do not want to see our country spend huge money on military defence. I do not want us to eliminate public healthcare, loosen our gun control laws, restrict a women’s right to an abortion, allow a military-industrial complex to dominate our economy, cut our social services, and substantially reduce income tax for the rich. Poverty and inequality pervade America. While Canada certainly has its own problems, and individual Americans are fine people, we are not going to improve as a society by following the American social model.
Don’t be deceived by Trump. In the news recently (November/December 2024), as reported across major Canadian media outlets, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump declared that he was going to slap a 25% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S.A. from Canada, and also those from Mexico. He seems to be angry at Canada’s low level of spending on defence, the number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. from Canada, and especially at the amount of fentanyl flowing into the U.S. from Canada. Supposedly, if Canada gets these problems under control to the satisfaction of Trump, he will bring the 25% tariff down; either significantly or fully.
Bullshit. The push behind increasing U.S. trade tariffs on Canadian goods has nothing to do with the factors mentioned above. Donald Trump does not care about NATO or NORAD or the war in Ukraine. He has stated more than once that he admires Vladimir Putin, and so clearly is not going to push NATO to challenge Russian aggression. The U.S. could easily reduce their annual defence budget by $100 billion and still have the most powerful military force in the world. As for illegal immigrants and fentanyl crossing into the U.S. from Canada, the amount is negligible compared to what comes across the Mexican border.
Instead, the push behind increasing U.S. trade tariffs on Canada centres on the belief that America has been taken advantage of by its Allies, and by Mexico. All of MAGA, and likely the rest of the Americans that voted for Trump, believe that the U.S. is a victim. Trump effectively played the victim card in the recent U.S. election. The push for such high trade tariffs comes from a sense of grievance, however illegitimate. We could add many billions of dollars to our defence budget and securing the border, and it would have no positive effect for us. Trump is going to impose a high tariff on Canada no matter what.
I understand that the provincial governments and the federal government have to make the effort to talk with Trump and try to head-off his planned 25% tariff. The provincial premiers and the Prime Minister have to try to mitigate the impact the tariff will have on the Canadian economy; possibly a serious decline in our Gross Domestic Product, and a high loss of jobs across the country. So the provincial premiers have called for more spending on defence and border security, and the PM has made a special trip to see Trump on the matter of the tariff even before he takes over as America’s president.
But appeasement never works. Already we have done much to support the United States. During 9/11 we hosted all of those American passengers that were forced to land in Canada. Our soldiers fought and died in Afghanistan over the course of a decade. Still U.S. President George Bush Jr. looked down on Canada. Since 2015 we have supported NATO by training approximately 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers, and we have continued this training mission after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. We have deployed combat forces to Latvia as part of our NATO membership. Still the U.S. looks down on us, enough to hammer us with a 25% tariff.
Trump and the MAGA maniacs behind him are not going to lower or cancel the planned 25% tariff. They are going to maintain that Canada is still not doing enough. They are going to tell us that we have to spend even more on defence and border security. Furthermore, spending more money in these two areas means that Canada purchases more American made equipment and technology, like the F35 fighter jet, and drones. Also, if Canada spends more on defence and securing the border, it means they get to spend less in those two areas. The U.S. wants to benefit at Canada’s expense.
Rather than spending more on defence and securing America’s border for them, we must refuse to be intimidated by Trump and MAGA. First we must raise our own tariffs equally, as the Trudeau government did the first time Trump was in power. Second, we must develop a business plan to rebuild our industrial capacity. Let’s manufacture the products we get from the U.S. ourselves. Finally, we must use that extra money that would be spent satisfying Trump’s wishes, to implement our own new business plan. The reality is that Trump will hit Canada with a large tariff. We have to roll with it.
Derek H. Burney needs to do a lot more thinking, especially if he is going to appear as a guest on a national news program like CTVs Question Period. On November 16, 2023, Mr. Burney was interviewed by CTVs Vassy Kapelos on the subject of Canadian defence spending and our relations with the United States. During the interview, parts of which were posted on CTVs website, Burney stated that, “I can’t put it too negatively, but we are laggard, we are irrelevant, and we make no contribution that I can think of that is meaningful anywhere in the world today.”
Really. In 2015, after the Russian invasion of Crimea, Canada established Operation Unifier in Ukraine as a military mission to train Ukrainian soldiers. Approximately 30,000 Ukrainian recruits were trained by the Canadian Army before Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Undoubtedly these Ukrainian soldiers played a significant role in the initial and ongoing defence of their country. After the Russian invasion, Canada continued to train new Ukrainian recruits after moving the training to Poland. Later a second mission to train Ukrainians was established by Canada in Britain. I am sure that Canada’s contribution is very meaningful to Ukraine.
