News

Jobless? Why You Might Not Get Employment Insurance

'Reforms' fattened surpluses, failed to prepare for bad times say critics.

By Tom Sandborn, 19 Feb 2009, TheTyee.ca

EI and crisis

These days, far fewer unemployed are eligible.

Text size:

Rate this:

Login/Register

*Story updated at 9:25 a.m., Feb. 19, 2009.

If you are one of the 129,000 Canadian workers who lost a job last month, maybe you take comfort that all those employment insurance payments were deducted from your previous paycheques. Now you can count on insurance payments to get you through tough times, right?

Maybe not. The EI safety net features a lot more gaps than it did a decade and a half ago. By some measures, only 42 per cent of Canada's unemployed workers are receiving EI payments, roughly half the percentage covered during the late 1980s.

Just when far more Canadians are poised to need it, the nation's unemployment insurance scheme is broken, say a growing chorus of critics.

"We are going to see a lot of people absolutely desperate," Canadian Auto Workers spokesperson Laurel Ritchie told The Tyee. "If the crisis lasts very long, and I think it will, welfare rolls will grow as unemployed workers are denied benefits or see their benefits run out."

Ritchie said that the numbers for unemployed Canadians receiving employment insurance benefits were so low because changes in the system enacted in 1996-97 have made it harder to qualify for EI and have shortened the length of benefit payments, resulting in more workers exhausting their benefits before finding new work.

Women will bear the brunt disproportionately, worries public policy professor Marjorie Griffin-Cohen at Simon Fraser University.

"Fewer than 40 per cent of all who become unemployed are eligible to receive benefits, and only about one third of the women who become unemployed are eligible," Griffin-Cohen told The Tyee.

Gone are the days when most people who paid for unemployment insurance could count on at least some protection should they be unemployed, Griffin-Cohen said. "It is part-time workers who are most penalized when they become unemployed, and because women predominate among part-time workers, it partially explains their frequent inability to qualify for EI benefits."

Griffin-Cohen predicts this glitch in EI will hasten rather than soften the spiral down for many people.

"As this recession deepens, which it will do, the failure of the EI program will push more people into poverty -- requiring the provincial government to pay for the problem through increased numbers on social assistance. If the province continues to deny large numbers of people assistance, then it will be pushed further down to cities. This is when the real crises begin, as we have seen over the past few years with increased homelessness."

Too much EI as 'moral hazard'

One who resists broadening EI benefits is Darcy Rezak, managing director of the Vancouver Board of Trade. Rezak is worried about eroding Canadians' work ethic.

"Improved insurance always carries with it a moral hazard," said Rezak. "We could see more unemployment because the richer benefits would make some people choose to stay on EI instead of moving to where work is available or taking lower paying jobs."

Mark Leier, who teaches labour studies at Simon Fraser University, told The Tyee that the EI system has been made more difficult to access for a reason.

"It pays fewer people less money," he said. "Business and government made these changes to discipline labour. This is no accident. It reflects the logic of the system. It really poses the central question of whether the economy is designed to create better lives for all or higher profits for a few."

Counting who is eligible

In 2008, according to B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair, over 70,000 unemployed British Columbians were ineligible for employment insurance. And the situation is getting worse across the country in 2009. Sinclair says that the EI system is "broken."

But Philip Hochstein, president of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C., told The Tyee he was suspicious of the numbers cited by Sinclair and other labour spokespeople on EI coverage.

"I wouldn't take their stats as accurate," he said. "They are trying to make a point. Employment insurance shouldn't become a way of life, where people work for six months and then collect benefits for six. The CLC is right about one thing. We need to look at EI in its totality and reform the entire system, not just tinker around the edges."

A report by Stats Canada for 2007, before the economic crisis hit, found just over a million Canadians were unemployed on average during the year, of which only 452,000 -- about 45 per cent -- were receiving EI benefits.

