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In the last few years, the United States has been intellectually checked out from the rest of advanced world. While the publics in Norway, Australia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France and so forth have been figuring out the role played by mass immigration in the ongoing economic troubles, American elites have been on the offensive against the American people, trying to push through amnesty via sheer effrontery.
But the recent victory of renegade economist David Brat over Eric Cantor on the issue of cheap labor shows that the U.S. is finally catching up. In turn, that may be having ramifications abroad. From the Toronto Globe & Mail:
Ottawa unveils sweeping changes to foreign-workers program
BILL CURRY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jun. 20 2014, 1:34 PM EDT
The Conservative government is launching a detailed and sweeping reform of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, splitting it in two and imposing a long list of measures aimed at reducing its use for low-wage positions.
Employment Minister Jason Kenney and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander announced the changes Friday, following a briefing for news media.
The announcement is a clear attempt to tackle criticisms head-on, by moving to shrink the program in low-wage sectors and to improve the quality and reliability of data that inform the federal government’s labour market policies.
Employer groups in low-wage sectors had urged the government not to link the program to unemployment rates. They will be disappointed – and are not likely to be pleased news that user fees will rise.
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“Norway, Australia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France and so forth have been figuring out the role played by mass immigration in the ongoing economic troubles”
Whoops! At a minimum take Sweden out of that list! I’m an American living in Sweden, and believe me, as difficult as it is to talk about these things in the States, it is at least an order of magnitude worse in Sweden. Dissidents here risk everything – your career, your home your marriage, your personal safety – everything. And don’t expect any sympathy or protection either from the State or from 90% of the populace. Even the other Scandinavian countries are marveling at the insanity of Sweden.
Actually, the UK is the most egregious nation on that list for ‘sheer effrontery’ of the political elites in foisting massive uncontrolled immigration on to an unwilling and hostile populace. Compared to New Labour, Cantor and the rest are rank amateurs. Strangely enough, once the British people actually cottoned on to what New Labour were doing, the UK backlash has been mightier and stronger than anyone could have possibly anticipated. It is very likely that UK politics will never be the same again and are likely to be permanently racialized from hereon in. One consequence may well be the permanent political eclipse of the Conservative Party the mob who have essentially run England for the past 400 years.
The last government (leftist) in Norway made an expert group of economists, that were supposed calculate benefits and cost with immigration, and they concluded that the only group that was beneficial, were young N-Europeans.
Everybody else was a clear net drain, and if you included the natural resources of Norway being diluted with more “Norwegians”, the N-Europeans were a net drain as well.
http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/bld/BLD-arbeider-for-at/styrer-rad-og-utvalg/the-welfare-and-migration-committee.html?id=577139
The world is a bit different up here. The public gets outraged by stories of outsourced workers having to train their foreign replacements, like at the Royal Bank of Canada, whose President, Gord Nixon, had to make a humiliating public apology. And don’t forget the story of foreign nannies as modern-day slaves or our own personal experiences seeing Filipina nannies with cell phones welded to their heads ignoring the children in their care while they are dabba-dooing on the phone with friends in the schoolyard. We also have a third political party, the NDP, who can benefit from pro-labour sentiment in the electorate and will implement pro-labour policies if elected. In the recent Ontario provincial election the NDP won 21 of 107 seats in the legislature and the federal NDP is currently the opposition party in Ottawa. The government has to be more sensitive to public opinion up here.
“Whoops! At a minimum take Sweden out of that list! I’m an American living in Sweden, and believe me, as difficult as it is to talk about these things in the States, it is at least an order of magnitude worse in Sweden. Dissidents here risk everything – your career, your home your marriage, your personal safety – everything.”
I am sure he meant Denmark. 🙂
That Sweden needs this kind of suppression, really tells us one thing, and that is that the elites in Sweden are losing, so it is not all bad. Sweden also have the worlds biggest alternative media per capita, while the Jewish owned media in Sweden is losing money big time.
Dissident Swedes also have the option of going to Norway, where they are in great demand, as the unemployed Norwegians are the incompetent ones, making Swedes the preferred group of employees.
