So how about that 'high employment' statistic eh?
Stephen Harper and his government continues to crow about the high levels of employment in Canada... The highest in 3 decades! …as if they could take credit for the phenomenon. This theme was evident in the Speech from the Throne, in the recent Economic Update and in many statements in the House of Commons.
And yet, what a misnomer! There are jobs and there are "jobs". To be employed is not always what it is cracked up to be, especially if you cannot support a family on your wages.
Nor if you are a two parent family in which you must both work to make ends meet, and have to spend most of your paycheque on child care... or even worse....if you cannot find qualified, affordable, child care.
Nor is the high employment level a consolation, if you just lost your job in the manufacturing sector; with a mortgage and two kids in high school, hoping to get to College.
Nor is this relevant to the internationally-trained worker who cannot work in their field of expertise, but instead holds down two, sometimes three, low-paying jobs in order to house and feed a family.
It is interesting to listen to the "experts" muse on the semantics of high employment.
In the end, it all really depends on the perspective.
There are those who cite evidence of wage inflation as the conundrum...this may be so in certain sectors where there are skilled, trained workers. But there are many parents who cringe, as their children drop out of school, to flee to Alberta and (paradise for an adolescent) $15 an hour, at a fast food restaurant.
New data tells us that in many working, low or middle income families both parents are forced to work, just in order to keep ahead of the costs of housing, feeding and educating their children (kinda like that hamster on the classroom wheel).
Most of these families are only 2 paycheques away from poverty...if they should lose their jobs...or if inflation rises...or, if the much touted "standard of living" goes up...
Yet, the "experts" speak of the booming economy! They don’t mention the widening prosperity gap… no longer a case of the "haves and have nots", but the difference in wages between the wealthy and those who work and work and work, in this "high employment" milieu, to keep their heads, barely, above water.
While the "chattering classes" bemoan the fact that Canadians "are not saving and living beyond their means."!
The government takes credit for the booming economy.
But the government has done nothing to deal with the shutting down of the manufacturing sector. Nothing to help workers in those sectors to retrain for jobs in the "new economy" (cancelling, instead, the Liberals' 3.5 billion dollar training and skills program with the provinces).
They have done nothing to provide quality affordable child care for the families that need two incomes to survive! Cancelling instead, the Liberals' $6 billion agreement with the provinces for a national child care strategy.
They have done nothing to help those families afford safe and decent housing. Instead, the Liberals proposed national housing strategy fell through because of a premature election. For this, we can thank the NDP, when they joined with the Conservatives to bring about a Harper minority government.
They have done nothing to help kids get an education in the new world of work. Instead, they cancelled the Liberal post secondary education policies in favour of an $80 tax credit.
Nothing (other than an information hot line) for the foreign trained worker. Cancelling, instead, the Liberal plan and funding, which addressed this complex issue.
So when you hear of the great levels of employment and the booming economy, remember the "prosperity gap" that now places middle and low income Canadians on one side of a widening chasm.
And ask the Conservatives what they intend to do about it!
Ask the NDP why they conspired with Harper's party in the Fall of 2005 to get us into this mess!
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld
