Busted by the Alberta local of the electrical workers’ union and a couple of federal NDP Members of Parliament, the United Conservative Party Government has put its plan to recruit new temporary workers by poaching temporary workers from Dubai on ice.
On Friday, under a picture of Premier Danielle Smith walking with a guy in a white thobe during COP28 climate conference last December in Dubai, the CBC revealed that “Alberta is looking to lure workers from the United Arab Emirates as part of a 2025 international recruitment mission.”
Yesterday, though, the CBC reported beneath the same photo that “the Alberta government has decided to cancel a foreign worker recruiting trip to the United Arab Emirates.”
The reversal was noted as quietly as possible Sunday night in the form of a statement sent to some media from the office of Alberta Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Muhammad Yaseen. It was not posted yesterday on the government’s website.
According to the CBC’s account, Mr. Yaseen “said the ministry was made aware of the potential recruitment mission earlier this week, but that after reviewing the mission’s purpose, he has decided not to pursue it.”
It’s difficult to believe this came as that much of a surprise to the minister. Consider the timing of the leak last week of documents to the media by Local 424 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents workers in Alberta, and the letter on the same topic sent to the federal employment minister by the two NDP MPs.
The document from the IBEW showed that an employee of Mr. Yaseen’s ministry had written to Alberta companies encouraging their participation in the mission. You can trust this former civil servant that this is not something civil servants would have decided to do on their own.
The document showed the government planned to support the scheme, which would have enabled construction companies to bring in low-wage TFWs to compete for jobs with Alberta construction workers. Edmonton’s unemployment rate hit 9 per cent in September, by the way.
“Bringing foreign workers to an economy suffering elevated levels of unemployment poses a serious threat of driving down wages,” said Edmonton Strathcona MP Heather MacPherson and Timmins James Bay MP Charlie Angus in their letter to Ginette Petitpas Taylor. “Alberta is already suffering from the lowest minimum wage in the country.”
Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan said in a news release yesterday that “there is no doubt in my mind that the UCP would have proceeded with this recruitment trip if we hadn’t raised the alarm.”
“The reality is that there are still many employers, especially in the construction sector and low-wage service sector, who continue to view the TFW program as a first choice for recruiting workers, rather than a last resort,” he added. “It’s also clear to us that the UCP spends more time thinking about the interests and preferences of those employers than thinking about the negative impacts that the use of TFWs has on wages and jobs for ordinary working Albertans.”
Well, yeah! Mr. McGowan advised keeping an eye on the UCP to see they don’t do it again, which seems fair, if unlikely to be foolproof.
The social media photo used in both CBC reports also features a scruffy Rob Anderson, then the director of the premier’s office and now her chief of staff, in the background, doing a passable impression of a bodyguard.
A note on peaceful protest in Alberta
The University of Alberta would very much like it if we would just forget about its embarrassing decision last spring to call in the Edmonton cops to kick ass and take names at the “extremely peaceful” encampment set up to protest the destruction of Gaza, which continues unabated.
To that end, a statement published Thursday by U of A Board Chair Kate Chisholm notes that the third-party review by a former Court of King’s Bench justice of the decision found no laws were broken. Such a finding always comes as a relief in official Alberta.
Ms. Chisholm went on to assure her readers that on the U of A’s campus “peaceful and respectful protesters will always be welcome to exercise their rights to free speech between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m.”
This is a relief. Thank goodness the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees our right to free expression between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m., between 5:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. in Newfoundland.
OMG, thank you the laugh! Congrats to those who released this information. wonder what the unemployed in alberta think about Smith’s little endevour to keep them unemployed and working for the lowest wage the employers can get away with.
why import workers when Alberta can train their own? There might also be a problem if the workers don’t speak english.
its like Smith just can’t get anything right.
Unemployment in Alberta is highly regional in its distribution. The economic region that includes Grande Prairie — what StatsCan calls “Banff-Jasper-Rocky Mountain House and Athabasca-Grande Prairie-Peace River” — has the lowest unemployment rate in the province at 4.0%.
pMaybe northwestern employers should just recruit more in central and southern Alberta to fill vacancies … no need to go outside the country. Oh, and by the way, housing in Grande Prairie is fairly affordable: the average residential real estate sale price is about $394,000, and $432,000 for fully detached houses. As for rentals, average rent for purpose-built apartments and condos is $1,392/month, versus say $1,586 in St. Albert and $1,841 in Sherwood Park.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/241206/t009a-eng.htm
https://21979963.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/21979963/Alberta%20Real%20Estate%20Association/AREA%20-%202024%20Statistics/Monthly%20Public%20Stats%20November%202024/City%20of%20Grande%20Prairie%20-%200132%20-%20Public.pdf
https://rentals.ca/national-rent-report
Jerry: I’m deeply shocked to learn that average rents in St. Albert are lower than in Sherwood Park. St Albert is much nicer, just sayin’. DJC
Busted! I suppose this is one less trip for the UCP happy travelling gang. A sad cabinet minister or two may be forced to ensure an Alberta winter in December. Oh the humanity!
