Hey Man. You can start in the first week of January in Fort Nelson. Imaginge going from 35 degrees above to minus 40 degrees Celcius.

We also have lots of youth coming out of high school, who with a little training would be a good fit with these jobs. We also have 6% un-employment who would be a good fit for these jobs. Not anywhere near the burden on support services as these imports would be. If you want to see a city ruined by large amounts of imported workers, take a look at Brandon Manitoba with the huge amount of workers from various countries brought in to work at the Maple Leaf plant ( not withstanding Maple Leaf's present problems ).

Interesting, I know several people from Winton Global & NCP that are having a hell
of a time getting either funding to "upgrade" their skills, or just to find a job. I wonder what Memorandum of Understanding they can get with Okanagan College or CNC?

So many people out of work in the forestry sector and we have to bring in out of country people? My gawd! Maybe they will work for Campbell's $6.00 per hour.

Someone should ask these Jamaican guys their thoughts on our homeless situation once they are here. Tell them some people don't want to work and be responsible for themselves. Gotta find out how to instill a work ethic on our hobos just like they do in Mexico and in the Caribbean with their regular people.

No more calling them bums homeless. From now on they are gonna be called tramps hobos transients vagrants drifters and whatever else after I find my good ol' Thesaurus.

"So many people out of work in the forestry sector and we have to bring in out of country people? My gawd!"

How many of our out of work forestry workers would be willing to take on the jobs that these Jamaican workers would fill? My hunch is that it could be a very low percentage.

The reality is that many Canadians tend to think allot of the available work is beneath them so they don't bother taking those jobs on. All you have to do is listen to people complain about "low paying service jobs", "non living wages" and similar verbiage to drive that point home.

The flip side of that is the fact that our country is full of success stories related to immigrants who take on these types of jobs (oftentimes more than one of them), work their butts off and eventually improve their situation dramatically. I'd say it's more common to see that type of story with an immigrant than with a "born and raised" Canadian facing the same predicament. I wonder why that is?

"Gotta find out how to instill a work ethic on our hobos just like they do in Mexico and in the Caribbean with their regular people."

That's easy. Just encourage them to form gangs, steal everything in sight, and split the take with the cops if they get caught, just like they do down there.

Bang on NMG. How many of our displaced forestry workers or high school graduates would take a 'short term agricultural project' job? My guess is very few. This is why they are looking at bringing people in from outside the country.

Hmm, I'm a little confused. So Jamaicans have a partnership with Okanagan College to receive upgrading to bring them up to par with Canadian standards. Yet there is a claim that they are providing skilled labour. If one was skilled, why would you require upgrading?. I wonder which corporation is the beneficiary of this highly skilled and upgraded labour force. Perhaps most skilled people wouldn't take on these low paying jobs, but I'm sure PG will benefit immensely with a multitude of low paying jobs providing a mere sustinance of income, relegating these individuals into a more prosperous and lucrative field so abhorently admired by the general public.

Oh, I could retort to many comments made by Minister Charles, ie low birth rate, which I see as a sensible choice by some not to have children due to economic circumstance rather than introduce children to a life of poverty and despair. Sure as Canadians perhaps we are somewhat spoiled, but isn't this why many of our parents and grandparents came here and made this country what it is now. If we are so short of skilled workers, why is it that the skilled Europeans are having trouble getting through immigration loopholes? But unskilled Asian and South American immigrants seem to pass with flying colours. I am an Immigrant and neither has this anything to do with race. In essence, someones on the prowl for cheap labour, not skilled labour, so is this the most sensible approach, how many skilled labour jobs are available currently in PG? And no telemarketing is not a skill, it is friggin' annoying.

"How many skilled labour jobs are available currently in PG"

Based on the ads in the Citizen every Saturday, there are quite a few. Of course, you do need the skills the jobs are looking for and since most of them don't seem to be forestry related, many people in this town pretend they don't exist :)

"In essence, someones on the prowl for cheap labour, not skilled labour,"

That's EXACTLY what they're on the prowl for, pisspulper. "Cheap labour". And if it's 'skilled' labour as well as 'cheap' labour, so much the better. But "cheap" is more important as we compete in the race to make "B C Number One again" and 'globally competitive'. Counting from the bottom up.

