Juno News - April 10, 2020


It's time for the government to put Canadians first


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

152.96547

Word Count

815

Sentence Count

37

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, this is Candice Malcolm with True North. Today I want to talk about that recent economic
00:00:09.600 report and the jobs report that was released this week. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. The
00:00:13.760 numbers are bad. More than 1 million Canadians have lost their job in the month of March,
00:00:18.660 making March the worst month on record for job losses in the history of our country. Even that
00:00:24.560 though doesn't tell the full story of the suffering and misery happening in Canada right now.
00:00:28.960 2.1 million people have seen the number of hours they work reduced by more than 50 percent and the
00:00:36.560 number of hours worked in the entire economy has contracted by 15 percent. So 5 million Canadians
00:00:43.380 have already applied for the government's new temporary income support program. That makes up
00:00:49.020 about one in every four workers in the Canadian economy. The tourism and hospitality industries
00:00:54.780 have been hit particularly hard and this has had a disproportional impact on young workers and low
00:01:01.180 wage workers. A recent Agnes Reid poll found that 45 percent of Canadians aged 18 to 24 have already
00:01:08.940 been laid off or seen reduced hours. So with so many people out of work, so many young people just
00:01:14.960 desperate to get their foot in the door, desperate to get some work experience, maybe pay off debt
00:01:19.360 or save for their future. It defies logic that the Canadian government is paying these young workers
00:01:25.040 to stay at home and do nothing while also recruiting temporary foreign workers and seasonal agriculture
00:01:31.760 workers to work in essential jobs in Canada. So the Trudeau government finally announced that they were
00:01:39.280 going to close the Canadian borders on March 16th. This was well after Europe and other countries around the world
00:01:45.360 took similar initiatives to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. On March 20th, Canada expanded
00:01:51.920 that ban to American citizens too, basically saying only Canadians and permanent residents are allowed
00:01:57.760 to enter the country. But then on March 21st, the government quietly made an exemption for seasonal workers
00:02:04.560 and temporary foreign workers. According to CIC News, which is a newsletter run by Canadian immigration
00:02:10.960 lawyer David Cohen, following the travel ban, quote, industries that relied on temporary foreign workers
00:02:17.600 pressured the government to not disrupt the flow of essential labour to Canada, unquote. And so as a result,
00:02:24.240 exemptions were made for workers in occupations such as agriculture, agri-food, food processing and trucking.
00:02:33.120 Canada typically welcomes 60,000 seasonal agriculture workers to Canada each year. These workers prep fields,
00:02:40.800 plant seeds, set up irrigation systems, fix farm equipment, prune and trim plants, and so on.
00:02:47.920 And these workers earn a pretty good salary, up to $15 an hour plus room and board. Well, spring is here and farmers
00:02:55.200 are desperate for help during planting season. But the global pandemic, the coronavirus pandemic, is harming Canada's
00:03:02.000 ability to get workers onto farms. Visa offices around the world have been closed. Applications for these jobs have dried up.
00:03:10.320 And workers who do get to Canada must wait and self-quarantine for 14 days. And to make matters worse,
00:03:16.960 there was a coronavirus outbreak among temporary foreign workers living at a plant nursery in Kelowna,
00:03:22.640 BC. This has made many people worried about workers bringing the coronavirus disease into Canada,
00:03:28.880 which was the very reason why Canada implemented the travel ban in the first place.
00:03:33.200 You know what? Now is the time for Prime Minister Justin Schroeder to do something useful, to show some
00:03:39.600 leadership and to create a national work program to match young Canadians with shortages in the labour
00:03:46.320 market. Instead of bringing in foreign workers, thousands of foreign workers to fill these jobs in
00:03:51.440 our farms, why not learn from our history and help put Canadians to work? During the Great Depression, the
00:03:57.760 federal government created a system of unemployment relief camps, where in exchange for housing, three
00:04:03.920 meals a day, medical care, clothing, and a very modest daily stipend, young men worked up to 44 hours a
00:04:10.880 week, clearing bush, building roads, planting trees, and working construction. The program was not without
00:04:17.360 its flaws, but it successfully employed 170,000 men and gave them a sense of purpose and responsibility
00:04:24.960 during a very difficult time. Justin Trudeau recently told Canadians that they can serve their country
00:04:30.720 by staying at home and obeying strict isolation laws. He went so far as to compare our duty to stay at
00:04:38.880 home to the accomplishments of the courageous young soldiers who fought and won at the Battle of
00:04:45.360 Vimy Ridge 103 years ago. Trudeau should instead call on young Canadians to serve their country in a more
00:04:52.800 meaningful way by working to help protect food security in Canada. It would allow these young
00:04:59.200 workers to work hard, to give back, and to feel productive and useful during this incredible time
00:05:05.840 of crisis and great uncertainty.