Steve, I think several commenters here have been trying to get you to post on Canada’s TFWP program for some time. Use of the program has tripled under the “conservative” Harper government, from about 102,000 to 339,000 per year, much of that increase in the restaurant industry.
Temporary workers, if used at all, should be for truly temporary jobs. McDonald’s and Tim Horton’s aren’t temporary jobs. Truck driving is not a temporary job. Truck driving in Nova Scotia, which already has one of the highest unemployment rate in the country, but where one business brought in over a dozen “temporary” workers from Jamaica and elsewhere, is not a temporary job.
I would be very surprised if this actually leads to any reduction in use of temporary workers. Harper has shown who his allegiance is to, and it isn’t to the citizens of Canada.
“There will be no access to the program for employers in the accommodation, food services and retail trade sectors – as well as those who hire cleaners, construction helpers, landscapers and security guards – if they operate in areas of high unemployment, which the government defines as being above 6 per cent.”
Step One: redefine, ala Obama, the definition of unemployment, so that anyone unnemployed for more than 8 weeks is defined as permanently out of the job market, and therefore not unemployed.
This will be manipulated, deliberately, by the government.
“Documents indicate that 1,123 employers in Canada had relied on temporary foreign workers last year to make up more than 50 per cent of their work force.”
Wow. Just wow. Anyone who thinks the Harper government wasn’t aware of this is an idiot. They knew it, and they tolerated it, until the media started paying attention.
A great quote from a different article:
““Unless the federal government is prepared to force unemployed Canadians to move to take jobs they don’t want, these changes leave a huge gap for employers.”
Got that? Businesses are entitled to workers. They are entitled to dictate the pay, the location, and the conditions. If they cannot get a Canadian to work on those terms, they are entitled to import a foreigner from the poorest, nastiest country on the planet.
Given the use of serfs and slaves that was common globally up until only about 100 or so years ago, “force” is a frightening term to here from a capitalist.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/temporary-foreign-worker-overhaul-imposes-limits-hikes-inspections-1.2682209
Come now Tim Howells, didn’t SD get something like 10% of the votes in the latest election?
This was on Drudge:
http://tinyurl.com/m9svcft
Sweden is f*d.
There had been a series of scandals with the program, so there was already an overhall in the works. This was not a response to the Brat upset.
“Even the other Scandinavian countries are marveling at the insanity of Sweden.”
Perhaps they should start looking for some parasite that has infected the Swedes.
http://tinyurl.com/m9svcft
“FGM in Sweden: School where every single girl in one class underwent procedure exposed”, The Independent, June 21, 2014.
The shocking scale of female genital mutilation (FGM) in a Swedish school, where every single girl in one class had been subjected to the procedure, has been revealed.
…In the class where all of the girls had FGM performed on them, 28 were subjected to infibulation – the most extreme kind where the clitoris and labia are complete cut away, and the genitals are sewn to leave a small vaginal opening.”
Here’s a version of the story with a little more info:
“…GM became widespread in Sweden in the early and mid-1990s with the influx of Somali migrants…”
Moral. Don’t let your country become a Sweden.
TFWs make up a tiny percentage of the Canadian labor force, and a tiny percentage of Canadian immigrants. The government wants credit for “solving” this minor issue in order to distract from the larger mess. It’s only because Canadians, including Canadian conservatives, are so self righteously anti-American that they buy into this PR.
A said “Come now Tim Howells, didn’t SD get something like 10% of the votes in the latest election?”
Yes – that’s the dissident 10% of the populace that I was referring to. Both of the main parties (Social Democratarna and Moderaterna) and their rank and file firmly support the current rapid pace of displacement via immigration. The Environmental Party (Miljo Partiet) gets about the same 10% of the vote as SD and they are openly for completely open borders. The Left Party (6-7%) is also officially for open borders. The rank and file for those parties passionately support this position. The leadership of Folk Partiet (5 – 7%) recently also formally proposed both completely open borders and legalizing polygamy. They were forced to retract those planks by the rank and file however.
