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Yes, we are all Shang Rideout now. After closing the Maritime Rescue Sub-Centre in St.John’s, the Harper government promised that things would still be handled in a safe and responsible way for fishermen like Shang and his father. Mr. Harper was at full purr in the House of Commons, using his most reassuring Paul Wolfowitz voice to defend the indefensible – and to confabulate.
Emergency calls, he said, had always been handled this way. By that, the PM meant that in the new dispensation, Newfoundland and Labrador distress calls will be routed to Halifax – over a thousand kilometres away. And if their lines are busy, then as has “always” been the case, the world was waiting to take the call – as soon as it scares up an interpreter with a minor in geography. Of course this is false, just as Liberal leader Bob Rae said in the House. But not to a man who believes he manufactures facts every time he makes a declaration. Like the spider, all the silk comes out of him.
The reality? After gutting the local St. John’s S&R sub-station, the government turned to a “free” Italian service based in Rome to help with emergency calls, a fact provided by the CBC after going through Coast Guard e-mails. But it’s only a stop-gap measure says the Harper government.
Hello? Shouldn’t the alternative have been figured out before closing the local sub-station?
Because it wasn’t, Shang Rideout’s mayday went out to a doctor in Italy who didn’t speak English and didn’t know where Newfoundland was. Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
This is getting to be a familiar story. The Harper government continues to reassure Canadians that it is merely out to “streamline” social services and environmental assessments, food inspections, etc. At the same time, it spends obscenely, unaccountably, and foolishly on a war machine, celebrity orange juice and deadbeat baseball junkets for Dear Leader and entourage. John Baird also had a million dollars of other peoples’ money for a dear personal friend who did not come close to qualifying for the grant according to departmental officials responsible for the program. And, oh yes, there was money for those fat tax cuts to corporations and some economic stimulus dollars that went to upstanding companies now implicated in Quebec’s corruption investigation.
Streamline is such a nice word. To be sure, you could streamline a dragonfly by pulling off its wings. It would be streamlined, no doubt. And that’s okay, provided you don’t care whether it can still fly.
Which brings me to Bill C-38, the “C” standing for coup. There is quite a bit of streamlining going on in this frontal assault on Canadian democracy that will of course end with more power for the PM. Off with the wings kind of streamlining. It is the kind of streamlining that makes it easier for the central committee of the Conservative Party to run the country like a boot-camp. Consider this letter that ended up in my mailbox.
It was written by Judith Andrew, who you may or may not know is a federal commissioner for employment insurance appeals. On May 2, the note went out to the people who serve as employers’ representatives on various boards across the country. It is their business, or at least it was, to hear EI appeals in a professional manner.
Dear Member (Employer) of the EI Board of Referees:
The Federal Budget contained several Employment Insurance and labor market-related measures….We now know that the Budget announcement means re-making the appeals system covering Old Age Security, Canada Pension Plan, and Employment Insurance into one Social Security Tribunal (SST)….The new SST is to commence operations on April 1, 2013. The current Board of Referees (BOR) is expected to hear and make decisions on any appeals filed before that date. Such BOR decisions must be issued before November 1, 2013 at which point, or earlier if necessary, the Board of Referees will cease operations….I realize that for most everyone interested in the long-standing EI appeals system, this information comes as quite a surprise….
I do not know Ms. Andrew, nor she me, but her letter reveals a fine gift for understatement. Approximately 1,000 people had just been fired and yes, they were quite surprised. Not only were their services terminated, but what is to replace them is, well, even more surprising. The task of hearing EI appeals will now be entrusted to the new Social Security Tribunal. So instead of approximately 1,000 referees hearing EI appeals across the country, their work will now be done by just 74 people who will decide individual cases. Tellingly, all of them will be governor-in-council appointments.
It is a fair question to ask how 74 people, even super-humans, can possibly do the work of 1,000? It becomes even fairer when it is remembered that the SST will also be hearing OAS and CPP appeals, work now done by another 254 experienced and knowledgeable people who operate independently, know the local realities, their legislation and are paid a modest per diem. (In the case of the EI appeals, it is $350 per day for hearing four cases at a sitting. No one leaves until all the decisions are made, written, and signed by the three referees.) In her letter to EI referees, Ms. Andrew anticipated the question and offered a hint of how the government plans to pull off this logistical miracle. It comes down to finding a quick and dirty way to simply dump appeals before they get started. Or as the Harper government would put it, streamlining.
