Matt Gurney: Jason Kenney on the devaluing of basic work and the trades

On Wednesday, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney met with the National Post editorial board to discuss upcoming changes to the immigration system. The big announcement was that, in the months ahead, the government will unveil reforms to the Employment Insurance system to link benefits to the local demand for jobs. The Minister offered no details except to promise more would come, but was clear that, when enacted, these reforms would address the problem of having areas of the country with stubbornly high unemployment needing to import foreigners to plug local labour shortfalls.

“What we will be doing is making people aware there’s hiring going on and reminding them that they have an obligation to apply for available work and to take it if they’re going to qualify for EI,” Minister Kenney said. He acknowledged that Canadians can’t be compelled to uproot their entire lives and move across the country to fill a job opening, but it can be done on a regional or local level. “Perhaps we can encourage people to go down the street to get jobs,” he added. “I don’t regard working as upheaval.”

Good. Importing labour while Canadians collect unemployment has always been bizarre. But the Minister also addressed another loaded issue, one as urgently in need of addressing as reforms to EI. Why are there good jobs out there that aren’t being filled by young Canadians, despite high youth unemployment?

The best estimates for youth unemployment in Canada right now hover around 14%, double the national average. The real unemployment figure is undoubtedly higher. Meanwhile, the prairie provinces, according to Minister Kenney, consider the shortage of workers to be the biggest issue facing their economies. The market has partially tried to address this by ramping up the wages offered (a $25 an hour wage for agriculture workers in Saskatchewan, was the example Minister Kenney used). But there is a point at which the wages simply can’t go any higher, given the fundamental value of the commodity.

The work is hard, of course. And not glamorous. And obviously, the majority of the Canadian population does not live in the breadbasket regions of the West. But it’s good work, available, and if a Mexican or Romanian is willing to fly across a continent or ocean for a decent paying job, why can’t young Canadians skip over a province or two and make some money in their own country? Same language, same culture, same laws, same money. What’s the problem?

Self-image, says the Minister. “I think there’s been a couple of generations of young Canadians who’ve been given the idea that if they don’t work in an office with a computer, they’re somehow deficient.” Tens of thousands of these Canadians go into universities every year, taking courses that will leave them with loads of debt and no realistic prospects for a decent-paying job.

“One of the things that frustrates me is that it seems to me that culturally perhaps in our education system we have devalued basic work and trades,” Minister Kenney said. “And this is unfortunate. I’m not saying that young Canadians should lower or change their expectations, they need to realize what’s possible.”

He’s right. It’s not just agricultural workers that are in demand. Canada needs engineers, computer technicians, and thousands of skilled tradespeople. Increasingly, a student who uses borrowed money to get that four-year bachelor degree will find themselves needing to go back to college for training to get a job shortly thereafter. Why not skip ahead of the curve and make money while your peers are taking on debt in pursuit of a dead-end degree?

“It’s a free country,” Minister Kenney said. “People will make the choices they make.” Indeed. But parents and educators owe it to their children to make sure those choices are informed ones. A good place to start is pointing out that a farm in Saskatchewan is just as honourable a place to work as an office in Toronto.

National Post
mgurney@nationalpost.com

Manitoba politicians spar over immigration changes

A war of words took place at the Manitoba legislature on Thursday afternoon between the NDP government, which is fighting to keep the provincial nominee program, and the Tories.

Some of the 100 to 150 people who came to the Manitoba legislature on Thursday afternoon to protest changes to the provincial nominee program. (Katie Nicholson/CBC)

Immigration Minister Christine Melnick stood in the legislature following question period and demanded that the federal government reverse its decision to cancel its shared settlement services agreement with the province.

Without funding from that agreement, Manitoba's Provincial Nominee Program is dead, according to the province.

The program is a national strategy meant to help skilled workers and entrepreneurs from other countries gain permanent resident status in Canada more quickly.

Until now, the program had been administered by Manitoba but funded by Ottawa.

Ottawa's decision to cancel its funding agreement was announced earlier this month, around the same time as a wave of federal budget cuts that included relocating the federal Citizenship and Immigration Department office in Winnipeg to Calgary.

The public chamber at the legislature was packed with supporters of the Provincial Nominee Program on Thursday afternoon.

Local support for immigrants

Another 150 people couldn't get into the gallery and are standing in the rotunda. Many of them say they have taken part in the provincial nominee program.

Among those who attended was Dorota Blumczynska, who is from Poland and is on maternity leave from her job with the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba.

Blumczynska said the provincial program works because it has local people who know how to help immigrants make Manitoba their home.

"The only way you can provide responsive support services is by knowing the community and being on the ground," she said.

"So how can you say that by just changing the administration, you won't change the programming? That's not possible."

Blumczynska added that her husband came to Canada from India through the nominee program five years ago.

"In a couple of years, he's going to be a citizen. And he pays his taxes, and he contributes, and he is the very reason this program exists," she said.

"And now, our family is here because he's here."

Tory MPs come to legislature

But in an unprecedented move, four Manitoba Conservative MPs — Shelly Glover, Joy Smith, James Bezan and Candice Hoeppner — also came to the legislature to to show their support for the federal government's decision.

"The MPs are coming in to straighten the story out," Smith said.

"The story has been totally misleading, it's scaring people, and we have to get that story straight."

Smith said the program will stay the same, but it will simply be managed by the federal government.

But Premier Greg Selinger said Manitoba's program has been a model for the rest of Canada and should not be tampered with.

The NDP government has the support of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which says thousands of its members came to Manitoba under the program.

'Three-ring circus'

A source told CBC News the debate over Melnick's demand would become a "three-ring circus."

CBC News obtained a copy of an email from Ben Rempel, the assistant deputy minister of the provincial immigration department, inviting people to show up at the legislative building.

A government spokesperson told CBC News the email was sent to settlement service providers in Manitoba.

Mavis Taillieu, the Opposition Progressive Conservative immigration critic, blasted the NDP when she learned about the email.

Conservative Tweets

"The MB NDP plan to fill the gallery with immigrants tomorrow ( scooped up all the passes ) and intend to skewer Cdn gov't."

— Manitoba MLA Myrna Driedger

"Actually, they had senior public servants (eg ADM) ask settlement staff to cut work to attend.Is that how things work in MB?"

— Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney

“It's totally inappropriate for a bureaucrat to be involved in any political activity which this is. It's just an abuse of power by the NDP,” she said.

Taillieu said the provincial government's motives aren't so much about protecting anything as they are about trying to score political points against the Conservatives.

“They've totally politicized the whole issue which is very very unfortunate. They really need to work with the federal government because at the end of the day, it's the immigrants that need the services,” she said.

Other Conservatives took to Twitter to express their anger with the NDP.

"The MB NDP plan to fill the gallery with immigrants tomorrow (scooped up all the passes) and intend to skewer Cdn gov't," Manitoba MLA Myrna Driedger tweeted to Jason Kenney, the federal immigration minister.

"Actually, they had senior public servants (eg ADM) ask settlement staff to cut work to attend.Is that how things work in MB?" Kenney tweeted back.