In January, Canada and B.C. were rocked by record setting job losses: 129,000 nationally and more than 35,000 in this province. The Conservative government's federal budget took a pounding from The Canadian Labour Congress for failing to come to the aid of the mounting unemployed. The left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, where Griffin-Cohen is a founding director, concurred, saying the "biggest single failure of the budget" was its mere six per cent hike in "the total value of EI improvements [to] address the most significant recession since the 1930s."

But a spokesperson for the ministry overseeing the employment insurance system claimed figures quoted by labour critics of EI are not measuring the right thing.

The number cited by critics is called the beneficiary to unemployment ratio (B/U), and "it includes many unemployed who have not paid premiums such as those who have never worked; have not worked in the past year; or have been self-employed," the spokesperson, who wished to be unnamed, said in an e-mail to The Tyee.

The B/U ratio includes individuals who paid premiums but are ineligible for EI benefits because they voluntarily quit their jobs or they return to school.

The ministry spokesman cited an HRSDC report that says once workers who are ineligible under the current rules are excluded, 82.3 per cent of unemployed workers were eligible to receive benefits in 2006.

The government spokesman who corresponded with The Tyee in February did acknowledge that the B/U ratio was over 80 per cent in the 1980s, and has dropped to around 42 per cent since the major changes enacted on the unemployment system in 1996-97.

In the same HRSDC report, the government authors say there were more than 1.03 million unemployed workers in Canada in 2006. In the reference week in 2006 chosen by the researchers for attention, only 311,000 of these workers were receiving regular benefits. By the anonymous government spokesperson's accounting, that would mean that well over half a million unemployed people in 2006 just walked away from their working lives for school or other reasons.

Calls to move the bar again

What do all these competing and contested numbers add up t? A radically different landscape for Canada's unemployed, according to a 2004 Canadian Employment Commission paper. It called the 96/97 changes, "the most fundamental restructuring of the Unemployment Insurance program in 25 years."

And a McGill university study published at the same time concluded those changes sharply increased the number of insured hours a worker has to log before she qualifies for EI benefits. They'd gone up from between 180 and 300 hours to a much more demanding minimum of from 420 to 700 hours.

Labour critics like the CAW and the CLC want to lower the bar again. They say a worker should qualify for EI after 360 hours logged and his benefits should last at least 50 weeks in all regions. Currently, different parts of Canada gear their EI qualifying requirements to regional unemployment levels.

This year's new budget will extend coverage for those already receiving EI benefits by five weeks, a temporary measure designed to disappear in two years.

On average, current recipients qualify for just 32 weeks of benefits, less than the theoretical maximum of 50.

In addition, the budget extends the life of work-sharing agreements in which workers receive EI benefits and work shorter hours while employers recover.

The new maximum for these programs is now 52 weeks.

The budget also freezes premiums paid by workers and employers for two years, and increases funding for job training and apprenticeship programs.

Critics point out that such improvements will do nothing for the majority of unemployed workers in Canada, who will still be unprotected by the insurance scheme when they lose their jobs.

When the good times rolled

Critics also say both Liberal and Conservative governments have misused an EI surplus of over $50 billion accrued since the system was changed. Those governments re-directed the money paid by workers and employers into debt and deficit reduction and into general revenue when the surplus should have been saved for an economic rainy day.

Now the monsoon season has arrived, critics say, and the government ought to replace the money that was removed and use the resulting surplus to provide better and longer lasting insurance coverage for the unemployed.

In a recent ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada said that the diversion of EI premiums to other government expenditures was constitutional.

But four years ago, a parliamentary committee's report declared government has "a moral obligation... to restore integrity to the Employment Insurance Act. This necessarily requires that the cumulative surplus in the EI Account be returned to the EI program."

From its inception until 1990, unemployment insurance was funded by contributions from employees, employers and the federal government. Since then, only employees and employers have contributed.

The system was both self-financing and generating surpluses in 1996-97 when the most sweeping changes, including the shift to the EI branding, were implemented.

