The NDP responded, too cleverly, that the Conservatives are proposing a “nanny state” solution — i.e., telling people where to work. But Mr. Flaherty’s hilariously obnoxious sound byte is more like something out of a daddy state. “The only bad job is not having a job”? It’s like a line from Yakety Yak. He is Finance Minister Dad. Scrub that Burger King floor, or you ain’t gonna rock and roll no more.
Naturally, before the day was through, the government was softening the message. “Canadians would be expected to take jobs appropriate to their skill level in their area,” human resources minister Diane Finley said in Question Period. Combine the two statements, and you have something approximating absolutely nothing. We’ll figure out what they really want to do, unless they lose their bottle, over the next few months.
Mr. Flaherty’s sound byte might live longer than that, though. It certainly begs for inclusion in an NDP attack ad. If an Old Princetonian with a $235,000 public salary and a lavish pension is going to stand up and tell Canadians that “there is no bad job,” then at the very least he should probably have something a little grubbier on his CV to offer reporters than taxi-driving and hockey refereeing. I’ve led a fantastically comfortable and privileged life, and even I can trump taxi driver. There is most certainly such a thing as a bad job.
A bad job doesn’t have to be smelly, hot or noisy. Most people would define the term to include a job for which one is ludicrously overqualified, either on paper or in one’s heart: a plumber working security in the middle of the night, a carpenter slinging crullers, a cardiologist driving a taxi. It’s demoralizing and inherently wasteful, and this government says exactly that when it comes to immigrants. It quite rightly wants to ensure professionals don’t pack up and move to Canada only to toil miles below their station, and it quite rightly talks up the value of skilled trades. And yet here was Mr. Flaherty, whose big mouth seems to be enjoying majority governance, suggesting Canadians should be happy with any pay cheque they get.
The Post‘s Wednesday editorial applauds the notion of forcing people to work any job at all or else lose their benefits. “Times are tough,” it says. Well, I guess they are. But are they really tough enough to justify broadcasting Mr. Flaherty’s Dust Bowl wisdom?
I’ve never collected a dime of EI. Still, the last time I found myself unexpectedly jobless, it provided a valuable safety net while I freelanced. Without it, I might well have fled what I enjoy doing for safer, less fulfilling climes. There must be tens of thousands of Canadians who perform more useful functions and who faced similar dilemmas. There is only one employment insurance system available to us; there is no provision for opting out; we and our employers fund it to the tune of 100%; and it’s not as though the benefits last forever. The system is ours, not Ms. Finley’s or Old Man Flaherty’s. So, do we want a system that helps us stay on course through turbulence, or do we want one that crushes dreams in the name of starvation-avoidance and 1950s-style character-strengthening?
In reality, the government probably just wants to reform the EI situation in Atlantic Canada. And that’s entirely defensible. The wildly different standards for EI eligibility and benefits across the country are difficult to justify. The great thing about living in a free, prosperous country of 10 million square kilometres is that you can follow the jobs, and insurance isn’t usually something one collects by design, every single year at the same time. But if that’s what the government wants to do, that’s what the government should say it wants to do. Canadians do not need Mr. Flaherty to speak to them as Hiram Lodge might speak to Veronica after a particularly reckless shopping spree. Ideally, this incident might get all Canadians interested in serious discussion about the proper nature of the employment insurance to which they all contribute. And Mr. Flaherty might just put a sock in it.
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: Chris Selley
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