2013-05-01
Tim Harper
Conservatives needed to allay fears of those sipping coffee at Tim Hortons, even if they upset those hiring the servers.
Toronto Star
Ottawa
When you walk into a Tim Hortons in downtown Toronto — or anywhere in Ontario — there is no chance that your double-double is being poured by a temporary foreign worker.
But if you’re at a drive-through in northern Alberta, there is a nine-in-10 chance your Timbits are being packaged by a temporary foreign worker, likely from the Philippines.
He or she might be making $12 per hour. Down the road in the Alberta oilsands, jobs that require little more skill than slinging coffee will pay you $28-$30 per hour.
Much of the debate around the temporary foreign workers program, which was overhauled by the Conservatives this week, has revolved around skilled tech workers, bank employees, outsourcing, intra-company transfers and Chinese mine workers in British Columbia.
In some parts of the country, however, the issue can be drilled down to who serves you coffee. Drill down farther, and it depends where you are having your coffee break in that particular province.
In plugging loopholes and responding to a public outcry, the Harper government has done something rarely seen in this country — it has angered business, and particularly angered business right in its loyal backyard of Alberta.
But the business community in this country, especially in Alberta, is not about to jump ship.
The government is playing to a much larger constituency, the broader middle class fearful of foreigners swooping in and taking their jobs, the same votes being chased by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.
Some of that fear is with merit, but in some parts of this country, there is an Alice through the Looking-Glass feel to the economy, and there are simply no Canadians available to serve coffee, clean tables or cook pizzas.
Into this tale of two countries, the Conservatives are attempting to inject a one-size-fits-all solution.
There are some 24,000 temporary foreign workers in the restaurant and food services industry in Canada, but 90 per cent are working in three provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
In Saskatchewan in 2011-12, 164 new restaurants opened, but the number of food services workers dropped by 400.
The unemployment rate in Saskatchewan is 3.9 per cent, in Alberta it is 4.8 per cent and in Manitoba, 4.9 per cent, but there are pockets in the two westernmost provinces where unemployment approaches zero.
“We have had people in working in restaurants in Alberta being recruited by the oil patch and quitting on the spot and walking out of the restaurant,’’ said Joyce Reynolds, the head of government relations for the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association.
In Ontario, where the unemployment rate sits at 7.7 per cent, there is not a single temporary foreign worker in the food services industry, according to Reynolds.
“The government has overreacted,’’ she says.
While it is true Tim Hortons won’t raise wages to lure Canadians instead of looking for the lowest cost employee overseas, the Alberta gap renders that argument largely irrelevant.
The industry argues that when Kenney challenges them to double and triple down in its search for Canadian workers, many will simply double or triple down on the paperwork because they have already exhausted that search.
Yet, hours before Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced revisions to the program, the Alberta Federation of Labour took to the microphone here to demonstrate that there are also two Albertas.
In 2010, according to AFL president Gil McGowan, when the Alberta economy shed 8,600 jobs, some 22,992 temporary foreign workers were approved in the province.
In Medicine Hat, far from the oil patch, 10,000 jobs have been lost since 2008, but more than 2,000 temporary foreign workers have arrived.
“In Alberta it is being used to displace Canadian workers,’’ he said.
Foreign workers are flooding the market and apprenticeship opportunities for Canadians are being squandered, he said.
This program clearly means different things to different employers in different parts of the country.
The government is trying to tame a multi-headed monster here and much of what it announced this week was really a vow to enforce provisions already on the book.
The Tim Hortons government may have upset some Hortons franchisees, but it is betting it has allayed some of the fears of those inside sipping coffee, at least temporarily.
Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1
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