The system ran a $3.5 billion surplus in 1994 and close to $6 billion in both 1995 and 96.

Raise the rate?

Since the changes implemented by the Chretien government, the EI system has accrued a surplus of over $50 billion, most of which flowed into general revenue and underwrote deficit reductions.

Now that Canadian workers need to draw on what they and their employers paid in, the system is straining to deliver on its promise.

"The bottom line is that our new EI system has not been tested by a recession since its inception," said Marc Lee, an economist for the CCPA. "And there is good reason to believe that it is a shadow of its former self as an automatic stabilizer in a recession"

Not only are fewer workers eligible for EI now than they were before government tinkered with the unemployment insurance formula in the 1990s, Lee says, but your payout if you are lucky enough to qualify for it, won't buy as much.

"The current rate of $447 per week (maximum) has been heavily eroded by inflation; to be back where we were in the early 1990s, it should be more like $600 a week."

Related Tyee stories:

[Tyee]

Tyee contributing editor Tom Sandborn can be reached with feedback or story tips here.

39 Comments:

Login or register to post comments

  • Cynic

    2 years ago

    "Business and government

    "Business and government made these changes to discipline labour. This is no accident. It reflects the logic of the system. It really poses the central question of whether the economy is designed to create better lives for all or higher profits for a few."

    Thank you, Mark Leier, for telling it like it is. And of course the answer to the central question is that the economy is designed to create higher profits for a few. Perhaps an even more central question is then, how do we allow this to continue year after year, generation after generation, century after century?

    "Employment Insurance shouldn't become a way of life, where people work for six months and then collect benefits for six."

    Oh? What's your alternative? Thank you, Mr. Hochstein, for that blatant display of elitist ideology. Says you, Mr. Hochstein. Tell us, how do you feel about parliamentarians who sit warming their backbench for a mere six years and are then rewarded with a fully indexed pension? Where's my pension? I've been building this country for thirty-five years, where's mine? And if I should lose my job after six months, who are you to tell me that I shouldn't have some kind of security, some kind of financial dignity? Are you telling me this country isn't wealthy enough?

  • southdeltawalker

    2 years ago

    don't think there will be training programs

    The Federal training programs and budget have all been "devolved" to the Provincial governments.

    In BC that means they will go to the Ministry who runs "welfare". This Ministry does not believe in training and any training it has ever offered has been the most basic with people qualifying for "entry level" {low paying} jobs.

    It does not keep stats.on how many actually keep these jobs and how many end up back on welfare.
    How many retain what's called "long term attachment" to their jobs is thought to be very low.

  • Tbarnston

    2 years ago

    Moral Hazard...Please

    In case the business community didn't realize, EI is funded by workers paying in to the fund. There is a deduction from every paycheque I have received since I started working when I was 16!

    For Darcy Rezak to say that EI amounts to moral hazard is just rubbish. If my house burns down and I receive a payout from my insurance policy, is that moral hazard? No!

    The doublespeak out of the corporate class has reached an intolerable level for me. Moral Hazard - how about we look no further than the banking bailouts here and abroad. Have the banks been paying into a federal profit insurance program? NO, in fact their tax rates have been declining for years. When they run in to problems, they turn to the feds and the government buys $50 billion in mortgages off them. Now that's moral hazard.

    Hmmm, I wonder where the government got that $50 Billion from?

  • jwstewart

    2 years ago

    Is this PHD level math??

    "Women will bear the brunt disproportionately, worries public policy professor Marjorie Griffin-Cohen at Simon Fraser University.

    Fewer than 40 per cent of all who become unemployed are eligible to receive benefits, and only about one third of the women who become unemployed are eligible," Griffin-Cohen told The Tyee."

    Seems to me that if 40% of the total number of people who become un-employed are in-eligible, and only 33% of women who become un-employed are in-eligible, it is men who are bearing the brunt of the lack of benefits.

    Did I miss something by not getting a Phd?

