Doug Ford is having second thoughts: Tom Walkom writes:
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is busy backtracking. He would be wise to backtrack more.
The extent of the Progressive Conservative premier’s policy reversals is breathtaking.
Ford has given up the idea of reforming Ontario’s regional government system.
He has backed away from controversial changes to the way families with autistic children are funded.
He has dropped plans to take over the Toronto subway system.
He has come up with a sex education scheme for Ontario schools that is eerily similar to the Liberal one he once trashed.
He has reversed some cuts to social services.
He has signalled that he’s willing to compromise on plans to increase class sizes in the schools
He now wants to fund a French-language university in Ontario, an idea he once dismissed.
His government has even changed its mind on vaping. Ford had opposed former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne’s proposal to regulate the display and promotion of e-cigarettes. He now favours it.
While he's at it, Walkom suggests that Doug take a hard look at Ontario's labour laws:
One area badly in need of regulatory reform involves the rules governing work. Ontario’s laws on employment standards and labour relations are out of date. They were developed for a time when full-time work was the norm and unions relatively easy to set up.
These conditions no longer hold. Employers prefer part-time workers because they can pay them less per hour. Many employers pretend their workers are independent contractors in order to avoid paying Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance premiums.
Typically, workers in the new economy must hold two or three low-wage, part-time jobs to make ends meet. They have no control over their schedules — which makes it near impossible to juggle these different jobs.
They are always on call — meaning they must come into work, at short notice, if their employer demands it. But if, at the last minute, their employer decides he or she doesn’t need their services, they can be sent home without recompense.
Usually, they work in parts of the service sector — including fast-food franchises — that are notoriously difficult to unionize.
Kathleen Wynne had introduced labour reforms:
One would have required employers to pay most full-time and part-time workers at the same hourly rate. Another would have made employers pay at least three hours worth of wages to workers whose shifts were cancelled less than 48 hours before they were due to begin.
Yet another would have made it more difficult for employers to pass off employees as independent contractors.
One of Ford’s first actions was the repeal of most of the Wynne labour reforms.
Doug Ford is no friend of labour. But he would be wise to have second thoughts about workers, too.
Image: Ottawa Citizen
4 comments:
Amazingly, conservatives don't understand one of the basics of an economy. Money spent at the bottom of the pyramid circulates. Most of humanity spends whatever money it gets simply because it has to. Thus raising minimum wage and other labour standards means more money passing through all front line retail and on into manufacturing and distribution.
The opposite is true. If you give breaks to the rich they keep it; they do little to benefit the greater good.
Precisely, Toby. They fancy themselves economic geniuses. But they don't understand the prime directive behind Economics.
yes, he ought to. people who can't figure out when they will work and for how long, will not be spending money in the market place. eventually Ontario will have a lot of people with little money to spend. that will not work well. these people will not be able to purchase homes, cars, send their children to higher education and most of all, they will eventually need help from the provincial government in one form or another, either in the short term or when they all retire or become so ill they can't work. Being in a constant state of anxiety about work, grinds people down and they do become ill. if employers are doing everything they can to avoid paying 'social" taxes, such as CPP, E.I., whatever, the government is being defunded. Most of these corporations in the service sector are non Canadian, multi nationals. Put the boots to them.
the reason we have a half decent standard of living in this country is we pay taxes and in return receive some nice perks, such as health care, food inspection, et.
Toby is quite correct. People who make money, spend it in the their local economy. Corporations not so much. 50 people who can afford a fridge, will go out and buy one. A corporation owned by a few people won't go out and buy those 50 fridges from the local store.
When people receive an adequate amount of money, they don't have to go to the food bank or live in shelters, etc.
The economic boom after World War II was the result of a simple idea, e.a.f. If money ciculates through the greatest number of hands, everyone will benefit.
Post a Comment