Conservatives..... The oblivious ones

Making sense of Canada’s middle-class distress debate: Walkom

Employment Minister Jason Kenney said a New York Times report on median incomes shows that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s focus on Canada’s struggling middle class is desperately misguided.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/04/23/making_sense_of_canadas_middleclass_distress_debate_walkom.html


In European counties like Norway, the poor fared better. Canada, as usual, tended to be in the middle.
 

What the Times study does show is that, in terms of eliminating the welfare state, the Conservatives have more work to do. They have not yet finished the job that the Liberals, under Jean Chrétien began.
 

If they had, the poorest Canadians, like their U.S. counterparts, would have seen real incomes decline.
 

But give Harper credit for perseverance. He has announced that cutbacks to medicare and old age pensions will kick in after the next election.
 

The government’s very interesting expansion of the temporary foreign worker program is already achieving results. From fast food joints to mining operations, employers are laying off Canadian workers in order to replace them with cheaper or more docile foreign help.
 

The Conservatives’ ultimate aim, presumably, is to drive down wages.
 

I have great faith in this government’s ability to achieve this aim and to so restructure Canada that, by the time of the next economic crisis, our middle-income earners will do as badly as those south of the border.