Assuming Power, Taking Action

If you have been following my blog over the last few years we will notice that in the last few months I have become increasingly concerned with respect to what is happening with our country and the world in general.  Specifically I am very worried about the direction our economy and job market is going.  In a nutshell, our jobs are being migrated overseas to places where companies will pay reduced salaries.

There are a number of questions I need you to consider so that you can follow my concerns.  Back in the 1990’s our government reassured us when we first started to become anxious about our manufacturing jobs being moved to Mexico after the signing of NAFTA (gift of Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives) by telling us that our economy we be “knowledge based”.  Since then tens of thousands of jobs have been lost and industries shutdown in Canada (as well as in the United States).  You wonder why Detroit is bankrupt, it’s because the whole car industry has gone to Mexico and Asia. 

In early 2000 our knowledge based jobs also started to be migrated overseas.  Telephone operators suddenly had foreign accents because calls were being answered in India.  Then accounting started to be done overseas, accounting for the banking industry, payrolls are now being done overseas and you wonder why we have so many compromised banking issues?  Then engineering jobs started to be done in Korea and Thailand.  Yes engineering jobs.  Interestingly enough our IT troubleshooting is also now being done in India and Asia.  Somehow I had the impression back in 1993 that these sort of jobs were “knowledge based” or “intellectual”.  I guess I was misinformed about what knowledge based should mean.

Ask yourself if your position could be done overseas; chances are if you work in an office environment it could be.  Ask yourself how often you shop at Walmart and how often you buy Canadian products.  Ask yourself if you don’t have a job in manufacturing and you don’t have an office job, what sort of job could you do that is still available in Canada?  Did you say it doesn’t matter because you are a professional?  Engineers are professionals and their jobs are going.  Whose to say we won’t soon have virtual schools and teachers will be obsolete?  Will robots soon take the place of fast food workers?  Did you know they are working on robots to clean toilets and windows?  Do you see where I am going with all these questions?

What is the solution? 

Before I answer that, let me just back up a few paragraphs.  When people in the past have argued with me about corporations paying their fair share of taxes they would say “if they pay too much tax they won’t be able to pay salaries and I will lose my job”.  Interesting.  The Canadian banks are still thriving, their top management receive millions of dollars in bonuses every year and their taxes are decreased almost every year and still jobs are being cut and sent overseas.  How is that argument working for you now?

Solution – regular folk need to wake up and smell the lack of coffee.  If we don’t protest the migration of Canadian jobs overseas we will very quickly be reduced to a slave class.  We, the 99% need to be actively working to save ourselves.  The situation is rapidly becoming URGENT.

Get involved, take action, work with a party that will work for the people.  Yes, I mean the NDP.