  • Tbarnston

    2 years ago

    RE: PHD Math

    Maybe you need to study english jwstewart ;-)

    The quote says that only 1/3 of women who become unemployed are ELIGIBLE for EI. That means 2/3 are excluded from EI.

    You seem to think it is the other way around.

  • jwstewart

    2 years ago

    Thanks TB!

    Like I said, I got no PDh :)

    But I find it difficult to accept the percentage is higher due to gender alone.

    Something else must be different too, because if the eligibility rules were different based on gender, it would be simple discrimination.

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    people don't qualify for EI

    and in BC they can't qualify for welfare, and we wonder why we have gangs and crime?

  • alive

    2 years ago

    get what you vote for

    When times are tough we all begin to see where the system fails us.

    The time to something about it is when you cast your vote!

    People rave about the social safety-net in the scandinavian countries, but voters there seem to realize that it is better to pay a bit more in taxes, than to suffer in bad times!

    Of course we could also begin to tax the wealthy, but that is another story.

  • Curt

    2 years ago

    Scam

    I've maintained for years this is a scam. We're forced to pay into it. This should be a choice like every other insurance we buy, or don't. The feds just use it for general revenue when it belongs to the workers. Get rid of it if it can't be managed properly and fairly.

  • mcdull

    2 years ago

    EI

    Yes EI is a joke after paying into it since I was 16 when I needed it I was penalized for 20 weeks. I walked away from a job of 16 years because it was an intolerable work place. I got ! check from EI but it meant scraping and borrowing working garbage jobs till I found something better. I certainly paid in way more than the 135 dollar I received.

  • dorothy

    2 years ago

    There's more to it

    "People rave about the social safety-net in the scandinavian countries, but voters there seem to realize that it is better to pay a bit more in taxes, than to suffer in bad times!"

    It is a little more than a bit more. I come from Scandinavia and have repeatedly over the years compared how my family would be doing, doing the same jobs, living there. consistently, I found that, making pretty well the median income as we do here, we would make roughly the same gross pay there, but the income tax alone would double, even if the old country does not have the same double administration we do here, in the federal/provincial setup.

    Add to that heftier 'point taxes' on many items that are traditionally considered luxury items, such as a car or a bottle of wine, or a theater ticket.

    In hard times, you would pretty well need to come to the government there to look for means of survival, for you would not have been able to put much aside, so it more or less adds up to the same deal.

    It really boils down to whether you want to live your life or have it lived for you, being put under administration by the government. Maybe some people immigrate to North America, because they think they can make good choices and benefit from them, rather than always be 'safe', but not make choices at all. Good thing that there is this diversity, so we can choose what suits us best. Just do not think that anything comes all perfect without a flip side. It doesn't.

  • Cynic

    2 years ago

    "Hmmm, I wonder where the

    "Hmmm, I wonder where the government got that $50 Billion from?"

    I can answer that. The government issues bonds which are marketed by, you guessed it, our chartered banks, the very banks that are being bailed out. You must understand that the banks buy the bonds from the government by printing the money. They simply make a database entry, $50 billion, there you go. The government then returns the newly minted money, created "out of thin air", to the banks, buying the liability and putting us chumps into even deeper debt. Ya gotta love it.

    The democratic solution is to have our own Bank of Canada pick up the bonds. Pretty simple, but then we don't live in a democracy.

  • Dan the socialist

    2 years ago

    The elite or business people

    The elite or business people sure love to stick it to the little guy. Hopefully one day they will be sorry. The income divide is getting larger, more poorer and struggling people, it is too bad these people either don't vote or vote for the same old scumbags ..

    That 'Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C' seem to have Gordo in their pocket, they do not want more EI, think people should work for less, do not want the minimum wage raised, run anti NDP ads etc etc

    We need a politician or a political party to inspire people to vote for change in Ottawa or lead a revolution....

