Well, a Cabinet minister has resigned over it: https://www.thestar.com/politics/fe...cle_357f1bc3-1fb9-4abc-aee7-35409cf8c3a9.html
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PM Mark Carney's Canada
- Thread starter Richard White
- Start date
christiesplits
Senior Member
One sign of just how low environment is in Carney's priorities is the invisibility of the Minister of Environment, Toronto MP Julie Dabrusin. Compared to Steven Guilbeault or Catherine McKenna, she has a very low profile (she's a solid MP, otherwise).
Admiral Beez
Superstar
I completely forgot about Catherine McKenna. I just chuckled as I thought of Climate Barbie.... terrible, my bad.
UtakataNoAnnex
Superstar
This will unlikely have any effect on the direction of Carney or his government. It’s my way or the highway with this cabinet, for right or wrong and for good or bad.
guavadelic
Active Member
This Energy MOU with Alberta might just give the NDP the opening they needed to make a comeback. We'll see if they take advantage of it in the coming months. A lot is riding on their choice of party leader.
Mckenna has spent the past week throwing barbs at Resources minister Tim Hodgson on social media. The intra-Liberal dynamics here are facinating. She was married a longtime to Scott Gilmore, one of PM Carney's current senior advisors. Carney himself was at her book launch a few weeks ago.
Richard White
Senior Member
Not sure where to put this but here seems most apt.
Apparently Tim Hortons was seeking more temporary foreign workers and expedition with visa paperwork for their employees.
For me personally, it sours me on Tim's a bit. I feel like they are out of touch with reality and not grasping their situation.
See here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tim-hortons-temporary-foreign-workers-9.7001008
Apparently Tim Hortons was seeking more temporary foreign workers and expedition with visa paperwork for their employees.
For me personally, it sours me on Tim's a bit. I feel like they are out of touch with reality and not grasping their situation.
See here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tim-hortons-temporary-foreign-workers-9.7001008
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Full Metal Junkie
Active Member
How can journalists keep referring to Tim Hortons as a "Canadian coffee giant" in good conscience? They are anything but Canadian anymore. They are a Brazilian-owned profit-extraction operation masquerading as a cafe chain with a strong grip on the Canadian market.
I haven't been "sweet" on TH for ages, and it's nothing to do with who they hire at their stores. Ironically, the demographic that seems to frequent Tim's, in suburbia and small towns at least, appears to be a demographic that would be most opposed to foreign workers of any type, temporary or permanent.
Mihairokov
Senior Member
They ride a very fine line. The people that work Tim's in rural areas are not the same as those who work in urban areas. I'm sure the franchise owners who were lobbying MPs on relaxing foreign worker rules were urban or suburban location franchisees.
I’ve been to some rural TH that are staffed by non white people who speak English as a second language. This was on a recent road trip to the East Coast. I lived in a small town up north where the local THs and other franchise fast food restaurants are owned by immigrants, and there has been a lot of uproar about it (I.e., “they” are taking over). I say good for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Don't be so sure. I've been in Tim's in small central and (near) northern Ontario communities and the staff demographics appear similar, perhaps not exclusively.
I'm just a consumer and don't really follow labour issues, but it seems pre-Covid, the majority of Tim's and Macdonalds seemed to hire both younger and older employee, but they appeared to be 'from the community'; students and seniors. Now, it seems they are heavily weighted and in some cases, exclusively, South Asian. The last town we lived near got a new Popeye's. I was in during the first week and the entire with the exception of one was visibly South Asian, in a town that, according to my knowledge, had no apparent South Asian population, not even foreign students.
I know two Tim's regional franchisees but not well enough to ask and we moved away anyway.
Mihairokov
Senior Member
I'm speaking mostly of non-Ontario rural communities. Maybe it's changed as @PinkLucy has alluded to, but throughout parts of Atlantic Canada it's still very easy to find TH locations that are the meeting-point for small towns staffed by the old girls who have been there for thirty+ years. I know it's changing in many areas but it contrasts a lot to some of the more urban TH locations you can find, or the suburban GTA locations you can find. A lot of the time it does come down to the franchise owner, but I know what Pink was alluding to was happening in Acadien communities in NB with French African speakers filling in those jobs as they lack new entrants into the workforce.
Anyway, the foreign worker issue isn't one just with TH but with larger corporations writ large who would rather suppress wages for higher profits rather than pay workers a living wage. I once knew someone who had a dozen TH franchise locations and he was by no means struggling to get by.
Dan416
Senior Member
100% the TFWs are a form of wage suppression. I rarely go to Tim Hortons but definitely don't feel bad about not going knowing they have been lobbying for this. I know all these corporations are doing it though. It's really gives me the ick that they are so desperate to suppress wages that they bring in foreigners to work these crappy jobs that no one wants. Maybe pay better and people will work them? Otherwise your business model sucks and you deserve to go out of business.
gabe
Senior Member
That's the way it used to be here. Fast food joints hired mostly local teens, retired folks and new immigrants from all around the world. Now it's all TFW from India and mostly all men.
New owners who took over the Subway near me, fired all the staff who were there for years and replaced with TFW's.
Yes it's not just Horton's that is using TFWs for wage suppression. Lots of other industries are too. Like factories and and fulfillment centres. There was a shortage of workers during COVID in 2020. "Now hiring" signs were on every lawn. Wages went up significantly even signing bonuses. All that was scrapped when TFW program was massively expanded.
lenaitch
Senior Member
True, but in communities closer to the GTA (it wouldn't likely apply to where you used to live) where there is no apparent visible minority population, certain not one large enough to support a couple of shifts every day, where are they coming from? They might be brought in from larger centres by the franchisee, but that doesn't do a whole lot for local employment.