We could also point to Canada’s military contribution to NATO. In 2017, a force of 540 mechanized soldiers was deployed to Latvia to join the multinational NATO battle group stationed in that country. Since then we have added elements of artillery, combat engineers, as well as service support, growing the size of our contingent. More Canadian Army personnel were deployed to take up positions in the battle group command structure, including the group commander. These Canadians are on the frontline against any future Russian aggression against Latvia. I am sure that this contribution is very meaningful to Latvia.
Another meaningful contribution Canada recently made in the realm of foreign policy was our military mission in Iraq. In 2014 the Canadian government deployed a contingent of Canadian soldiers to Iraq to train Kurdish and Iraqi soldiers in the fight against ISIL, an organization that was pushing to control an ever larger part of Iraq. The mission was renewed by the Trudeau government in 2016, and later extended again until March of 2025. That small training mission has trained hundreds of Kurdish and Iraqi soldiers. I am sure that this Canadian foreign policy was meaningful to the United States government.
Does Mr. Burney fail to see or recognize all of these meaningful military contributions to Canadian foreign policy? Does he fail to remember that the Progressive Conservative government under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, considerably shrunk the Canadian defence budget between 1989 and 1993? He should remember, he served that government as the Chief of Staff to Brian Mulroney from 1987 – 1989, and as the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. from 1989 – 1993. Between 1991 and 1993, the PCs recalled all Canadian Forces stationed in Europe. Was Burney complaining back then, or is it that he just hates the Liberals and Justin Trudeau.
I would like to acknowledge the following articles in Wikipedia for information relevant to this article: Operation Unifier, Derek H. Burney, NATO Enhanced Forward Presence, and Operation Impact.
I don’t believe it myself. Derek H. Burney, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States, tells us that Canada has to spend more on defence to maintain better economic relations with the U.S. During an interview with Vassy Kapelos on CTV, part of which was posted on the CTV News website on November 16, 2024, Burney said, “If we expect to get any attention at all on anything, we’ve got to do major work on our defence capabilities.” He went on to agree with a former U.S. ambassador to Canada, named Kelly Craft, who previously said, “Canada can do better.”
We have negotiated economic trade deals with the U.S. before without dramatically expanding our defence spending. In 1985, Canada initiated negotiations to achieve a deal with the U.S. that eventually led to the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Over the following two years, 1985-1986, there was only a marginal increase in Canadian defence spending. As the negotiations continued into 1987, defence spending did increase substantially with the release of a new defence white paper called Challenge and Commitment. The FTA negotiations, however, ended in 1988, and so the new defence spending would hardly have done much to bolster Canada’s negotiating position.
Shortly after the FTA came into effect, in 1990, Canada began negotiating with the U.S. and Mexico for a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and it was the same thing. As the Cold War more-or-less ended in 1989, the Canadian government was already cutting back on the defence spending planned in Challenge and Commitment. By 1991, while still in the midst of NAFTA negotiations, defence spending was cut still further. Indeed, Canadian combat forces stationed in Europe, as part of NATO, were brought back home. By the beginning of 1993, the money behind Challenge and Commitment was gutted.
More restrictions on Canadian defence spending were demonstrated during the Gulf War, which took place from 1990 - 1991. Just as NAFTA negotiations were moving forward, the Canadian government decided not to contribute any ground forces to the campaign to push the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. Canada’s only contribution was a field hospital. At the time, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney stated that it would have been too expensive to deploy Army forces in combat. I’m sure the Americans were not impressed, and yet NAFTA negotiations carried on through 1991, and into 1992 when an agreement was reached.
So I don’t believe that a high level of spending on defence is necessary for Canada to maintain good relations with the U.S., and Mr. Burney should understand this fact himself. According to the interview, Burney was the Chief of Staff to Brian Mulroney from 1987 – 1989, and then Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. from 1989 – 1993. Burney would have been very knowledgeable of the government’s policies and actions all during this period. Indeed, the article stated that Burney “figured prominently in the NAFTA negotiations.” He should understand that the connection between military spending and Can/Am relations is overblown.
How are we going to pay for it? I wished that Vassy Kapelos, host of Question Period on CTV, had asked that question of Derek H. Burney during their discussion on Canadian defence spending. Derek H. Burney was the Canadian Ambassador to the United States from 1989-1993, and during the discussion, parts of which were posted on the CTV website on November 16, 2024, argued that Canada had to dramatically increase our annual military-defence budget.
In one statement, Burney declared that, “If we expect to get any attention in Washington at all on anything, we’ve got to do major work on our defence capabilities. I mean it really is dismal.” Further on he stated, “I can’t put it too negatively, but we are laggard, we are irrelevant, and we make no contribution that I can think of that is meaningful anywhere in the world today. That’s a very sad commentary on a once-proud military.”