I wonder how many of those commenting on how some Canadians who find non-living wage, service type, menial jobs "beneath them" and are all "bums" and other similies, would be willing to take those type of jobs themselves, quite possibly permanently, if that was all that was available?

How many of them would be willing to have to share a single family residence with two or three other families just to be able to live?

How many of our own citizens could get away with even being able to do that, if the zoning enforcement and health officialdom didn't have to contend with the fear of being labelled 'racist' if they enforced the letter of the law where visible minorities that come here from the Third World are concerned?

If goods and services can't be provided to a Canadian general public that needs and desires them, at a price they can afford, in these modern times, with all the advances of productivity per man/hour that have occurred over the last century, WITHOUT resorting to the kind of exploitation many of these immigrants are subjected to, there's something very much wrong with our entire economic system. And working harder, or longer, or cheaper, sure as Hell isn't going to fix it.

Sure as Hell is! That's what being a small business is all about!

Everybody's situation is different of course, but I would flip burgers or dig ditches if that's what it took to feed my family.

The labour market is made up of skilled labour and 'cheap' (unskilled) labour. It takes all kinds to fill all of these positions. If you want to make more money, get an education and/or training and get a skilled labour position.

Lots of students can't afford to attend C.N.C. even with student loans and that takes time if you can get a seat. The Industry training people keep cutting funding. We need to have some Canadian young people speak out on this topic. Something is very wrong with this picture.It costs about $4000,00 per course in the Trades courses in addition to the cost of their personal equipment. It would be nice if our own Government assisted our people like Jamaica appears to be helping theirs. If we give all our jobs to help other countries what do our young people have to look forward to.

Yeah YDPCat, harder, longer, cheaper. That describes my average working day too!
I'll tell you, we are not looking for cheap labour, someone who wants to work would be a great start. Some of these people have their hands out before they start work, and they want to make the big bucks right away, no extra hours, no week ends, heck they should go work for the government or the school board if they want good pay with no unreasonable demands like 'work or be fired' And socred, a lot of immigrants made something of themselves by working long hours at a menial job for low pay, and having to shack up with another family to make ends meet. That worked for a lot of successful people who managed some how without free money from the government, so why not born and raised Canadians? It should not be beneath anyone to have to start at the bottom and work their way up. If they want, they can stay at the bottom, if they want better, work for it, like the immigrants who built this country. I had life better than my folks because they worked hard to see to that. Same goes for them, their parents emigrated, and had to work hard to make a better life for their family. Nobody should expect to start at the middle or the top. We need skilled labour, not cheap labour.
metalman.

"Jamaican Workers Can Ease Labour Shortage"

Another thing that can ease the labour shortage is if the lazy asses in the world would stop relying on welfare and get a job.

If I am not mistaken every person in this country that has contributed to our EI system is entitled to a lifetime amount of $6000.00 for training, available to them via the EI system.

That was how I got my class one licence.

There are waiting lists for most trades training programs, this shortage has been on the horizon for the last 20-30 years. The government and industry sat on their hands for years and now they're whining. Maybe Gordo shoulda opened some trade schools, with the money from selling off the province, instead of gutting the ITAC system and leaving it in shambles.
We're reaping what we've sown

Alright, Yama, work "harder, and longer, and cheaper" then, and maybe it'll bring you exactly whatever it is you expect to get out of a "small business". What's stopping you? It's still supposed to be a 'free country', so far as I'm aware.

Maybe you'll even get lucky, and be able to employ some low wage slaves that share your work "harder, longer and cheaper" philosophy in their drive to 'get ahead'. Gordo and Co. have made it easy for you all to ignore such detriments as the eight-hour day, or the forty-hour work week, or having to pay the untrained minimum wage til they're trained, etc.

Surely not ALL the workforce is composed of those who think working "harder, longer and cheaper" only means you're doing continually more for continually less? And see that, on an overall basis, as I do under the current financial set-up, as no more than a "race to the bottom"?

Maybe some of those low wage slaves will even be Jamaican. Though that kind of begs the question, doesn't it? If they are so willing to work "harder, longer and cheaper" here, why weren't they able to achieve whatever it is they hope to achieve by doing exactly the same thing in Jamaica?

