The News Rundown
- The domestic warship building program that the federal government has lauded as being able to provide Canadians with well paying jobs for Canadians is now under fire for outsourcing its jobs to foreign workers.
- Irving Shipbuilding wants to bring in more foreign workers to help construct the Canadian navy’s new fleet of warships. Irving is involved in a recruiting campaign to bring in workers from the Philippines as it gets ready to construct the first of 15 Canadian Surface Combatants.
- The Embassy of the Philippines in Ottawa is helping with the Irving recruiting campaign. On Sept. 20, under the banner of “Filipinos Invited to Build Canada’s Naval Fleet”, it noted that a delegation from the embassy and the Philippine Overseas Labor Office visited Irving Shipbuilding on Sept. 19 where they were received by the firm’s human resources vice president Jim Rennie.
- The embassy said in a statement: “With Irving Shipbuilding contracted to build the CAF’s next generation Canadian Surface Combatants fleet, the company is currently recruiting Filipino shipbuilding employees to meet its manpower requirement for this critical contract. During the meeting which followed the worksite visit, Rennie provided an overview of the support services they have in place to ensure the successful integration of their prospective Filipino employees to the company and the Halifax community.”
- Mary Keith, Irving vice president of communication, said 98 per cent of the company’s workforce is Canadian and the firm’s priority is to hire Canadians with experience. She stated that foreign workers being brought in by the firm “are achieving permanent residency and citizenship, contributing to Canada’s economy.”
- She noted that the shipyard union, Unifor Local 1, is aware the firm is seeking skilled trades workers inside and outside of Canada and those individuals would be union members. She said: “We currently have approximately 250 open positions for staff, leadership, and skilled trades.”
- In a May 2020 appearance before a Commons committee, Innovation, Science and Economic Development deputy minister Simon Kennedy claimed the federal government’s shipbuilding strategy had created or maintained almost 17,000 Canadian jobs. Kennedy also claimed ISED officials were regularly working on the surface combatant project with Irving and others to ensure the economic benefits promised to Canada were implemented.
- But asked for comment on Irving’s recruitment campaign, Innovation, Science and Economic Development said they could not respond because the issue does not “fall under the department’s purview.”
- Irving employees have said that the firm is losing skilled Canadian shipbuilders because the firm is not paying enough and benefits are lacking. Not only that, but the budget for the project has ballooned from $26B to about $60B.
- Critics of the shipbuilding program point out the surface combatant project has spun out of control, with some parliamentarians now suggesting the price tag has climbed to $100 billion.
- Conservative MP Kelly McCauley, who is on the Commons government operations committee, said the push to hire foreign workers for the new warship program is disappointing. McCauley said there should also be an emphasis on recruiting Indigenous people for such jobs and questioned the lack of training for shipbuilding trades for Canadians.
- McCauley said: “We have had government and industry officials repeatedly telling our committee about all the great jobs this program will create for Canadians. I find it very disappointing that after the tens of billions of dollars thrown to Irving for shipbuilding that they are not reaching across our country to recruit workers.”
- Irving has previously brought in foreign workers. In 2017, the Chronicle Herald newspaper in Halifax reported about Irving hiring workers from Poland to work on the Royal Canadian Navy’s ships. Irving also had a deal with the Spanish firm Gabadi LC that involved Spanish carpenters being brought to Halifax to work on the navy’s Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships.
- At the time Irving claimed the newspaper reports were false. But it then released a statement confirming foreign workers were being recruited. Irving noted in the statement at the time: “Because Canada has not had a naval new build program in place for almost 25 years, some specific shipbuilding expertise does not exist in Canada or we have exhausted efforts to recruit Canadians for certain positions. Under these exceptional circumstances, skilled workers need to be sought internationally.”
- In June 2018, David Baker-Mosher, president of Unifor Local MWF1, said union workers at Irving objected to temporary foreign workers in the yard saying the issue has 'created huge animosity'. Baker-Mosher told reporters that while Irving was hiring foreign employees, he knew of skilled workers who had to leave Nova Scotia to take jobs in western Canada, in particular Alberta.