The Brat Effect has yet to be felt in the town where Brat will be working starting next year:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/monitor_breakfast/2014/0620/Immigration-reform-still-a-possibility-says-top-Obama-aide-Valerie-Jarrett
The difference between the U.S. and Canada on the foreign worker issue is that in Canada the opposition, the NDP, actually challenges the government position for bringing in foreign workers. Whether you agree with the NDP or not, they at least provide a choice on the issue and clear opposition to the government, the banks and Tim Hortons. In the U.S. the Democrats and Republicans both support amnesty and H-1B visas, with the moral and financial support of La Raza and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In the U.S. there is no choice.
Wilkey,
““Unless the federal government is prepared to force unemployed Canadians to move to take jobs they don’t want, these changes leave a huge gap for employers.”
Got that? Businesses are entitled to workers. They are entitled to dictate the pay, the location, and the conditions.
No. All it says is that businesses can’t find local people to fill their spots. It doesn’t say anything about the pay and the conditions. And the people who are unemployed presumably can’t find jobs in their locations. So they can either start their own businesses or move. Seems like a fair choice to me. Foreign workers don’t even enter the picture.
Why can’t immigration levels be tied to unemployment rates?
There is political representation against illegal immigration (aka boat people, asylum seekers) in Australia. There is little repudiation of legal immigration or so-called “big Australia” yet by either political party. Maybe as the mining boom is winding down, and the UKIP, FN and Brat victories give some confidence to the opposition, things will change. But neither Abbott nor Shorten are against the big Australia concept. The ALP may as well term themselves the Foreign Labor Party.
No the republicans do not support amnesty some members of the leadership do. This is really simple when both parties support something (like invading Iraq) it gets done. You also have no idea what the NDP’s immigration policy once in power would be. Again because they are not in power there is little incentive for large corporations to lobby them to change their minds. If your party draws it’s leadership and members from the bobos the when in power your party will support imcresed immigration.
“TFWs make up a tiny percentage of the Canadian labor force, and a tiny percentage of Canadian immigrants.”
338,000 TFW’s at present (up from ca. 102,000 in 2006). 16.6 million Canadians with jobs, plus 1.4 million unemployed.
TFW’s comprise over 2% of the labor force. Given that the difference between 6% unemployment and 8% unemployment is the difference between recession and not-recession, that is not a “tiny percentage.”
This program is huge. It has exploded under the Harper government. The latest “fix” is nothing more than an attempt to pretend they’re doing something to change it, without doing anything at all. Note that there are NO caps on the size of the new program.
“Why can’t immigration levels be tied to unemployment rates?”
That still means that wages will rise slowly if at all, because labor never becomes scarce enough to force businesses to raise wages. Once labor is “scarce,” the flood gates are opened.
Anonymous: “No. All it says is that businesses can’t find local people to fill their spots. It doesn’t say anything about the pay and the conditions. And the people who are unemployed presumably can’t find jobs in their locations. So they can either start their own businesses or move. Seems like a fair choice to me. Foreign workers don’t even enter the picture.”
You miss the point. It is not the government’s obligation to provide businesses with workers, and it is not government’s obligation to bring in foreigners if employers are unable to attract Canadians. Once you say that government will let in foreigners if businesses can’t find natives, you remove all incentive for businesses to raise pay or improve working conditions.
It’s odd that businesses who routinely rail against oppressive big government want a huge government program to provide them with labor.
My reference to his worrisome use of “force” is appropriate. Forced labor has been a tactic of plutocrats since time immemorial.
Latest from Australia. Money works.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-offers-asylum-seekers-10k-to-go-home-20140620-3ajr6.html
Same arguments about needing cheaper labor were made by American plantation owners in order to justify importing and exploiting low cost labor from Africa without citizens’ rights – then, as now, making things worse for citizens.
It is very likely that UK politics will never be the same again and are likely to be permanently racialized from here on in.
From your lips to God’s ears.
Are the voices against mass immigration being heard by the public in the mainstream news media in those countries where resistance to the elites agenda is finding success? In this country, the suppression of those who might counter that agenda in the mainstream media is fairly overwhelming. Much of what that same mainstream media counts as support for their agenda is simply a function of denying the public the ability to choose between real options instead of having the issue framed by one side.