Lordy. I think it's safe to say that Jason Kenney is now wrestling with his greatest inner torment since he chose chastity over sex, so many painful years ago.
For he is truly caught between the devil and a Big Mac.
On the one hand, because so many Canadians are so outraged, he's trying to look like he's cracking down on the sordid foreign workers scandal.
The government's decision to impose a moratorium on the fast-food industry's access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program will send employers "a very clear message" that abuse will not be tolerated, says Employment Minister Jason Kenney.
On the other hand he also apparently agrees with the CEO of McDonald's Canada, who believes that Kenney's moratorium is "bullshit."
"This has been an attack on our brand. This has been an attack on our system. This is an attack on our people. It’s bullshit OK! I used those words when I described my conversation with the minister last week. He gets it," McDonald's Canada CEO John Betts is heard saying.
Which tells me that Kenney must be desperate, especially since he helped create the problem...
And only a few days ago was still calling it a minor one.
Which no doubt explains why the fast food industry is so outraged, outraged I tell you.
To see their loyal pimp suddenly turn on them...
But then those fast food sharks will do or say ANYTHING to get their fix of cheap foreign labour.
A moratorium on hiring temporary foreign workers for the food service industry could force the closure of restaurants and put Canadians out of work, industry experts say.
We're already hearing from members saying they don't know how they're going to be able to keep their restaurants open in certain locales." "I anticipate that unfortunately, we will see some restaurants close."
Because like Kenney, they too are shameless, would betray their own people, and drag us all down in a deathly race to the bottom.
And all I can say is I'm with Cathie from Canada on this one.
How dare those grubby greedsters insult us in such a disgusting manner? Who do they think they are? Who do they think we are?
If they can't survive without employing foreign workers, they SHOULD go out of business.
And if they keep on using foreigners instead of Canadians, we'll make sure they DO go out of business, because we'll find out where they are.
And make sure EVERYBODY does...
You know Canadians may be a passive people, or a quiet people as I prefer to think of them, for my own sanity eh?
But I'm pretty sure that most of them will not consent to live as strangers, or slaves in their own country.
I certainly won't, not after seeing the way some of my own friends have been humiliated and mistreated by our shabby business class.
Or seeing that poor waitress in Saskatchewan cry after losing her job to a foreign worker...
Because it's been a long time since I've felt so angry.
And my only consolation is that it really does leave Kenney in a desperate position, caught between the devil and the Big Mac.
If he backs down he will enrage Canadians further, if he doesn't his business friends will turn on the Cons. Because he fed their addiction for cheap labour, turned them into greedy monsters.
Now they're out of control...
And the Cons must live with the consequences.
And we'll make sure they do eh?
Because as we all know, phony patriotism has always been a big part of the Con brand. A way of attracting their dumbest supporters, like a flame does a moth.
So if we can shatter that phony image, we can do them incredible damage where it hurts the most.
And now is the time, for we will never have a better opportunity.
Or a mightier issue to use against them like a weapon.
Or a more powerful slogan.
One that can hit people in the gut, like one of those greasy burgers.
DOWN WITH THE TRAITOR CONS.
CANADA FOR CANADIANS...
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21 comments:
you wrote exactly what I was thinking...............thanks for that
Besides the betrayal to Canadians Simon, I find it outrageous that it is somehow ok to treat others in foreign lands like a cheap commodity, that they would have no rights in the workplace and to bring them over to Canada and again think it's ok to treat them as less than and pay them peanuts. To hear Tim Hortons say that they cannot survive without exploiting people from other countries is sweeter than the artificial crap on their donuts. I would hate to see anyone lose their job, but one less street corner or mall without a Tim Hortons would do wonders to clean up the landscape a bit and lessen the risk for obesity and diabetes that their crap food promotes. Kenney as well deserves all the humiliation and embarrassment that this sorrid affair will bring him and it couldn't happen to a more deserving self-loathing homophobe as this closeted miserable fellow.