“One can surmise that case volumes will reduce on account of proposed changes in law and operating approach, including a new formal ‘reconsideration by the Commission’ step….” And what might that new step be? “Summary dismissal”, according to Ms. Andrew. Yes, the SST will have the power to dismiss appeals that it deems have no reasonable chance of success. But how does it do that without hearing the appeal? Revealed truth from Dear Leader? Making it even easier to say No, the government will make use of “technology and other tools to streamline matters.” Ah, streamline, of course. Bottom line? A lot of people are going to be denied an appeal by e-mail or telephone by people who have never set foot in their world.
So what is lost with the creation of the Harper government’s SST? Just about everything if you believe in a real as opposed to a virtual quasi-judicial process. Although the government has not made clear the location of service for EI appeals after April 1, 2013, it is the opinion of Commissioner Andrew that face-to-face hearings are probably a thing of the past. “It would seem that there will not be in-person appeal services in all or even many of the existing 83 Board Centers” across the country. Someone who owes his job to the government will be deciding in all likelihood from Ottawa whether Canadians get EI, OAS, or CPP. If you are disabled, a group that make up 95 percent of all OAS and CPP hearings, that is a far cry from a face-to-face appeal with a local panel of referees made up of lawyers who practice labor and employment law, citizenship judges, and doctors and registered nurses – all with expert knowledge of the legislation and most with community volunteer credentials. I suspect what their replacements will have on the resume is political connections and a supportive attitude towards the government’s undeclared true policy — just say no.
In plain language, the Harper government is making war on the unemployed and regions of the country where seasonal work coupled with unemployment payments are now seen as inimical. But it is also, and yet again, stripping parliament of any oversight in a vitally important area of public policy. By moving sections of the Employment Insurance Act into mere regulations, the cabinet and the cabinet alone can now approve drastically altered definitions of what suitable employment is.
The feds did absolutely nothing when Caterpillar Inc. wanted to cut workers’ pay by 50 per cent. Electro-Motive and some in the media said people should be grateful to have a job at any pay rate. When C-38 becomes law, they will get their wish. The PM will get to dictate that people must work anywhere, not just in their field; must work for less; and must not fuss about poor working conditions.
The Batmobile of social policy will soon be firmly jammed in reverse in Canada. Jim Flaherty said it best: “… That means we’re going to have to encourage more persons with disabilities to work, more seniors to work, more aboriginal people to work — including young people — and to give them the support that they need.” Tell me Jim, what support would that be — a kick in the ass?
It is interesting to note that the Harper government is also out to “modernize” and “streamline” the fishery. My advice? Hide your licenses gentlemen. Everything coming out of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans “consultative process” with East Coast fishermen screams that the PM would like to deliver the fishery to corporate interests, the very sector that decimated northern cod off Newfoundland with the help of greedy foreign fleets. The government’s discussion paper, for example, blames restrictive licensing rules for stunting economic growth and discouraging investment.
Could that be why the discussion paper doesn’t even mention the owner-operator and fleet separation policies that have been the foundational notions of the fishery since 1980? As of now, unless you were actually doing the fishing, you couldn’t buy a fishing license. It is because of that policy that profits from the inshore fishery have stayed in the villages where fishermen live, rather than flowed to fish processors or non-fishermen entrepreneurs.
Professor Tony Charles, a fisheries expert at Saint Mary’s University hit the nail on the head. Coastal communities will be at risk if licensing policies change and control of the fishery passes into the hands of the people with the most money. But it would certainly make DFO’s life a lot easier. As business journalist Laura MacKenzie put it, “It could streamline administration, allowing DFO to negotiate challenges alongside a handful of big stakeholders, rather than thousands of owner-operators.”
There’s that “streamline” word again. What kind of country do you end up with when none of the dragonflies have wings?
Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Michael Harris
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