At a minimum, Mr. Burney wants Canada to meet its commitment to NATO to spend 2% of our Gross Domestic Product on defence annually. Quoting a recent report from the Parliamentary Budget Office, the article states that Canada would have to double its annual defence spending to $81.9 billion in order to meet the NATO goal of 2%. Moreover, Mr. Burney wants the increase to happen immediately, not over a period of eight years as proposed by the present government.
The money to pay for such a dramatic increase in the defence budget could only come through the elimination of spending on other federal government programs, or at least dramatically reducing these programs. Which programs does Mr. Burney have in mind to eliminate or reduce: $10/day childcare, dental care for children and senior citizens, pharmacare, welfare, support for homeless people? As one Canadian I do not want these programs reduced. In fact I want to see them expanded.
Now Mr. Burney does not specify cutting or reducing these social programs that I have mentioned above. Rather, he stated to Ms. Kapelos that, “We need a very explicit effort at cost-reduction in the basic government in Ottawa.” Continuing, Burney said, “It has to happen, and the Americans are going to lead the way on this. So we should take our cue from them.” Undoubtedly, however, he has these social programs in mind as the primary target for cost-cutting.
Mr. Burney certainly does not propose an increase in government taxes as an alternative to cost-cutting of social programs. The federal government could increase income tax on Canadians as a way to accumulate the extra $40 billion in revenue necessary for the defence budget. But increasing income tax would directly affect him. His personal income tax would go up, and obviously he doesn’t like that proposition, and nor would any other Canadians like that proposition I’m sure.
This is where I would have liked Ms. Kapelos to be more direct and precise in her questioning of Mr. Burney. Don’t let him hide from the implications of his policies just because he is merely commentating. Don’t let him be vague and avoid responsibility. Put him in the same position as the government. Force him to make actual decisions on policy, especially as he is being given a place to speak by a prominent national news organization.
We need to know which Canadians are going to have to pay the cost of Mr. Burney’s policy ideas. Very likely it is going to be our most vulnerable people, the working poor, the retired, people on social assistance, and the desperate, especially if we go the way of the Americans as Burney recommended. These Canadians are just surviving, or have become homeless. They so much need our social programs; far more than an assertive Canadian foreign policy.
What about those homeless people that are not addicted to drugs or alcohol? That was the question I asked myself after reading an article on the website of the CBC News on November 10, 2024. Written by Mike Crawley, the article examines the push by many municipal and provincial governments in Canada to force people living in tent encampments or on the street into medical treatment for drug and alcohol addictions. They would be forced into a hospital or some rehabilitation centre, and presto, all of those ugly tent encampments and people on the street will disappear; permanently. Undoubtedly it is an idea supported by many Canadians.
Many homeless people that have ended up sleeping in tents, on sidewalks, and in shelters, are not abusing drugs or alcohol. They have ended up homeless because of jobs that pay poorly, jobs that are physically brutal and unsustainable, work injuries and poor Workers Compensation, the absence of jobs in your field, and the absence of any jobs. How will forcing these particular homeless people into a rehab program solve their problems? Even if you manage to force them into rehab, once they are released, they will just have to face the same life circumstances again. Soon after they will end up homeless, again.
What about those people taking drugs as a way to deal with the situation above. The experience is harsh and often prolonged, leading to high levels of mental and/or physical stress. If you were supporting a family the mental stress would be even worse. Turning to drugs and/or alcohol to deal with this situation, to numb the pain, would be understandable. Eventually they descend into homelessness, bringing with them a newfound substance addiction. Even if they do manage to kick the addiction through a forced rehabilitation program, upon their release they will immediately face the same circumstances that caused the addiction and ultimately homelessness.
Then there are the people who developed an addiction after ending up homeless. After ending up living on the street, or in a tent encampment, or in a shelter they started taking drugs to numb the shock and pain of their situation. Apparently fentanyl and methamphetamine are quite effective at alleviating a person’s pain, if only temporarily, as well as being available at low cost. This person may be quick to volunteer for any substance rehabilitation program. They don’t want to be addicted to anything. They want to work and have a decent life. But upon their release they immediately encounter the circumstances described above.
Only a few of the homeless people from this group will eventually grind their way back to a normal life. Many more will languish in homelessness for perhaps years, and even among those that return to a normal life, some will fall down again and reappear among the homeless. Plus, we are continually adding more people to the world of the homeless. Our economic system, built so much on the values of competitiveness and greed, is very effective at wasting people. The tent-encampments and people sleeping on the street, the needles left on the ground in city parks, will continue, and our frustration will grow.
