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"EXPRESS ENTRY: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING

I’m not a very smart guy. I got through high school by memorizing Coles Notes.

One day Miss Schroeder, my grade 12 French teacher, flushed me out and warned:                          “Boraks, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.  

Yesterday, December 1, 2014, will live in the annals of Canadian immigration history as the day that Ottawa took a little knowledge and created Express Entry, something very dangerous for the Ontario trades.

I don’t mean to offend the intellectual capacity of our nation’s leadership. They’re well educated. They’ve observed the Australian model. They’ve committed a lot of effort to the new process. But then, they have a history of starting up “command –control” programs that fail.

So why will Express Entry fail the Ontario trades?

• Because Toronto is not Canada and Canada is not Toronto

• Because today’s Parliament and Cabinet is thin on people who have met a payroll. No one from Ontario on the government front bench has run a small business. They have no clue.

Ottawa running the trades is like the communist party running farms. 

It’s funny when apparent conservatives claim that they want to give employers a role in the worker selection process and then Ottawa dictates both the supply and demand of the foreign worker rules. At the end of the day, Express Entry is the worst form of command and control socialism, pure and simple.

• Because pride precedes the fall.

Pride has taken over from rigorous policy discussion. What does it say when a highly educated, otherwise sophisticated Minister such as Chris Alexander seriously claims that his is the best government in Canadian history? When you’re the best in history, then why question?    

The consequences of failure

Everybody knows that the Toronto trades have survived by ignoring the geniuses in Ottawa.

Now Ottawa has turned the tables and will dictate to the Toronto trades.

The next few years will be a fiasco in Toronto.

Ottawa will be approving tradespersons who speak English /French and have certificates. These folks will not find jobs. The trades jobs will continue to get done with employer selected illegal workers who speak “trades English”.  In frustration, Ottawa will start leaning heavily on unions and employers who hire illegal workers. Initially, the smaller subcontractors will be wiped out. Then, the first small downturn in construction will see the big contactors, unable to recruit competent staff, leave the province. While this scenario plays itself out, the existing trade union culture will collapse under the weight of South Asians not joining the union, but instead, doing what they did to the trucking sector.

Ottawa has ensured that another generation will endure gridlock and crumbling infrastructure. The cultural fabric of the community will weaken.     

What’s the solution?

Dealing with Ottawa is like discussing menus with cannibals… it’s rather counter productive.

We’ll see if Queen’s Park is up to the task of representing Ontario’s interests.

In the meantime, thank God for the Courts. "

Richard Boraks Dec 2, 2014