When the Cons Make the Poor Pay for Their Mistakes

It really couldn't be more disgusting or more Kafkaesque. 

Or more of a horror show.

The Cons gut Statistic Canada. The battered agency screws up its job numbers.

And now Jason Kenney is making the jobless PAY.

Federal officials responsible for Employment Insurance are putting new claims on hold this week as they wait for Statistics Canada to fix a mistake in its monthly jobs report. 

The monthly Labour Force Survey from Statistics Canada has a direct connection to the federal E.I. program, as regional unemployment dictates how many weeks an unemployed person needs to have worked before they can qualify for the program.

And even though Kenney's office is claiming there will be no delays in processing E.I. claims, its sorry record speaks for itself.

The department’s own reporting concluded that it failed last year to meet its processing time targets. The department sets a goal of providing applicants with an answer on their claim within 28 days, 80 per cent of the time. Last year they provided answers within 28 days 74.5 per cent of the time.

The report noted that Canadians can face long waits when calling the department about their E.I. claim and said 1.2 million calls were abandoned in the 2012-13 fiscal year as people gave up waiting for an agent.

And who can measure the despair of so many Canadians forced to wait even longer for money to support themselves and their families?



Money that they paid into the system for the day when they needed it. But are now lucky if they qualify to receive it.

Kenney should have instructed his department to keep processing claims, and deal with any problems later.

But then why should we be surprised? When Jason Kenney is the man who flooded the country with foreign workers, to steal the jobs of Canadians, and drive wages down.

So who can trust that shabby Con pimp to get ANYTHING right?



When this is all part of the Con plan to change Canada beyond recognition. By slashing and chopping government until it can't provide proper services.

And then using that as an excuse to slash and burn it some more, until it's crippled, or dead, or privatized.

They did it to the E.I. program, they're doing it to Canada Post and the CBC, they've got their sights set on medicare.

And Stephen Harper in his creepy stealthy way has been trying to savage our social safety net from the moment he came to office....



Because he hates the values that safety net represents, and his whole approach is more American than Canadian.

But luckily, the times are changing. Canadians are getting tired of his Republican-style approach to politics, where guns and militarism are good and government is always bad.

And as the latest polls show they are preparing to teach the Cons a brutal lesson. For as Frank Graves points out this country may be ruled by a right-wing regime, but its heart and soul are centre-left. 

Contrary to claims Canadians are moving to the right, they’re actually going in the opposite direction, Graves continued. “They’re moving to the centre-left.

Graves believes Canadians are “trying to inoculate themselves from a hegemony of right wing rule over a protracted period based on a small minority of Canadians who share those views. Canadians are just saying that’s enough.

Graves notes that one of the clear lessons from June’s Liberal victory in Ontario is that “the whole austerity, minimum government stuff which is dear to Mr. Harper’s heart is increasingly not working with the public. “Voters want a more active state, for government to do something to buffer the excesses of a difficult economy and also to invest in that economy through infrastructure and other tools.

And making the jobless pay for the mistakes of the Con regime is NOT a Canadian value.

Yup. He always was more American than Canadian.

It always was an aberration. 

It never would have happened if progressives were not divided.

But we will get our act together.

And we will get our country back...



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