Presently a whole group of city mayors in Ontario have gone so far as to request that Doug Ford, the Ontario Premier, enact provincial legislation that will allow city governments to directly tear down any tent-encampment. They have argued that Ford should use the “notwithstanding clause” in the Constitution so as to fend off any court challenges to the legislation based on the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. We are now at the point where we are prepared to violate people’s fundamental human rights to rid ourselves of the homeless nuisance. These mayors, under public pressure to do something, don’t know what else to do.
On top of this situation is the fact that we are ill-prepared to force people into treatment. Mike Crawley’s research has demonstrated that there is already a long waiting list of people waiting to get into a drug or alcohol rehabilitation program. In order to immediately accommodate the people on the waiting list, as well as the extra influx of homeless participants, we would require a massive expansion in the system. No provincial government is willing to spend the necessary amount of money, and in turn raise people’s taxes. Municipalities in Ontario have requested money for this purpose, and not received any from the government.
If we want homelessness to disappear, we have to resist seeing them as just lazy and weak people who turned to drugs or alcohol and ruined their own lives. We have to begin the hard process of fundamentally reforming the workplace so as to bring about human equality. The dominance of management in the workplace has to end. Reforming the workplace and our whole economy will not entirely end homelessness. There are other reasons that people end up homeless, such as mental health problems. But recognizing and implementing human equality will make a massive difference in the problem. The homeless problem is nuanced, the solution will have to be as well.
It was a bold and accurate statement from an advocate for disabled people, I thought as I read an article on the website of Global News Canada, posted on September 24, 2024: “The last time we heard anything remotely like this coming from the provincial government (Ontario)”, said Ron Anicich, spokesman for the Ontario Disability Support Program (OCSP) Action Coalition, “was back in the Mike Harris era…so we’ve got our backs up on that.” Continuing, Anicich stated that, “It’s something we are extremely concerned about. We’ve heard this before. We know where this is heading.”
Mr. Anicich was comparing Doug Ford, today’s premier of Ontario, to Mike Harris, the premier of Ontario during the second half of the 1990s. Under Mike Harris, the Progressive Conservative party aimed to reduce the provincial deficit and debt. That program revolved heavily around cuts to government social programs, such as support for disabled people, mental health services, welfare, and substance addiction services. Mike Harris deliberately targeted the most vulnerable people. More people ended up homeless as a result, and critics at the time legitimately called on Harris to, “Stop the war on the poor.”
The Global News article, co-written by Isaac Callan and Colin D’Mello, was prompted by a statement from Doug Ford at a media event in Cobourg, Ontario. In relation to homeless people living in tent encampments, the provincial premier said, “Get an application and drop it off at one of these companies and start working, you need to start working if you’re healthy – bottom line – if you’re unhealthy I’ll take care of you the rest of my life, your life…But if you’re healthy get off you’re A-S-S and start working like everyone else is.”
Immediately the story was reported on by Global, as well as CBC and CTV, and critics on the subject were given voice to counter the essential claim by Ford that homeless people were just lazy. Anicich went on to say that, “If you make $733 per month and you’re living in a park, I fail to see how you could possibly find a job and have consistent employment under those circumstances. What we need to have is a social assistance program that allows people to live indoors as an important first step towards getting a job.”
In addition to Anicich, we heard from Ontario NDP Leader Marit Styles, and Liberal Party MPP Adil Shamji. Styles stated that, “It’s a direct result of government after government, and in particular this government, failing to create the truly affordable options that people need out there.” Continuing, Styles said that “comments like this often end up being reflected in government policy and legislation”. Shamji argued that the Ford government was the cause of the tent-encampment problem, with its underfunding of mental health and addiction services, and failing to solve the housing crisis.
It would be great if both of the journalists behind this story could come out and describe Ford’s words for exactly what they were; ignorance, judgement, prejudice, anger. It would be great if they could openly say that Ford demonstrates all of these negative characteristics, and that he shows little desire to improve his humanity. But it is difficult to be so forthright in public, even with democracy and freedom of the press, and so the two authors of the article did the next best thing; comparing Ford to former premier Mike Harris.
Here it comes again, I see as I read an article on the CTV News Website from October 23, 2024. Tiff Macklem, the governor of the Bank of Canada (BOC), is calling for an increase in business productivity in Canada. Rosa Saba, from the Associated Press, states that “Macklem spoke to reporters from Washington, where he attended International Monetary Fund meetings. He spoke about the need to increase productivity, or how much work gets done in a given time frame. He said productivity has been a long-standing problem in Canada, which is a risk to GDP and can add to inflationary pressures.” Every time Tiff is in the news it’s about saying the same thing, or I see the same message said in some way by the deputy governor of the BOC; Carolyn Rogers. Read an article on the CBC News website from March 26, 2024, where Carolyn says “productivity has reached emergency level.”