Watch for Jason to embrace the next shameful tactic that beneficiaries and other supporters of his application of this disgusting program are employing to defend it: that critics of the TFWP are nativist xenophobes and quite possibly racist.
See: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/Temporary+foreign+worker+speaks/9774415/story.html
Jason and the other market libertarians that are behind this wage suppression project would like nothing better than to exploit another opportunity to pit worker against worker. I’ll guarantee you that critics of the program and its mismanagement are more concerned about the rights and welfare of the TFWs than the people who brought them here, the transnational labour mobility specialist who co-ordinated the fraud and the process, and especially more so than Jason Kenney and the guy who wrote that bullshit editorial.
It's even creepier than you know, Simon..yesterday, our NDP politicians here in BC were speaking to the media after a meeting with the TFWs that will "not be getting their work permits renewed or be able to apply for permanent status' now that their Golden Arches jobs will be over soon as their current permits expire. Not only have they been taking our jobs, but they were obviously lied to about gaining status as immigrants and so far it has been shown that their permits were simply rubber-stamped, over and over...so those temporary workers were to be kept in bullshit limbo for the foreseeable future if someone hadn't blown the whistle...
It sounds very much like the sort of thing that happens to those other 'foreign workers' who get conned into being brought here as prostitutes after being told that good jobs await them..and are held in servitude till the 12th of never..
This is beyond atrocious..and who was that sweaty, pasty-faced critter on the news last night insisting that temporary foreign workers were 'mistaken' if they thought that their slave labour was the road to permanent immigration status? Yep, Kenney, and how was it that these workers were convinced of this lie? Could it be part of the recruitment agenda in their own country?
Not only that? There have been thousands of foreigners brought over, to take Canadian resource jobs. Kenny must have forgotten about them. BC is overrun with Chinese that Harper brought over for his, Northern BC mining plan. Petro-China put in a bid to *help* build the Enbridge pipeline, using their own cheap labor of course. I read: Headhunters charge $12,500 for the foreigners they recruit.
BC mills have shut down for a lack of timber. While freighter after freighter of BC's raw logs are being given to China. When a mill is shut down over here? Another mill in China goes up.
Nor have the people of BC forgotten Harper's part, in the thefts and the destruction of BC.
Harper has turned this country into a, shameful dictatorship and a cesspool of corruption.
At a Tim Horton's near me, the staff were calling in sick a lot and turning over at a rate the owner found alarming, so he/she bought a house, got a bunch of TFW, and installed them in the house and coffee shop. My reaction to this is that if a business person runs their business so badly that they can only keep it staffed with captive slaves, they probably ought to examine their management practices, and maybe the business OUGHT to close.
https://www.facebook.com/StopForeignWorkersAndOutsourcingCanadianJobs
This is the same bullshit type of "immigration problem" that the u.s. has trumped up for the benefit of their "lily-white" political base. The fucking republican big business owners bring in the Mexicans by the truckload so as to utilize the cheap/slave labor they provide and then the very same sociopathic assholes that use that labor the most (the u.s. version of "chaebols") vote in the most egregious, nazi-onalistic anti-immigrant, racist "legislation" seen since the time of Adolph Hitler.
Nice game, huh? Play the odds until you get caught, pay a pittance of a fine to your buddy the judge who "found you guilty" and then laugh all the way home and then when you get there, you can inspect your next crop of "braseros" that you can literally work to death out in the fields (of course under the threat of deportation or violence against their families, or worse) until the next time you get caught and pay another pittance fine, etc. ad infinitum.
It's almost the same game here, Simon. "You can't tell the players apart without a program."
Jesus' General, help us!
Shalom!
Allah Achbar!
So Mote It Be!
Sadly we're only scratching the surface here. I can imagine there are thousands of unreported cases of abuse that the TFW's are afraid to report and these greedy franchisees/owners are exploiting them for maximum profit while Canadians are being slowly squeezed out of the labour market. The Cons have bungled yet another file and Jason Kenney saying he will fix it brings little comfort to me.