  • Nixxix

    2 years ago

    No help for me

    I have been working and paying EI off my pay cheque for 20 years..When my job in healthcare was taken from me by Bill 29 years ago, I found myself in a needy position. I was still needed on a casual list so I could not get laid off, I could not get EI nor Welfare without a lengthy battle. I got evicted and as a single mom found myself homeless. Becoming homeless ended up leaving me jobless. I now had no phone and did not know where we would be sleeping that night, how can I get called in? Years later I finally recovered and made us a home again. Now once again I need EI. I am in the process of appealing a dismissal that I feel is unwarranted. This is so at least after 20 years of paying for it I may be able to qualify to receive EI benefits. Until then here I am looking at homelessness AGAIN. Working a minimum wage job does not even cover my rent! How to feed and clothe my Child? I don't know. Until then I suffer..I have to find another job seems only part time is available anywhere..so I am looking at working 60 hours a week to barely get by, and am paying for more EI that I can't get. No time to look for a job to further my career which I owe a student loan for and cannot pay..gotta work.. whatever I can get to keep our nostrils barely above water..I have given up on keeping our heads above water! THE SYSTEM FAILS THOSE WHO REALLY NEED IT! At least you should be able to get ONE claim in a lifetime without red tape and hassles. I pay thousands of dollars a year to a system that does me no good. It angers me!

  • Jeffrey J.

    2 years ago

    An Impressive Article

    Thank you, thank you, thank you Mr. Sandborn for a clear and concise summary of the dismantling of one of Canada's primary social programs.

    For those of us who feel concerned about this trend, we need to get out and organize. Every gain in social justice has only occurred after hard work by concerned people. Forget about relying on our leaders and elites. No help will be coming from that quarter. It will be up to us, the majority of citizens. Or not....

  • alive

    2 years ago

    learn from others!

    Of course there is a flip side to living in a country where social security is a given Dorothy.

    I saw that as a very young man and have not regretted moving here; however I would have like it if this country had adopted some of the features I left behind.

    So: my observation is about what we could do here, including as I mentioned taxing the rich at a more aggressive rate.

    While I have managed well, I do see plenty of people living close to real poverty and having no hope at all in this country, and that upsets me.

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    But you know...

    we don't need unions anymore. They have outlived their usefulness and now are filled with greedy executives just looking out for themselves and lazy workers who are overpaid. At least that's what all those capitalists and right wingers tell us.

  • morechatter

    2 years ago

    Tax Breaks & Home Reno's

    Thats it thats what Gov came up with and tax breaks for the unemployed? Work for You? No I didn't think So? And thats a problem at a time when Canadians are going to need backup its not there. So maybe Government will find they aren't working for the people either? So home Reno's for the homeless? Want to fix up your shopping cart Harper and Campbell got a P3 for you?

    Lacks reason why government would go out and borrow money when it would be just as easy to raise taxes slightly and EI and it would be less of a burden in the long run as there will be far reaching consequences of dumping more people to the streets.
    You know what lacks even more reason why Gov would allow business to borrow on the people's assets so CEO's can do a big job on the city.

  • morechatter

    2 years ago

    Everyone Has A Price

    Is that the mythology? Its the central theme Just Reach Out? And Boo Hobo on You. Governments are kinda meanies to when you think of it all those commercials Just Reach Out? You Deserve It? Do you deserve a Conservative Government?

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    A Tangled Web

    Typical of Canada to have a very complicated system with Fed/Prov and Regional Development policies messing up even basic comprehension of the plan.

    Too bad that Nixxix, above, seems eminently qualified but ineligible yet a few weeks fishing in the Maritimes may well get you 40 weeks on EI.

    "A particularly sensitive issue in Canada, both politically and economically, is whether and to
    what extent the regional variation in eligibility criteria has produced a dependency on UI/EI
    transfers in regions with chronically high levels of unemployment and seasonal employment,
    especially the Atlantic Provinces (Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince
    Edward Island). Critics have long held that the excessive ‘generosity’ of the system in these
    provinces has encouraged a ‘culture’ of dependency, helped artificially to sustain inefficient
    industries and jobs and inhibited migration out of these provinces to provinces with labour
    shortages (see, e.g., Kaufman et al. 2003; Audas and Murell 2000; Day and Winer 2001; May
    and Hollet 1995; Vincent et al. 2003).