- Earlier this year, it was revealed Procurement Canada was quietly seeking what it called influencers to push out social media messages that the government’s shipbuilding program was a success.
- The influencer recruiting program was aimed at officials in various companies and defence analysts and academics who are deemed supportive of the national shipbuilding strategy or NSS. They were to be provided with positive messages and data by Procurement Canada about federal shipbuilding with an emphasis on jobs being created.
- The potential influencers were told by Procurement Canada that: “The NSS has resulted in many social and economic benefits, from creating and sustaining more than 16,000 jobs annually to showcasing the innovations applied to shipbuilding, and we know we have content that would be of interest to your followers and networks.”
- So as we can see, the federal government has been keen to see positive news about this story, but as we can see, Irving has not changed with the times. Good companies have responded to 2022's worker shortage by raising pay, benefits, and other worker friendly actions in order to attract and retain good employees. If a company does not do this, then there is little incentive to stay. Most companies need to realize that they cannot just outsource everything and remain on good terms with Canadians.
- As for the government, it's clear that these huge contracts that balloon in cost need oversight on how the funding is spent, and how the companies involved have supported Canadians in the past. It's clear that Irving is not doing the right thing in this case.
- Supplementals:
- Jobs. Economy. Pipelines. The sole obsession of the UCP government as elected with more than 50% of the popular vote in 2019 representing more than 1 million people.
- The UCP leadership race has drawn focus week after week for the controversy behind it and not the actual policy - most of the time.
- But a lack of policy in certain areas is still policy.
- There have been questions about where the candidates stand on the environment and climate, specifically with respect to the oil industry.
- The question that got asked this week by the CBC is why that wasn’t being asked.
- The answer is simple, the investment climate perpetuated by the Notley NDP and Trudeau Liberals is not healthy.
- It has forced the North American based oil producers to pledge to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
- Now we must say that the environment and climate is important and that ensuring global emissions come down is important.
- Global emissions are still rising and have not peaked. Current targets will reduce emissions but they won’t reach the lofty international targets set out by treaties.
- As of 2019, China accounted for 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the US 11.5%, India 6.7%, and Canada… 1.4%.
- With these numbers on hand provided by the wonderful website Our World in Data, let’s dive in.
- Oil companies have had to pledge net zero because that’s the only way for them to operate under the Trudeau administration or Notley’s NDP in Alberta.
- There’s also the realization that Canadian oil is more cleanly produced than oil found elsewhere in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
- Then you factor in human rights and there’s a story that no one really talks about but we have time and time before.
- Now from this purely analytical non-ideological perspective based on numbers and facts, we can see why the UCP leadership candidates haven’t touched the issue.
- The CBC article goes through each candidate and asks why they haven’t mentioned net zero then goes on to seem surprised when the candidates push for more pipelines.
- The best analogy for what’s happening in this article and what an NDP government would do is similar to the idea of vultures circling prey.
- The case is made that the industry has had a year of record profits which is true which should allow the companies to invest more.
- But as with everything related to energy, it comes back to the economy.
- The economy is a psychological engine that requires positive signals to work at high efficiency.
- The solutions to the climate crisis need to come from private industry and be economically feasible.
- Whether that option is greening the existing energy industry in Alberta or moving to hydrogen or nuclear, only the most economical solution will provide the answer.
- By making every economically feasible effort to green the energy industry, Alberta and Canada by extension can buy the right to tell other energy producers that they need to clean their energy production and manage the human rights concerns that pop up in some energy producing nations.
- For those who can read between the lines or read the economic data coming out of the energy industry and our environmental record, this means that Canada should go green in the energy industry to not only lower our already tiny amount of emissions globally but also to encourage other energy producing countries to do the same (but they won’t!)