I am surprised they are still able to use the TFW program given Alberta’s now considerably above average unemployment rate. I suppose that Alberta is Calling campaign by the UCP worked too well. Apparently all the newcomers did not bring their jobs as well as their schools, hospitals and houses. Who would have thought?
I suppose the UCP will have to make due with a number of trips to warmer places in the US such as Texas and Las Vegas. Fewer potential TFWs there, but less jet lag.
But no doubt next time they will try to be more secretive with their travel plans.
I would think this sort of thing is much more threatening to Smith’s leadership than travelling south in winter. I don’t think bringing in TFWs from another country would play well to the TBA, Alberta-firsters and separatists, the truckers or any of their fellow-travelers. Even worse for these folks would be that these TFWs come from a muslim country (whether or not the TFWs are actually muslim, most people wouldn’t make the distinction). So I’m not surprised that it was quietly cancelled (as opposed to loudly cancelled, all the better to make sure none of this sticks in the collective mindset).
I’m wondering….did a lot of her comments to the guy start with, “well…look…..”?
Paragraph 7, The document from the IBEW showed “that that” an employee of Mr. Yaseen’s.
Double that?
It’s good to see at least one of the lame brain UCP ideas failed. It is an absolute disgrace that they are contemplating bringing in unqualified foreign workers to do electrical work, when thousands of qualified ones sit idle and attempting to do a run around federal laws. The UCP anti union agenda is very clear here, as they would rather dictate than negotiate.
Fossil fuel companies are already making record profits. And they still want their errand girl, Marlaina, to get them slaves, er, temporary foreign workers? Alberta has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. I’m sure there are plenty of local tradesmen to help dig up the tar sands.
TFW is the closest thing the UCP could think of in hopes of bringing back Indentured Servitude. Personally speaking, I believe Intern Programs are closer to the mark.
That little red headed UCP man searching the globe for cutting edge AI that recognizes faces and walking gaits surely must be thinking of hunting down the next group of protesters that manage to escape being clubbed into submission by the local Constabulary.
Union busting by the UCP? After denouncing the TFW program, then denouncing their denoucement (or at least backtracking on it)? Say it isn’t so! Surely the large delegation sent by the UCP to COP28 heard about the exploitation of migrant workers in the UAE. Maybe this was why they were invited?
https://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/alberta-delegates-cop28-fossil-fuels
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/03/questions-and-answers-migrant-worker-abuses-uae-and-cop28
Where others see abuse and exploitation, Alberta sees opportunity and wants in on the action. What existing high unemployment in Alberta and lack of housing and services for migrant workers b(r)ought through a chain from their home countries via the UAE to Canada? Not a problem if the TFWs are kept in a compound and not allowed to leave except for work, I guess. And who can leave or access services without a passport, ID and documentation? No one would complain if they’re accustomed to ever-so-slightly worse conditions in the UAE, am I right? Besides, such compounds already exist, conveniently out of sight and out of mind in the oilsands.
I can’t understand why the UCP won’t wait for all the expelled and exploitable workers from south of the border to arrive on our shores in January. Heavy sarcasm.
Well, the University of Alberta blew it. When the president et al made the declaration about trespassing on the public campus earlier this year, they alienated alumni. I’d like Bill Flanagan of the Horners to explain how “his” university gets to decide when and to whom charter rights apply. Are alumni still trespassing if they attend an event on campus that runs to 11:01 p.m.? This makes zero cents, and that’s how much they’ll get if they stick their paws out for donations from me again. I went to a university, not a 5/11.
@djc
Huh. Apparently someone around Smith powered up their “crazy radar” and paid attention to the sweep return. I wonder who? It surely could not have been Smith herself.
Better question yet is why? After all, canceling this trip is NOT a normal behavioral response for Smith or her government. Makes me wonder if some new poll numbers have made a resounding thud on desk somewhere.
Alternatively, perhaps Pollieve spoke a quiet word or two a la “stop screwing with my attack lines”?
While old hat by now, every article about companies needing TFWs has to quote a business (usually a member of Restaurants Canada or CFIB) complaining that they can’t find workers. Can’t we at least update the overused quote to “We can’t find workers…….willing to work for the below market wages with no/minimal benefits we are offering (emphasis added)”?
International human trafficking? Peonage? That’s the UCP Brand!
Oh and by the way? I’ve a knuckle full of nickels for Devin Dreeshen every day of the week that ends in “Y”! https://youtu.be/BXWvKDSwvls?t=1
“call in the Edmonton cops to kick ass”
One assumes by using the standard tools of bondage, discipline, sadism, domination, and victim blaming as the means to achieve a specific end, i.e., the elimination of perceived threats and /or disagreeable behavior.
Where ‘Authority’ is understood as, “the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience”.
