Dear @AndrewScheer: Next time you want to criticize the government's aid to citizens, maybe try not inferring that Canadians as a whole are a lazy lot who only work when a gun is put to their head? #cdnpoli
Canadians are willing workers, what they aren't is willing slaves.
Decades of wage suppression have left many so far behind the curve that they cannot possibly make ends meet without holding down multiple jobs. /3
Decades of wage suppression have left many so far behind the curve that they cannot possibly make ends meet without holding down multiple jobs. /3
To compound things, major sectors of the economy are changing radically. Automation is eating up jobs across multiple sectors that have traditionally been big employers - from resource extraction to manufacturing and retail. /4
Conservatives claim to be the party of business. If they really wanted business to flourish, they would recognize the importance of the government's role in sustaining people through the coming transition. /5
I don't know exactly what the next economy will look like, but it will be very different from the current one.
Fostering it will require not tax cuts and gutting of government programming, but rather it will require a monumental rebuilding of the social safety net. /6
Fostering it will require not tax cuts and gutting of government programming, but rather it will require a monumental rebuilding of the social safety net. /6
A Universal Basic Income would stabilize a lot of Canadians currently trapped in precarious work; minimum wages that reflect actual costs of living will be needed - nobody should have to work 2, 3, or 4 jobs to make ends meet; comprehensive health care is essential. /7
Stabilize people's circumstances, and you will enable them to exercise their creativity to find solutions for the modern world. Where automation is eating up the jobs of the 20th century, a return to the artisanship of the pre-industrial era is needed. /8
There are signs of this in numerous places. Small "side hustle" businesses have sprung up using a variety of websites to market their wares, the original "gig economy" concepts are valid when we don't turn them into underpaid job traps. /9
Don't look to the oligarchs to save the people - that isn't their game - we know this from watching post-Soviet era Russia, as well as what's going on in the US these days. /10
If Canada wants to come out of the current crisis ahead of the game, it has to invest in letting its people bring their creativity out and making things happen. Today's economy is largely directed by conglomerates; tomorrows has to be driven by individuals. /11
You will never achieve that by accusing Canadians of being lazy drifters. /12 ~fin~
.@threadreaderapp unroll