- This is in all likelihood the policy stance that the UCP leadership candidates and eventual Premier will take but we must all keep in mind that the current state of the race requires the candidates to appeal to the core policy concerns of UCP members.
- And those policy concerns in general are not carbon taxes, lowering emissions, or net zero as economically viable as they might or might not be.
- Supplementals:
- Earlier this spring we discussed on Western Context 264 the problem of increased crime in BC, especially in smaller communities. The problem was seen as not being an issue of policing, but with the courts' revolving door justice system allowing repeat offenders back onto the streets after they commit crimes.
- On Western Context 269, just over a month later, we went over the province's response to this, which was to set up an expert panel, with former deputy Vancouver police chief Doug LePard and health researcher and criminologist Amanda Butler who studied the issue of repeat offenders. This week, their report was submitted back to the province, and they provided 28 recommendations to the province.
- The bulk of the guidance released Wednesday is centered on mental health treatments and mental health supports rather than overhauling the criminal justice system. The 14-page report makes a series of recommendations — the bulk of which revolve around addressing "critical gaps in the continuum of care for people with mental health and substance use needs who are involved with the criminal justice system."
- The report says: "Currently, mental health-related crisis response in B.C. is primarily left to police and hospital emergency departments — both of which have been shown to contribute to adverse outcomes for people in crisis. We need a broader and more creative set of solutions."
- Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said: “This report confirms the complexity of the challenge. The recommendations show how much more work we have to do.”
- LePard and Butler, who were asked to study the issue of repeat offenders in May, are also recommending additional resources to support those released from custody.
- The report says: “Unfortunately, there is a shortage of resources available to meet the needs of people who have been incarcerated when they are released. This is a crisis that must be ameliorated. Many people return to precarious housing, shelters or homelessness, and back to communities where they are at high risk of returning to crime because their needs remain unmet by the systems that should be supporting them.”
- Earlier this year, the BC Urban Mayors’ Caucus sent an open letter to the province calling for stronger bail conditions, stricter consequences for breaching those conditions, and stronger consideration for “maintaining public confidence in the administration of justice” in bail and charge assessment policies.
- Earlier this month, Peter Juk, assistant deputy attorney-general and head of the BC Prosecution Service, issued a lengthy statement saying that the criminal-justice system, acting alone, lacks the capacity, tools and legal authority to remedy underlying social problems and to fill the gaps left by other sectors of society.
- Juk said: “The public deserves to receive the real facts: about the criminal justice process; about the strict legal requirements imposed by Parliament and the Supreme Court of Canada; and about the real limits on what Crown Counsel (and the criminal justice system) can and cannot do to address broader social issues like mental health and the addiction crisis.”
- The amount of time the province takes to review files it receives from police has shot up 118% since 2017, the letter added, while the rate at which the BC Prosecution Service chooses not to charge suspects based on police evidence has risen by 75%.
- Farnworth has committed to acting on three of the recommendations immediately. The B.C. government will now explore the creation of a provincial committee focused on coordinating communication and service integration between health, criminal justice, and social service organizations.
- The province is also committed to revisit the Prolific Offender Management model that formed the basis of the pilot projects from 2008 to 2012. The management model will create a cohort of people who are involved in repeat crime using a selection prioritization tool and identify the unique needs of each person in the cohort.
- The report also noted due to decreased crime reporting, official reported crime statistics may not provide an accurate picture of crime trends in B.C. For example, the Vancouver Police Department reported that in the first three months of 2022, 40.5% of calls to the non-emergency line managed by E-Comm went unanswered due to lack of capacity.
- Along with an executive summary and the list of recommendations, the province also issued the B.C. First Nations' Justice Council's submission to the panel, which expresses "reservations" about the panel's "ability to build relationships, rebuild trust, reduce harm and break the cycles of structural inequalities that perpetuate harm." The report itself acknowledges that concern, "there are many voices that are missing from our consultations, namely the voices of Indigenous communities."