    ...One important question that tends to arise in discussions of unemployment insurance reform
    in Europe does not appear to have any counterpart in the Canadian case: the degree to which
    older workers (and their employers!) should be allowed to use the unemployment insurance
    system as a way to subsidize early retirement from jobs and industries that are in relative
    decline.

    ...Canada has had its share of traditional, mature
    manufacturing industries employing disproportionate numbers of middle-aged men that have
    been in relative decline over the past decades.

    ...given the almost unique intermediate position that Canada occupies
    in many respects between the European Social Model on one side and the supposedly most
    extreme version of the ‘Anglo-Saxon Model’ to its south, the results of such more detailed
    studies are likely to have important implications for the issues that animate the ongoing
    debates between their respective proponents.

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    citing

    From the opening quotation marks down, the above post is from the 2004 McGill study referred to in the article.

  • morechatter

    2 years ago

    Well Its 2009

    And there is a global meltdown going on and it has little to do with any of the above so the rules should not apply. As these are special circumstances as our trading partners are facing a financial crisis. And although our governments act as if we are an island on to ourselves its not reality as 50% of our trade is down with America. We got to be hurting especially in BC as prices are out of control hurting the laid off worker that much more as he is forced to live in the present economy.

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    Sorry...

    I guess my last comment was a little vague. I start reading and then I imagine that everyone knows what's going on in my little pea brain. Betcha thought I was smoking some of that BC bud.

    I get quite incensed when I read about government putting money into general revenue from a program that was pushed for by unions to look after people when they are unemployed; at the same time making it impossible for people to access it for the purpose it was created. That's why the union babble.

    I was in the DTES visiting my mentally ill daughter yesterday and taking her some food. She lives right at Hastings and Main in one of those scumbag walkups. I'm a life-long Sunshine Coaster and have spent a lot of time in Vancouver and I can tell you that even for that area I have NEVER, in my life, seen that much misery there. People are suffering big-time and although there is a lot of talk, there is little or no action being taken to help.

    Also went to see my son in North Van, who is one of the unemployed construction workers we read about. Also, taking food. He doesn't qualify for EI because he's a bit short of time. For the past two months he's been getting a bit of help from welfare, but only because I coached him in how to lie to them. Otherwise, he would have been truthful and wouldn't have qualified for that either, because his rent is too high (they tell you to leave your place if the rent is more than $375)and he actually has a few measly possessions that they would have told him to sell. So if we had been honest, he would have to be homeless and with no possessions in order to get a measly $610 per month in assistance. And if they knew that we were helping him as well, they would deduct, dollar for dollar, everything we gave him so he could never have more than $610 per month, and who can live on that? EVEN THOUGH THEY ALL KNOW THAT THESE ARE NOT NORMAL TIMES AND THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING, AND THEY ARE NOT PLAYING BY THE NORMAL RULES, BUT THEY EXPECT ALL THE "LITTLE PEOPLE" TO.

    I don't feel the slightest bit quilty, and that really saddens me because our family has always been contributing members of our society; paying taxes, recycling, volunteering our time and services for sports, the library, food banks, supporting our thrift stores and the less fortunate, helping others. The greed and selfishness of both the Feds and the Province for the past few years has turned us into liars and cheats. THAT makes me very angry. But, you know what? We need to look after our own, because they won't. And I know there are many, many families who are doing the same thing. Sad, isn't it? That government has the power to take that from us and it's even sadder that we allow them to do it.

    Wow! Venting. You'll really think I'm smoking that funny green stuff.