What does Tiff and Carolyn mean when they say Canada must “increase productivity”, when they say we have to get more work done in a given space of time? Do they mean that company managers should push the workers even harder, to do even more in the space of a work shift. I have news for Tiff and Carolyn, workers in such industries as manufacturing, housekeeping, warehousing, mining and others are already pushed to the limit by management. These workers are getting injured and having to go out on Workers Compensation, are getting fired for not keeping up with the production quota, are forced to quit because they fall behind or because of mental health problems, and for many of those who do hang onto the job it is a poor way to spend the day. The work environment is miserable. For these people “productivity” is not just a word, it is a horror.
Rather than calling for an increase in productivity, Tiff and Carolyn need to call for a decrease in productivity. Lowering existing productivity targets in the world of business will reintegrate millions of people into what is supposed to be our national economy. Lowering productivity will bring stability to the lives of individuals and families; children will get the solid start in life that is essential for them to contribute to society over the long-term; healthcare costs for governments will decrease; Unemployment Insurance premiums will go down for workers; companies and the government will see a reduction in their premiums for the workers compensation fund; welfare expenditures by the government will diminish. As a result of lowering productivity, our economy and society will be robust and capable of withstanding any shocks, either internal or external. Any improvement in our economy has to start at the bottom, not at the top.
Of course Tiff and Carolyn would never advocate any policy that would lower productivity and help so many people. Instead they push for businesses to improve productivity by using machines, and to invest in the further development of machines. In the CBC News website article I mentioned above, Carolyn says “when you compare Canada’s recent productivity record with that of other countries, what sticks out is how much the country lags on investment in machinery, equipment and intellectual property.” In the minds of Tiff and Carolyn, machines can go faster than humans, can do more in a given space of time than humans. Moreover machines don’t need to be paid, they don’t need to be trained, and they don’t call in sick. Perhaps most importantly, machines do not stand up for themselves like humans do, they do not form unions and demand to be treated fairly by management within the company.
When Tiff and Carolyn call for “increasing productivity” in the economy, it is essential that we understand the reality behind their words. Pushing workers hard and even harder, or replacing them with machines, benefits only the business owners and managers. More money flows into their pockets, giving them tremendous advantages. They get to live in spacious homes, consume a nutritious diet, save money to deal with emergencies, and put money away for retirement. Their children reap tremendous advantages in preparing for life. Also, more company money comes under their control, with which they fund business organizations, lobby groups and policy think tanks. These organizations, such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, and the C.D. Howe Institute, lobby the government to continue supporting business owners and managers. Tiff and Carolyn are advocating for an elite economy, not an economy for all Canadians.
While the Bank of Canada does not have a direct role in making policy on business productivity, undoubtedly the institution is influential on this matter. The governor or the deputy governor regularly hold press conferences where they announce decisions on monetary policy, which is their specific role, but also on broader economic matters such as productivity. They are invited to speak at events. Regularly they are approached by the media for any commentary on the national economy. Surely they meet with federal government officials for discussions on the economy. Through these four avenues they influence public discussion on public policymaking and the actions of individual businesses. For this reason it is imperative that the media carefully examine and question any and all opinions voiced by the BOC. We could even push for the BOC to be run by an elected member of the government, so as to make them accountable to Canadians.
It is a terrible statistic for sure. On October 28, 2024, CBC News reported on its website that over 2 million Canadians visited a food bank during the month of March. Tyler Cheese and Muriel Draaisma, the authors of the article, obtained this number from a report called Hunger Count 2024, put out by an organization called Food Banks Canada. On the CTV News website from October 28, the same statistic and source of information appears in an article written by Bob Bellacicco. In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, millions of our people are forced to seek free food handouts from the community in order to survive. Moreover, all of the authors go on to point out that food bank usage has been rising substantially every year.
Yet even this grim statistic does not reveal the full extent to which these Canadians are struggling every day of every year. The statistic of 2 million tells us how many Canadians visit a food bank every month, but it does not tell us how often they go to the food bank in a given month. At the Regina Foodbank, where I have been volunteering once per week for the last couple of years, one registered individual, or one registered family can come into the foodbank to pick up an order every two weeks. As the other food banks are likely similar in operation to the Regina Foodbank, that means that these two million people are coming into the foodbank twice per month, making it twenty-six times per year.
The statistic of 2 million also leaves out how much food a client receives. While volunteering at our drive-through operation, I opened up one of the hampers and wrote down all of the contents. Inside the box there was some bagged vegetables, rice, macaroni and cheese, some fruit, some canned goods like tuna, vegetables and soup, some candy, a package of pasta and a can or jar of pasta sauce, some canned drinks or bottles of water or Gatorade, and some form of coffee. On two other occasions I did the same thing, and found the contents to be more or less the same as what I found in that first hamper that I opened. So that was the general contents of a hamper distributed at the Regina Foodbank.