The narrow and wide use of force, its flagrant exhibition, and its normalization is just part of the larger security state apparatus monopoly on violence and is apparently one of the ‘perks’, or fringe benefits that comes with the job. And besides, ‘boys will be boys’.
The effects and the after effects are all well documented. For example,
https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/failure-investigate-officers-dumping-man-cold-not-shocking-calgary-police-member
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-abdi-arrest-gloves-1.7395562
Drill Baby Dani proclaimed her authority over oil company emissions data and plans to control who comes and goes at oil sites by way of a provincial government licensing system. Is this really about emissions or something more?
Hypothetical scenario:
Let’s say there’s a massive workforce of temporary foreign workers taking jobs away from Albertans, circumventing the unions and operating outside of labor laws. Let’s say that workforce is hired through a contractor in a foreign country. Let’s say these workers could be shuffled back and forth between countries at will, making it very hard to monitor these sites and companies for any kind of labor and immigration compliance.
Let’s say that Alberta’s UCP was directly involved in facilitating this operation and doesn’t want anyone to find out.
What to do? Seize the oil companies’ data, with emissions data as a starting point. Restrict or ban anyone from visiting oil sites who might find out and report back to the citizens of Alberta and Canada. Run the operation through something like a government energy war room.
Feasible?
Thin end of the wedge?
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2024/09/13/Alberta-Meat-Plants-Exploit-Temporary-Foreign-Workers/
Jeez, who woulda thunk we’d hafta admit Jason Kenney wuz right? It’s not just lunatics who took over the asylum called Oilberduh. There’s a whole lotta throwbacks, too.
Danielle Smith is supposed to have a degree in economics from the University of Calgary. I guess her economics profs never told her about the dynamics of wages, prices, supply and demand. Twitter version: one way to grow an economy is to make sure people have money to spend. Higher wages = more spending. (1)
Basic, right? But Smith apparently believes some opposing theory, along the lines of “Only spending by business owners can grow the economy. Low wages = high profits = more investment.”
It might even work if the profits were being invested in growing local businesses. I can’t help but wonder how much of that investment goes into, oh, I dunno…. Fancy houses, lakeside vacation property, luxury cars, businesses outside Oilberduh (I estimate 99.5% of the global economy is outside our glorious Alberta, the 51st-state-in-waiting). (2,3)
Does anybody still believe Danielle Smith actually cares about working-class people? If so, her blatant attempt to find low-wage foreign workers in Dubai should prove she does not.
1) Want to learn more? Check out “Economics for Everyone” (Pluto Press, 2nd edition, 2015) by Jim Stanford. Web sites: https://economicsforeveryone.ca/ and https://centreforfuturework.ca/
2) We keep hearing that Canada’s economy is 3% of the global economy. Assuming Alberta is about 15% of Canada’s economy, that leaves 0.03 x 0.15 = 0.0045, or 0.45% of the global economy. Don’t like my numbers? Go ahead and play with your own.
3) I’m also assuming that only rubes in Oilberduh are dumb enough to want “independence” from Canada—which in reality would mean annexation by the US. Sooner rather than later.
Danielle Smith claimed she didn’t know about this, and then she backed off, but that was only after she got caught.
I spent a few hours today with a former TFW. Upon arrival in Calgary, this person and their colleagues were taken by their handlers to the Mustard Seed to avail themselves of free donatd clothing and motel toiletries. No sense providing basic needs to employees when charities will fill the void. The landscaping industry has been rife with TFW’s for decades. Some have been kept in tents, some kept five-to-a-room in a 15×10′ “suite” at $350 per head, per month. My favourite TFW account was that of a group of fellows, housed in an income property belonging to the owner of the landscape outfit. They were quite ignorant of their rights, and led to believe that they were not permitted to leave the house except to attend work. The HR person who looked after their needs eventually gave the clap to a number of them. Love those entrepreneurs! Looking forward to the array of right-wing parties bringing that spirit to Calgary civic politics.
Union busting by AB’s UCP government?? Seriously? Was there ever any doubt that would happen?
The TFW program is so tempting for employers to cut their costs. Why bother hiring local unemployed workers and thereby supporting Albertans & Newcomers that are already here and living with their families in our communities? Why?
Confusion isn’t necessarily something that doesn’t happen to my mind on occasion, but if I can keep my head screwed on whilst others are unscrewing theirs, maybe I’ll risk ridicule by asking out loud one, single question: what happens when the real authority over immigration refuses to admit whomever “hommes de sept heures” (“Seven-hour Men” refers to 12-hour workdays, from 7AM to 7PM) Smith&Parker’s supposed Alberta “Immigration Ministry” wants to import?
I mean, I know the UCP has Distinct-Society-Envy, but isn’t Quebec the only exception to the otherwise exclusive federal jurisdiction over immigration?
Okay, that was two questions, but should I risk it? (Dang!—did it again…)
Péquiste envy, I call it. DJC