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    sunshine

    There's an interesting interview and a good read by Kristen McCarthy on the DTES in a recent Vancouver Review.

    http://www.vancouverreview.com/past_articles/TalkWalk.htm

  • Fii

    2 years ago

    Re: Nixxixx

    "I was still needed on a casual list so I could not get laid off, I could not get EI nor Welfare without a lengthy battle."

    Did you get a lay-off notice? If you were dropped from regular hours to "casual", your company should have given you a written description of that and with that you should have been able to qualify for EI. Obviously if THEY need YOU casually, but your hours are cut drastically, you have lost work through no fault of your own (and therefore income) and I can't understand how you were disqualified. That is what a lay-off is. When they call you in for casual work you simply note that on your claim and you are allowed to earn a certain amount over your EI benefits, and then when you go over that amount it is deducted from your claim. Did they just never give you your ROE (record of employment, ie. insurable hours?)

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    What a sad, sad story

    Realisticman. See what happens to people when someone doesn't step in and help? His father was an alcoholic. Nothing about his mom. Were they residential school survivors? He and his brother grew up in a house in the Charlottes where god knows what happened to them because no one cared. And he's just carrying on the tradition, isn't he? But also see how quickly he jumped to get a place of his own and a monthly income, as pitiful as they are, when someone extended a helping hand?

    I think though that Rory is mistaken when he states that he knows 80% of the people down there are predators and dealers. There are without a doubt a lot of very bad people feeding off of a lot of very ill and miserable people. Most of them are the very ill and miserable that no one cares about. Just like for time immemorial, eh?

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    Re: Nixxixx

    Further to Fii's comments, I have a son who works for a moving company. During the winter when work slows down the company issues ROE's to the employees. They continue to work as much as required, but they use EI to supplement their income. And the company puts on the ROE that there is a shortage of work and it is perfectly legitimate.

  • dorothy

    2 years ago

    Turbulence ahead

    "..how do we allow this to continue year after year, generation after generation, century after century?.."

    I think that is just about to not be happening anymore. And the how? By supporting the basic assumption of an ever-expanding economy ahead, based on an ever-increasing world population. We know now, that it will not be ever-increasing. The growth rate has topped everywhere. It, and thereby the population numbers ahead, are on the downslope, and the number of God's children on Earth is supposed to stabilize at less than the ten billion it may reach at the high point.

    Much of the ugly stuff we see now, which may get better and then perhaps worse again, then shift its course into other riverbeds, in adjustment after adjustment, is due to these prospects and ,in the face of them, the attempts of the upper crust(not talking geology here), to position itself so as to still have the cake on the table with no inconveniences, whatever that may take of grinding, pushing and pulling at the rest of us.

    It is time for those living on paycheque after paycheque, to really gather out wits and act wisely and somewhat in unison, so the devastation can be minimized and the cutltural values not completely gutted during the Ragnarok we are facing. A lot of people are looking to their religious and philosophical values to pull them through, but I think we could achieve even more by adopting some pragmatic thinking. Inasmuch as a crisis of this kind can hurt immensely, it can also be a tremendous opportunity for growth. As much as I can relate to Sunshine Coast Girl's story (been there done that), I also think there may be a call for visonary qualities and leaps of faith. Let us make a pact to answer it where and when we can. Every day you wake up, you are a winner, and from there you can go on...

  • dorothy

    2 years ago

    So sorry

    It's that lazy weekend mode: I forgot my cato-ish rant at the end:

    Long live the Potlatch!

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    sunshine

    He's Irish from Montréal (Rory with the blue eyes). He spent his childhood there with his family including his brothers and sister. ("Rory and his brothers when they were kids in Montreal.") No residential schools there. Many serious drinkers though. You know, Griffintown Canada's first industrial working class neighbourhood.

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    Well, for once they interviewed

    someone who is not native. Still very, very sad.

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    Sad and Revealing

    For someone who's lived in the Downtown EastSide for ten years he often sounds just like those that are condemned because they suggest ideas that some think is too conservative. Like:, "Rory is sure that the mentally ill would benefit if drugs weren’t so easily available in the Downtown Eastside, because they’re not the type to seek them out. “The rest of us are all just dysfunctional party animals,” he says, matter-of-factly.".