Often the main hamper would be accompanied by what we call extras. In a second box, or reusable bag, we placed two loaves of bread and then some items such as a box of cereal bars, a large bag of chips, a taco kit, muffins and other pastries, a box of cereal, bananas, or a small jug of soup broth. On some days we also had a package of meat or fish to give out, and something like a watermelon or cantaloupe, or box of strawberries, or a ten-pound sack of potatoes. For Halal requirements we tried to provide fresh eggs. If we were really lucky, we could also include a jug of milk or fruit juice drink. On other days we had only bread to give out.
As good as the hamper and extras were, however, it was still not enough for many of our clients. Some people came in to pick up an order and asked if we had anything more to give out, which we were not allowed to do. Some people would come to the Foodbank on the alternate weeks trying to get a hamper or extras, which we had to decline. Some people exited their automobiles and wanted to rummage through any big bins of food that we had sitting around the drive-through area and take extra, which we had to stop. Some people would bring the IDs of one or two of their friends and tell us that they were picking up orders for them as well. Their friends were not on the list.
Obviously it was not the fault of the Regina Foodbank that the amount of food/drink given out per order was insufficient to meet the needs of people and families. We could only give out what was donated to the Foodbank, which usually came from grocery store chains, individuals, and even farmers, or from what could be purchased using financial donations, usually from individuals, local businesses, and community organizations. The Foodbank does a great job of organizing the incoming donations, and planning what will be distributed to clients on a daily basis, with an eye on balanced nutrition. Everybody wishing to register is allowed to do so, and people who are not registered can get an emergency order. They have even established a second distribution centre in a different area of Regina.
What became clear to me though was that our clients really needed to be able to come into the Foodbank not once every two weeks for an order, but once per week. That would be fifty- two trips to the Foodbank in a year, and very likely they would still be insufficient. My guess was that many, if not all of them, relied on the Foodbank for most of their caloric intake. They had little or no money in their monetary income to supplement their Foodbank order with purchased groceries. Even with assistance from the Foodbank, they were going hungry. If we allowed them to come in twice per week, for a total of one-hundred and four trips in a year, I am sure that they take us up on the offer.
So while the statistic of 2 million people coming to the Foodbank per month is grim, if we dig deeper in our analysis, we find that the situation for these people is even worse than what we see. To this situation we can add the un-registered people coming to the Foodbank. Virtually every shift I volunteered, somebody who was not registered came in and demanded a food hand out from us at the drive-through. We can also add the people in the community that were drawing from other sources of donated food, such as the Community Fridge in Regina, or were coming into community organizations for a free supper meal. Finally, we can fill out our picture of poverty in Canada by adding the tens of thousands of homeless people across the country.
I am sure that journalists, like those mentioned above and others, will continue to report on food bank usage in Canada, and that is great. Their work informs us that many people go hungry in Canada, including a large number of children. Both of the articles mentioned above reported that one-third of food bank clients are children. Both of the articles also mention that there has been a ninety percent increase in food bank usage since 2019, and that food banks are running out of food to provide. Indeed reporters should go even deeper, interviewing not just food bank administrators, but food bank clients as well. From my experience, clients will open up about their struggles, and this angle will give reporting on hunger more of a human face.
Finally, any reporting on this subject should dig into the underlying reasons for the widespread poverty in Canada. Poverty does not develop just because it is a part of the economy, and it’s unfortunate. Poverty does not develop because people are lazy, or because they are uneducated. Poverty develops for specific and discernible reasons that are linked mainly to the people who run the country. Our so-called leaders, both in the corporate and political worlds, are an abject failure. They have created and maintained a society in which they can control all of the money, and allocate most of it to themselves. More media coverage of this nature will keep them from getting comfortable, and will be one way of our gradually turning around this whole mess.
Management is asking itself the wrong question, I thought as I read an article on the CBC News website. Originally posted on the website on August 25, 2024, the article examines the emerging use of biometric technology as a way to record when an employee signs into work, and when they sign-out. Specifically, the author of the article, Philip Drost, is writing about fingerprint scanning technology, which sees the employee place a finger on a computerized pad as a means of recognition and identification. Presumably the sign-in and sign-out times are conveyed to a permanent company data bank, and are then accessed by management and human resources (HR) for the purposes of monitoring the employee, and processing payroll.
What management and HR need to ask themselves is not whether fingerprint scanning technology is more effective than other forms of monitoring, such as time cards or computer entry sign-in. They need to ask themselves why monitoring of the employees is necessary at all. If employees are showing up late, signing-out too early, or skipping work for a shift, then that means that there is something wrong at work. For one thing, the hourly wage must be too low. Working conditions are dangerous. The individual workload is too high. Repetitive strain injury is a problem. Freedom of expression is disallowed. The more the employees are oppressed, the more that management and HR will have to control them.