I just heard that Doofus MacKay will be unveiling his new prostitution laws soon. If his ability at procuring fighter jets are anything like how one will procure a lady of the evening then God help them all.
hi anon... thank YOU. I have a feeling that a lot of Canadians are thinking like you and me...
hi bcwaterboy....I too am horrified by the way our hapless business class is exploiting foreign workers and treating them like slaves. So much for Tim Hortons that great "Canadian" brand, and so much for the benefits of globalization where humans are just a commodity. To see Kenney posing as the champion of Canadian workers really is obscene, when him and his Cons created the problem to lower wages and bust unions. As I said in my post, may the Burger Monster consume him...
hi John...yes, I see that some in the fast food industry are also accusing their opponents of being xenophobes, and like you I find that outrageous. I have nothing against the foreign workers themselves, but no amount of slander or intimidation will stop me from standing up for the rights of our people...
hi mizdarlin...you're right that really is creepy. The depth of their contempt for foreign and Canadian workers knows no bounds. To them we are all slaves who exist for the sole purpose of making the business class richer. I guess they're worried that the longer foreign workers live in Canada the more they understand that they have rights, and that would never do. Exploiting them economically is bad enough, but raising their hopes and then dashing them is beyond belief. But of course Kenney and the Con gang want to have their burgers and eat them.Provide business with slave labour AND appeal to the xenophobia or racism of their rabid base. What have those beasts done to our Canada?
hi anon...you're right, the foreign worker's scam is not limited to the fast food industry. It's everywhere in this country, but the motivation is the same. Lower wages, bust unions and take us all on a race to the bottom where the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. A couple of my friends criticized me for using the word "traitors" to describe the Cons. But what are you supposed to call people who would betray the interests of some of the humblest Canadians? Is the word "sellouts" really enough?
hi Karen...I completely agree with you, especially since I have read horrible stories about the way some of those businesses treat their foreign workers.They put them up in shabby places, and then clawback so much money from them, they end up with almost nothing to show for their work. If that is a "business plan" the sooner they go out of business the better...
hi anon...thanks for the link. I like the page a lot, and I'm definitely going to have to find a place for that graphic somewhere on my blog. This foreign workers scam really has to go and so do the Cons...
Great post, Simon. Our local right-wing radio host tried to turn the Weyburn restaurant controversy into a racism story, that everybody was just being so mean to the TFWs. Actually, of course, it is a corporate story, about how our Canadian corporations want to abuse their staff and cannot get away with it unless they employ people who cannot fight back.
hi anon...I don't doubt that like so many other things the Cons do, this scam is also right out of the Republican playbook. And as i told that other commenter, the Cons are trying to have their cake and eat it.
Exploit foreign workers AND appeal to the xenophobia of their rabid base, by cracking down on immigrants and refugees. Once I never could have even conceived of such wickedness, now I can't wait to end it and make this country decent again...
hi anon...you're absolutely right, Kenney is not only hoping he can convince the dumb that he is cracking down on a problem he himself created. He is only targeting the fast food industry and hoping that we will forget about all the other sectors where the problem is just as bad. That's why I am encouraging Canadians to publicize the extent of the problem, so the magnitude of what the Cons have done is finally exposed for all to see...
totally agree.... it is a shame that business is not called out for the (I pay you -> you pay my real estate investment). There is absolutely no incentive to find a Canadian Worker.
Business Welfare program plain and simple.....people have to start boycotting.....
hi Cathie...thanks and thank YOU for contributing the best part of that post. I can't believe that people are trying to turn this scandal into a racist issue. Who hates the thousands of foreign workers from Ireland? If it's because of their red hair I'll be even more offended. ;) But seriously nobody has to apologize for standing up for their fellow Canadians. If we don't, who will?
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