    If any calm commentator had said that they'd be accused of being a stupid uncaring right-winger.

  • morechatter

    2 years ago

    This is Just Wrong

    On so many levels as business works it so Big Coporations do not pay its fair share yet Government is handing over billions left right and center with tax breaks and incentives for Big Coporations yet no one is buying. BC has given more Coporate welfare than anyother government well expect Alberta maybe?

    And I'm starting to wonder about the Federal Conservatives. Banks and Big Coporations don't pay into the system why are they the only ones allowed to take massive amounts our of the tax payers hard earned money? Especially when Canadian workers need it now. Its not like Coporations are the backbone of the economy its the workers that are and in truth Governments come and go and so do the Coporations but the people are here to stay. Remember that around election and make sure you have the correct ID.

  • morechatter

    2 years ago

    And Don't Forget Your Union Rep

    Because I changed my mind they are good for something and thats standing up for the Canadian worker because Government sure isn;t. I know Government Unions in BC gave it a real bad name with its dealing with British Colombians workers who were left out in the cold. Corruption in every nook and cranny? But that doesn't mean Unions are good just the bad apples. And in Canada its the way to go I'm sure with excellence in mind having. As having someone around sticking up for your best interests isn't such a bad idea. Call it insurance for a better life and better standards as Unions not only concern themselves with your pay but your quality of life. And in times like these there is literally no one else speaking up for you except Big Corporations and Banks because thats who Governments sought out. And we see how that's working for you?

  • morechatter

    2 years ago

    And I need a Second Cup of Coffee

    Correction:
    IT DOSEN'T MEAN UNIONS ARE NOT GOOD as its just a few bad apples. Did you know China wants Unions to come to China and set up shop to protect its worker's right to live?

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    Realisticman..

    I don't believe he's lived in the DTES for 10 years. He actually said that he had "a decade of experience “playing” on the streets". I have news for you. My f***ing daughter ain't playing! To her and most of the people down there, it's deadly serious.

    He and his "dysfunctional party animal" friends are the minority down there. Rory is not representative of the majority of people in the DTES.

    Personally, I don't believe that you have any idea whatsoever of what you're talking about. I believe that you enjoy pushing people's buttons. I also don't believe that you have it in you to care about the misery that some of your human compadres suffer. It's people with attitudes like yours that make me mourn the death of my country and the reputation that we had in the world as a kind, caring society.

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    sunshine

    Last week I was in a new social housing building downtown on the day it opened. I was there speaking with new residents. Less than two weeks ago I was on Cordova and all over another social project. I have also visited people inside the Empress Hotel on Hastings and the other places on either side of Main, just around the corner. Etc. I do have some perspective.

    If you think that the subject, Rory, in Kristen McCarthy's piece is being untruthful perhaps you should ask her. If too you think that her subject is not representative of the neighbourhood's residents then perhaps you should ask her also why she selected her subject.

    You suggest that your daughter is not playing, yet before you said that she had followed the bright lights for entertainment. Perhaps it would be an idea for you to drop in for a weekend and get a first hand taste of what exactly constitutes 'entertainment' at Hastings and Main. Don't miss the night-life.

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    I'd like you to find me a quote..

    where I said she went there for "entertainment". Never said it. You made it up.

    I'm tired of talking to you.

  • janfromthebruce

    2 years ago

    Moral Hazard - paying corp execs too much makes them lazy

    We need to apply "moral hazard" logic to the elite business types - the reason they all screwed up and now want corporate welfare is that they were paid too much - it made them lazy and unproductive.
    All their incomes, bonuses should be stripped right down to just about 10% ahead of their highest paid employee, this way they won't become immoral, lazy and laying around feeling entitled to the good life.

    • The discussion for this story is closed. No more comments can be added.