Editor:
The federal and B.C. provincial governments – ‘ConservaLibs’ – have teamed up to give cash rewards to companies who will give Canadian jobs away to immigrants.
It is called the Immigrant Employment Council of B.C. They give ‘grants’ of up to $200,000 per organization. The total amount of your tax dollars you unwittingly contributed has risen 260 per cent in three years to $1.8 million.
In 2004, the BC Liberals gutted the apprenticeship program in B.C. and created an artificial labour shortage. Now they are trying to reap the rewards by exploiting cheap offshore labour.
According to the last Stats Canada report, immigrant males get 63 per cent of the wages that their Canadian-born counterparts receive. For women it was 56 per cent. An immigrant worker is a compliant worker, because he has no recourse.
These are 2005 figures, as the feds gutted Stats Canada a few years ago.
Big business, on the other hand, gives ‘contributions’ to the ConservaLibs in return for ‘grants’. Cozy. But the ‘grants’ are coming off of the backs of taxpayers. And the taxpayers are assuaged by the calming TV ads, $64 million for the two years leading up to the last election by the BC Liberals, and $600 million from the Conservative feds since they got into power; paid for by you and me.
Isn’t it time we stopped using euphemisms like ‘contributions’ and ‘grants’ and call them what they really are: bribes.
With all these millions flowing between business and politicians, the ConservaLibs are shills for the rich.
R.K. Grace, Surrey