Canadians NOT Against The Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Fair is fair? Sure it is... if you also believe a job is a job. Fairness is dependent upon one's expectations. Such an axiom is about as useful as decrying, "It's all good," or some equally equivocating moot utterance that sounds cool but means nothing.

Yesterday my attention was drawn to a Facebook Page entitled, "Canadians Against the Temporary Foreign Worker Program," and the insight it provides into the prevailing attitudes of those affected is, as you might expect from Canadians, incredibly diverse. Now, I hate to see any good person lose a job through no fault of their own, but I hate it equally when people blame the messenger for their own misfortunes.

About a decade ago, I was at the West Edmonton Mall with a couple of chums, and I distinctly recall one of my cohorts' retort to my objection over his offhanded remark concerning the predominance of Asian workers behind the counter of his beloved grease-slinging mega-giant, McDonalds.

"Yeah... as long as THEY stay at McDonalds."

Yeah bro... of course they're entirely content with wage slavery. Of course they're inferior to a company warehouse worker like you who's bright enough to fulfill the complex demands of a computer subroutine... part of an inventory program written by some idiot MIT graduate. A program that your employer trained you to use over the course of one whole week, right? You're actually expected to... enter data and not fuck-up! Wow. Just imagine... before long you'll be the one training other people to use the software... software that has netted it's designer more money than you could hope to earn working forty-thousand hours as a shop-hand. Aren't you the man on the fast escalator to the glass ceiling?

I mean hey, for all these foreigners, isn't just mastering the art of dropping baskets full of chips into deep fryers more than enough? Some poor Korean immigrant could never outpace you in the labour pool... after all, you've mastered the English language to a solid grade nine level, and ain't nobody gonna step on your $14 / 16 / 18 / 22 / 27 / x  per hour.

Despite my good pal's ignorant and unfounded mistrust of ethnic otherness - his  narrow mindedness... or what would be interpreted by many as outright racism, a mere twelve years later, his offhanded comment proved to be a resonant snapshot foreshadowing bigger changes to come.

Of course, my having already read through Angus Ried's "Shakedown", I was thoroughly convinced that seeing foreigners holding all the crappy jobs in my country was merely a precept to a rapidly shifting movement toward a global economic outsourcing that would be sweeping-up North American jobs faster than a Croatian in the Athabasca region. A litmus test of tolerance, and a move toward conditioning we born-and-bred, multi-generational Canadians to become accustomed to interacting with people from other cultures as we go about our daily, consumerist lives.

"So long as they stay at McDonalds" becomes "Glad someone's willing to work as the janitor" becomes "Hey! What the hell are they doing working skilled trades in the oil patch?"

Sounds like someone wasn't paying attention in Social Studies class, eh?

In this day and age, people who successfully alter the status-quo aren't gathering en-masse for a rally on the steps of the legislature building. The real agents of radical change aren't using Bristol board and Sharpie markers to make their point. Not at all. Rather, they employ lobbyists, law firms, and private security forces. They act subversively through social media... not obtusely on a Facebook page.