Too much competition from the local Jamaican we'll work "harder longer, and cheaper" crowd? Why with a nation composed of people of that calibre Jamaica should be leading the world in 'prosperity' by now, don't you think? For in spite of the time out they take for too much breeding, of all the many Caribbean nations, it's an island that has considerable and diverse natural resources. But it seems to still lag in the 'prosperity' department. Now why do you think that is?

Metalman wrote:-"And socred, a lot of immigrants made something of themselves by working long hours at a menial job for low pay, and having to shack up with another family to make ends meet. That worked for a lot of successful people who managed some how without free money from the government, so why not born and raised Canadians?"

Sure they did, Metalman, but how many "born and raised Canadians" could get away with doing that? Vancouver, a mecca of sorts for many immigrants, where many of them do precisely that, where they "shack up with another family to make ends meet", turns a blind eye to that in the immigrant communities. When new arrivals work 'under the table' for their former fellow countrymen who have been here a little longer, do we hear about it? Unless some overcrowded, unsafe van flips hauling them to work, or a gravel truck with no brakes and an unlicensed driver runs amok, or a bunchof them come down with poisoning from handling pesticides unprotected, no we do not. Yet these things go on.

But to get back to housing, just let a "born and raised" Canadian try to do the same thing with his family 'sharing' a single family dwelling? The authorities would clamp down on that as quick as they became aware of it.

The "born and raised" Canadian can't do what his forefathers did. Buy a cheap lot on the outskirts of town and build a dwelling on it of a nature that fits his income. We have "standards" to uphold now. We don't want any 'shacktowns' in our neck of the woods. And we can say, in one sense, rightly so. But those "standards" also force that "born and raised" Canadian into debt almost from the moment he enters the workforce. Can he ever get out? No matter how hard he works, or how long?

Look at your income tax system. It's 'graduated'. The more you make the greater percentage of that is taken off you. I can remember still from my first years in the workforce being so enthused to work for time-and-a-half on Saturday and double-time on a Sunday, on top of the forty hours I'd already worked.

Boy o' boy, I'd just be rolling in the clover! Only 'gross' pay, as I very quickly found out, is a far different thing from 'net' pay. After tax, even though my cheque was larger from those extra hours, it worked out that I was actually making LESS per hour in take-home pay than I would've netted just working straight time! How's that for encouraging 'ambition' amongst the nation's young workers?


Metalman:- "It should not be beneath anyone to have to start at the bottom and work their way up."

With that, I heartily agree, Metalman. There is NO job too menial for ANY ONE OF US to do. For EVERY job has its part in enabling the overall success of the venture, even cleaning the toilet, or sweeping the floor.

But people do have to live, and in our modern world, as never before, it is necessary to obtain a sufficient 'money' income to be able to do that.

In the OVERALL economy that 'money' income cannot, with the ongoing and increasing displacement of labour, come entirely from wages anymore. There has to be an unearned augmentation to it. One that is NOT 'costed' into 'prices', as all wages are.

In the WHOLE economy 'capital' is continually displacing 'labour' in importance as we constantly increase productivity through technological advancement. We are, correctly, from an accounting standpoint, charged with the DEPRECIATION of this 'capital' as a component of 'prices'.

But at the present time we are NOT completely credited with the APPRECIATION in productivity that the employment of this 'capital' has enabled. We get some reduction in 'prices' through 'mass-production', true, but the OVERALL price level should properly be a fraction of what it currently is if modern 'finance' truly REFLECTED modern 'reality'.

We are always going to have with us those who are, from a productive standpoint, useless. They are a minority, fortunately, but they just do not want to work. Period. My contention is that it is absolutely fruitless to try to change that reality. It's counter-productive. To try to get some work out of someone who has none in him wastes too much of your energy that could be employed much more effficiently elsewhere.

The best thing to do, IMHO, is set up a system that gets those type of people completely OUT of the workforce. We don't need their production ~ and it's provable we don't, because, generally, they don't produce anything anyways. Yet we all get by, the world doesn't starve because they don't work.

Set the system up where we change it to being a PRIVILEDGE to work, to do a good job and take pride in doing it, whatever it may be. Rather than trying to fruitlessly 'force' people into submission by denying them the 'financial' right to live otherwise.