I like that the author of this article dug into the ethics of using fingerprint imagery by management and HR in the workplace. Is this an intrusion into the privacy of an employee, the author asks? Can somebody hack into the company data base and somehow capture the fingerprint image, and use it for some nefarious purpose? How far will management and HR go in this direction, especially as technology advances? I also liked that the author described just how powerless employees are in the face of management and HR. Under our present labour laws in Canada, management and HR can do whatever they want. Refusal to comply with the fingerprint method of sign-in means termination of your employment.
However, I would like to see Mr. Drost probe even deeper if he returns to this issue in his future journalism. There is the question of whether or not management and HR is allowed to pass the fingerprint image along to a third party, such as a private security firm? Is the fingerprint image deleted if the employee stops working for the company. What about the fact that management and HR can require an employee’s Social Insurance Number, which also contains personal information; should this practice be allowed to continue? What about the fact that computer sign-in systems already have a time-stamp when the employee signs in? With computer sign-in, there is no worry about employees forgetting a swipe card.
Most of all, I would like to see Mr. Drost dig into the real reason behind the introduction of fingerprint scanning in the workplace; prejudice towards the workers. Where is the evidence that a worker is signing-in for a fellow worker who is either late or skipping work? What about the fact that at most workplaces a supervisor takes attendance at the beginning of the shift anyway. How often are employees forgetting to bring their time-swipe cards into work to sign-in? Are management and HR required to sign-in with a fingerprint, or is it just the workers? Management and HR see us workers as crooked and lazy and irresponsible, and that is the real reason for fingerprint sign-in.
The shock of it all, I thought as I read the article. According to a story on the CTVNews website on September 10, 2024, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) announced that it will begin monitoring all of its 26000 work-from-home employees in the United Kingdom. PricewaterhouseCoopers, a global accounting and professional services firm, plans to monitor their actions somehow so as to determine how much time they might be spending away from their desks and not working. On top of monitoring the work and break activity of their employees for performance on the job, PwC seems to be using this new policy as a way to “get more staff to spend more time in the office.” “Is this practice legal in Canada”, the headline went on to read? The author of the article is Christl Dabu, a National Affairs Writer for CTV, and with this article are included files from Cable News Network (CNN).
Yes it’s legal in Canada to monitor employees, unfortunately. In fact it’s been going on for decades in this country, and likely for very much longer. Twenty-five years ago I started work in a window factory in Moncton, New Brunswick, and I soon discovered that video cameras were set-up around all areas of the facility. On one occasion the company vice-president suddenly showed up at our workstation to give one of our crew shit for not working hard enough. Our crew’s performance was monitored in another way also. The Industrial Supersaw that the three of us operated, recorded our total number of cuts per shift, which was then accessed by the foreman. If we did not reach six hundred cuts every shift, no matter what, we got in shit. Our breaks were timed to the second at 12 minutes, with a loud buzzer announcing the beginning and the end.
Later on I went to work as a housekeeping supervisor at a facility in Banff, Alberta, and found intense monitoring of the staff there as well. There were hundreds of rooms to be cleaned daily. Each housekeeper was expected to fulfill an individual production quota of sixteen rooms during the shift. Sixteen rooms was the industry standard, as said to me by the Executive Housekeeper. At the start of their shift they were given a room-sheet indicating their specific rooms, and each was to be crossed off after completion. Supervisors were required to inspect at least 80% of the rooms using a checkoff list. If any task listed was missed, the housekeeper was sent back to finish the job, and the room was to be inspected again. Disciplinary measures, including verbal and written warnings and termination of employment were quickly applied to enforce the standard.
Still later I worked at a distribution warehouse in Vaughan, Ontario, and as one of the workers I experienced once again first-hand the monitoring of the employees by management. When I started there, we had to punch in with a time card at the start of the shift, punch out and back in for lunch, and punch out at the end of the shift. Also, we had to go through the same routine through the computers set-up just inside the warehouse. All around the warehouse were video cameras set up to monitor us. Moving to another department at the warehouse a few years later, again I found the staff having to meet an individual production quota for every shift. We hauled boxes out of bins around the warehouse for individual customer orders, and if we fell short of the quota we had to meet with the supervisor.
So again, it is legal to monitor employees in Canada, unfortunately. The only reason for the shock today seems to be that it is now being applied to office employees. It is only when the respectable white collar employees in the workforce are affected, does monitoring of the employees gain any real story-telling in the news. If employee monitoring had been exposed decades ago, or perhaps even further back in time, there is a chance that it could have been extinguished by now as a tool of management and human resources (HR). We could have a humane workplace instead of the prison-like environment we are experiencing. At a minimum the practice of monitoring would be stringently regulated through Employment Standards legislation in the territories, the provinces, and with the federal government. There would be no shock occurring to the office employees as monitoring has developed in Canada.
