Shame on Alberta government for turning their backs on the unemployed Americans
With another boom just around the corner, it’s time to shift away from reliance on temporary foreign workers and concentrate on immigration, says Thomas Lukaszuk, Alberta’s minister of immigration and employment.Lukaszuk is ready to push the federal government to allow more immigrants from among the 30,000 temporary workers now in the province, offering them a chance to settle with their families.
Employers facing labour shortages would also be happy because they could keep workers they spent the last few years training, he said.
Lukaszuk’s first priority is to make sure Canadians in under-employed groups, such as First Nation and the disabled, are “fully engaged” in the workforce.
[url=http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/foreign+workers+stay+Alberta+urg... foreign workers stay, Alberta urges[/url]
I'm not clear on what's got you upset about this.
meanwhile the conservatives are moving in the exact opposite direction, seeking instead more temp workers they can employ for slave wages and in terrible conditions with none of the (minimal) rights of canadian workers.
http://ourlocal353.ca/forums/index.php?topic=6086.msg46634#msg46634
Just sent this email
Alberta's need<>America's salvationTuesday, July 19, 2011 8:39 PM
From: "eric klyne" <[email protected]>View contact details
To: [email protected]
Dear Sheila Pratt,
I have been tracking Alberta's tar sand employment and immigration issues since 2003/2004 up to present day.
I attended the Alberta’s 38,000 Temporary Foreign Workers: The facts and issues held on February 24, 2009 / Time: 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
@ University of Alberta Glacier Room, Lister Centre
87 Avenue & 116 Street, Edmonton.
You wrote about that > Worn out their welcome?
Scarce jobs ignite debate over Alberta's 57,000 temporary foreign workers
By Alexandra Zabjek and Sheila Pratt,
The Edmonton Journal
February 26, 2009 9:01 AM
http://ourlocal353.ca/forums/index.php?topic=4398.msg33086#msg33086
I, Eric Klyne, was that Canadian Tradesmen that spoke on behalf of the Canadian Tradesmen that are upset with the TFW issue.
There is a simple solution to Alberta's dire need.
A pool of of unemployed workers that would surely pass the Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's "best and brightest" test.
Our dear neighbours to the south, the United States of America.
Lukaszuk has told you, Sheila Pratt, that he's ready to "raise the volume" on the issue with Ottawa.
Well, I too, Eric Klyne, am also at the point of raising the volume on this issue.
But first I thought I should contact you, Sheila Pratt, so that you could get the perspective from an Albertan worker's point of view. The view of a semi-retired, ex-IBEW Red Seal Inter-provincial Seal electrician that has worked in the tar sand industry and has seen the fumbling of the employment and immigration in regards to the skilled trades demand for qualified, certified, English speaking Journey-person electricians.
I feel that it is an abomination, an embarrassment that we Albertans have been enjoying the wealth of the past BOOMs whilst skilled American electricians to the south have been suffering gross unemployment.
This has to stop.
And it will.
Please feel free to contact me and write whatever you like about me and what I have written so far into the Edmonton Journal... if it is allowed.
We will be continuing to monitor the Alberta coming BOOM, Alberta's employment and immigration AND America's unemployment woes on the Internet on facebook, on www.ourlocal353.ca and everywhere else on the Internet.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read.
May we all wake up to the "American solution" to Alberta's dire need, so that we, Canada and the USA, can be one of the examples for the world to see and follow.
Sincerely,
Eric Klyne
I still don't understand. How is bringing American workers up (temporarily?) a better solution than extending the rights and protections of citizenship to foreign workers who are already in Alberta working those jobs?
I still don't understand. How is bringing American workers up (temporarily?) a better solution than extending the rights and protections of citizenship to foreign workers who are already in Alberta working those jobs?
Maybe he meant white American workers. We need to get rid of the temporary worker programs as quickly as they can be phased out. They are nothing more than modern day indentured servitude and have no place in a democracy. We need to train more workers and go back to treating seasonal workers in Canada with respect. Hard to contemplate going into a trade when there is so little work in the winter and no real UI program left.
If someone is good enough to come to Canada as a tradesperson they should be coming here as immigrants. Our current immigration system however places no value on the trades.
I generally think we should have effectively open borders and stop with this privileged attitude that assumes we created this country and excreted its natural resources ourselves... honestly, we wouldn't be flooded. We'd have what we like to call significant demographic pressures, but then, an aging country already has that.
I still don't understand. How is bringing American workers up (temporarily?) a better solution than extending the rights and protections of citizenship to foreign workers who are already in Alberta working those jobs?
Maybe he meant white American workers. We need to get rid of the temporary worker programs as quickly as they can be phased out. They are nothing more than modern day indentured servitude and have no place in a democracy. We need to train more workers and go back to treating seasonal workers in Canada with respect. Hard to contemplate going into a trade when there is so little work in the winter and no real UI program left.
If someone is good enough to come to Canada as a tradesperson they should be coming here as immigrants. Our current immigration system however places no value on the trades.
I don't agree and I take offence to the comment - Maybe he meant white American workers. - The USA is a rainbow like Canada. I've travelled America and the IBEW electricians that I met were not white. It's not a race issue. I'm not against immigration. I'm against irresponsible immigration. When I take a work VISA to work in Australia, I leave when the Temporary Work VISA expiry date is up.
This is no different.
AND
Haven't you watched the NEWS lately of how our neighbours to the south are in dire economic crisis?
That unemployment is rampant in the USA and if Alberta BOOMs again ...and it will. Some American citizens could really use the work.
But it tends to bust or slow down.
And the Americans are happy to go back home and willing to come right back when it BOOMs again.
It's a healthy symbiotic relationship that would keep both Our Nations healthy. 
I'm not against immigration. I'm against irresponsible immigration.
Example?
I still don't understand. How is bringing in American workers a better solution than extending the rights and protections of citizenship to foreign workers who are already in Alberta working those jobs?