- Surrey Board of Trade president Anita Huberman said the report was in line with recommendations previously made by her organization, but she accused the panel of ignoring the voices of business owners in their consultations.
- So while there may be reservations with how the expert panel did its work, the conclusions it reached seem fairly obvious to many - that the systems set up by the province have failed those, and have led to a huge problem with crime that proper mental health and systemic supports could solve.
- The major issue with that is that our healthcare system is already in crisis, and much needs to be done, and it's not just something that throwing money at will fix. If the BC NDP government is serious about solving this issue, then there is a lot to do.
- Supplementals:
Firing Line
- If sources are to be believed, the ArriveCAN app and vaccine mandates will be lifted by this time next week at our international borders.
- Canada is one of the last countries in the world to require proof of vaccination for entry and the use of the ArriveCAN app which at times has proved to be glitchy.
- The news has been confirmed with utmost certainty by everyone except official government sources.
- The reason everyone wants to see these restrictions lifted is that both the vaccine mandate and ArriveCAN have contributed to delays at airports this summer.
- The nagging issue of vaccine mandates and delays have been one of the easiest to visualize for new Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
- The vaccine mandates are what he started his campaign with and the airport chaos was visualized numerous times throughout the leadership campaign.
- By moving now on ArriveCAN and mandates, Trudeau and the Liberals remove one of the planks that has been an effective battering ram for the new Conservative leader.
- The reason that both ArriveCAN and mandates have proven to become a big issue is that as highlighted in a CTV piece by Don Martin: Airport arrivals would test positive at the same rate or less than that of the general public. And as long as we knew about the variants on hand, airport surveillance wasn’t that good compared to something like a wastewater treatment test.
- There are also unsubstantiated claims put forward in the CTV article that folks in Mexico could buy negative COVID test results for $200USD and pharmacies in states like Texas sold fake proof of vaccine documents.
- What this means is that it’s entirely possible, people were admitted into Canada with illegal documents while law abiding Canadians were stuck in hotel quarantine.
- Assuming the government does act and drops the need for ArriveCAN and vaccine mandates, this will mark the end of one of the most divisive periods in Canadian history.
- Your hosts here note that a vaccine mandate and entry app did not need to be divisive but the government and media, both on the left and right, sought to use the issue to wedge Canadians against one another.
- What this led to is strained relationships amongst families and at worst broken friendships and sometimes families but also a general degradation of the civility of Canadian politics that were enjoyed for so long before.
- It’s long been said that once upon a time a Progressive Conservative and Liberal wanted the same things for our country, just a different path on how to get there.
- That’s of course changed in the last 20 years but that gap widened so much over the last 2 years largely due to the pursuit of wedge politics and the polarized media landscape.
- The big questions going forward are what the next big wedge employed by Trudeau and followed up on by the media will be and whether or not the division of the last 2 years will be repairable.
- It will require a leader who is able to communicate to cut through the media fog and set the media cycle to allow the next wedge to not take root as the past have been able to over the last 7 years as employed by Justin Trudeau.
- Supplementals:
Quote of the Week
“We have had government and industry officials repeatedly telling our committee about all the great jobs this program will create for Canadians. I find it very disappointing that after the tens of billions of dollars thrown to Irving for shipbuilding that they are not reaching across our country to recruit workers.” - Conservative MP Kelly McCauley on Irving Shipbuilding hiring foreign workers to build Canadian warships
Word of the Week
Precarious - not securely held or in position; dangerously likely to fall or collapse
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Show Data
Episode Title: Precarious Problems
Teaser: Irving is hiring foreign workers to build warships, Alberta media tries to change the topic from energy to climate change, and the BC repeat offender expert panel advocates for stronger mental health support. Also, ArriveCAN is no more.
Recorded Date: September 24, 2022
Release Date: September 25, 2022
Duration: 55:45
Edit Notes: Kelly McCaully
Podcast Summary Notes
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Duration: XX:XX