I don’t begrudge the author of this article for missing the fact that employee monitoring has been around a long time. Very likely she has never worked in a factory or warehouse or as a housekeeper. The so-called manual labour world is an abstraction to her, and for most other journalists as well I’m sure. If I am mistaken and she has spent some time in manual labour, perhaps as a summer job while attending university, then it has not been long enough to acquire any emotional attachment to that sort of work. She and other journalists would not be bothered by the extensive monitoring of manual workers that has already taken place for so long. Furthermore, I acknowledge that the author did at least clarify that “It’s never been illegal to track employees, especially in the workplace”, which she did by interviewing a Canadian lawyer.
However, I do want Ms. Dabu and other Canadian journalists to cover the world of manual labour at greater volume and depth in the future. By more extensively and sympathetically covering the world of manual labour, journalists can help to reverse the present situation where the workplace is a dictatorship. Why do we allow dictatorship in our lives merely because it is happening in the workplace? The division between life inside and outside of work is artificial, it is man-made. It is all part of life. Going into a job for forty hours a week, or more, means that we are spending almost half of our waking lives living under a dictatorship. As under any dictatorship, freedom of speech is strictly prohibited. If you speak up on the job, for yourself or others, you are fired by management and HR. Here the news media can play a valuable role.
Greater news coverage will also help to prevent further growth of managerial and human resources control over workers on the job. From Ms. Dabu’s article, one can see that dictatorship in the workplace is only going to expand, and manual workers will undoubtedly continue to be at the forefront of such developments. Driven by greed and prejudice, management and HR will continue looking for new ways to monitor manual labourers on the job. If it has not already happened, I foresee workers being forced to wear body cameras in certain industries, such as warehousing and housekeeping. From the camera footage, workers will be criticized by their supervisors for not being efficient in their movements, or for stopping to scratch their asses. Wearing Fitbits will be forced on workers so as to track their number of steps and their heartrate. Any such developments need to be in the news.
Eventually, again if it has not already happened, the dictatorship is going to expand into our lives outside of work. I foresee the workers’ sleep being monitored by some device, perhaps a Fitbit. The device will track when the employee goes to bed and when they wake-up. Management and HR will justify this intrusion into our personal lives by saying that a good sleep is crucial to a workers’ performance on the job. For the same reason management and HR will monitor our diet. Cigarette smoking will be banned, and there will be random testing for drug usage like marijuana. In fact, in 2013 I was tested for marijuana use for a job interview as a first aid instructor. Punishments will be used by management and HR if there is any negative data that comes from this monitoring. All of these developments need to be covered in the news.
Finally greater coverage of manual labour in the news could help forge a connection between this group of people and the office workers. Coverage of the manual labourers will make the office workers aware of what’s going on at the ground level in terms of dictatorship in the workplace. The smart people among the office workers will begin to see that these developments at the ground level will eventually filter into their workplaces in one form or another, like they are now. They will then support manual workers in their fight against dictatorship. Support from office workers could come in the form of statements from their unions, and sympathetic work slow-downs or even stoppages. In turn manual workers will support the office workers. Ultimately, office workers will be on firmer ground in their resistance to management and HR, and understand that they cannot win their fight alone.
On the website for CTV News (September 1, 2024), was a story about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a discussion he had with a Steelworker at the Algoma Steel Mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. According to the story it was a “tense” exchange, with the Steelworker telling the PM that he was still struggling despite having a “decent” job, that he was paying 40% in taxes, and that he had to pay for his own dental care. The Liberal/NDP national dental care program, which was touted by the Prime Minister during the discussion as a big help for Canadians, was not developed enough to really help the Steelworker, as he suggested.
In response, the PM said that his Party was investing in Steelworkers by introducing heavy tariffs on Chinese imports of steel into Canada, which would diminish foreign competition. “I am investing in your job”, the PM went on to say to the Steelworker. I wish I had been there to see the exchange between these two people; it sounds like it was a great demonstration of democracy and civil society in action in Canada. Can you imagine many countries in which any person can talk so freely with the top political leader of the land, and even refuse to shake the leader’s hand, twice, all in front of a free press?
But this is not enough democracy for Canada. That Steelworker needs to be able to have the same forthright discussion with the managers of his company, from the plant manager up to the CEO. In order for Canadians to be able to improve their lives, they need to be able to confront management daily over the gross inequalities in the workplace concerning pay and power. Why should a mere company manager be protected from public free speech while the Prime Minister of the entire country is not? If the Prime Minister is really serious about investing in the workers of Canada, he needs to publicly support freedom of expression in the workplace.