Saturday, December 6, 2008

We are Slowly Growing Up


It is not often that I find reason to praise the policies of Gordon Campbell, but the BC Premier and his Alberta counterpart, Ed Stelmach, deserve full marks for their pushing through a new deal in Canadian working conditions.

By spring of next year, Canadians will have full mobility in terms of working across the country without the onerous and stupid rules that have kept doctors, accountants and many others locked in one province or another.

This is a move that should have happened many years ago. We may be large on the mao, but we are a tiny country of some 35 million people and the barricades that kept people from moving their trades from Halifax to Headly were ridiculous.

Congratulations to Mssrs. Campbell and Stelmach for continuing the drive to make this new Canada a reality.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe someone here is on the wrong track when he thinks this “Trades Mobility” legislation is aimed at Doctors, Lawyers and other high end “trades”. It isn’t. It’s solely aimed at:

· Allowing Governments to denigrate the high trade training standards now enjoyed by only some provinces down to a level whereby they can call anyone they like a tradesman with minimal or no measurable examination standards. I’m talking about real tradesmen, i.e. plumbers, electricians, mechanics and those other trades people who, in case you forget, make sure your life is safer, more efficient, and more convenient every day. (especially in Hedley, but not Headly)

· What business wants, business gets with these neo-conservative politicians we have today. The Government kowtows to these special interest groups so they can circumvent the current regulations and standards that keep this country running at top efficiency. So they can legally accept lower trained workers into what are now high trades standard jobs, so they can save money for their shareholders. To hell with our overall safety etc. It’s the bottom line and nothing more that counts.

Those proper apprenticeships with broad knowledge based training and rigorous standards that must be adhered to have been built up over a century of industrial development in this and other first world countries. They’re a large part of why we are “first world” in nature. What they have learned and put into practise is what keeps us going. Don’t mess with it just to satisfy votes only politicos and cutthroat businessmen.

MurdocK said...

As you can see from the first Anonymous comment David, there are those that see the freedom from singular provincial controls as another capitulation to 'big business' even though this 'barrier' is strictly from within Canada and has nothing to do with the International ones that are so often attacked.

Without the ability to move your skills freely within Canada at least then the 1st world status Anon is trumpeting will start to dissolve as the 'licence' to work becomes ever more precious to have in the places where you can use it.

This would mean that 'big' business would have more control over workers, since they could not simply move away...

The transportability and standards are the key to this working and so far with BC and Alberta the system is working well. SO well that there are many from BC that have gone into the Oil patch to make their cash then bring it home to BC. Soon enough many more places will simply be a suburb of Oil Sands prosperity.

Anonymous said...

Very true Murdock.
"Soon enough many more places will simply be a suburb of Oil Sands prosperity". My child bride and I were fortunate to visit Newfoundland this spring, and the West Jet flights from Calgary to St. Johns are predominately men and women returning home from Fort McMuray for their "days off".

Cheers