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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2019-10-17, Page 34Continued from page 33 greater trade right here at home. We will build on the 2017 Canada Free Trade Agreement and more recent efforts to break down barriers that limit trade between provinces and territories, we will move forward with new collaborative rules to streamline trade by promoting mutual recognition of standards across the country. This could mean professionals licensed in one province can work or practice in another. We will actively assert federal jurisdiction to help move with free trade within Canada and will create a Canada Free Trade Tribunal to hear, investigate and help resolve cases where domestic trade barriers exist. We also need to seek more opportunities for exporting companies to succeed and grow, promoting Canada’s global brand, ensuring companies have the support they need to break into new markets, increasing collaboration with scientists, researchers and innovators in other advanced economies. And it is critical to make sure companies have the help they need when faced with commercial and trade disputes with a Canada Commercial Consular Service. TM: Trade deals should be fair and mutually beneficial, not putting corporate interests ahead of Canadian communities and workers. We understand that trade is essential for Canada. We support fair trade that broadens opportunity, protects our industries and upholds labour standards, environmental protections and human rights. New Democrats will defend Canadian workers in trade negotiations, trade should raise livelihoods, not lead to a race to the bottom. We will protect supply management and stand up against unfair tariffs. We believe in transparent negotiation and evaluating all potential trade deals for social, environmental and gender impacts on Canadians. NW: We seek to have a stronger role in promoting global peace and global co-operation. We would re- establish the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), which was dismantled by the Harper government. It would have a mandate of helping overseas deve- lopment where it is needed most. We would eliminate the requirement that aid be tied to business interests or strategic geopolitics. We would also increase Canada’s overseas development assistance budget to 0.7 per cent of GDP. This was a goal of Prime Minister Pearson that was not attained, but many in the donor group of our allies has surpassed. KK: I do not believe that Donald Trump is the reason international relations have degraded. Our amateurish presentation to other countries has been embarrassing at best to disrespectful and even dangerous at the worst. For starters we would not waste a year of trade talks pushing gender politics in a vital economic negotiation with the United States. We need experienced, mature and level-headed people leading and working in foreign affairs who do not take otherwise golden opportunities for growth and investment in Canada to instead verbally attack prominent world leaders or perform in public like they are celebrating at a drunken weekend at Mardi Gras. International relationships are built on a decorum of mutual respect and maturity and an understanding that all trade negotiations and agreements need, at least give the impression of, having winners on both sides of the table. Our Leader Maxime Bernier has experience as the Minister of Industry, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of State and as Critic for Economic Development and Innovation serving under Rona Ambrose for the Conservative government. All of this experience, combined with his education in law and business makes him a credible and educated leader and negotiator in economic trade and peaceful relations with foreign nations. His knowledge and experience will help Canada choose the best people qualified for positions in foreign affairs and trade negotiations guaranteeing the best outcome for Canada and Canadians. • With a tremendous labour shortage in Huron and Bruce Counties, what would be your plan to bring employees to employers who so desperately need them? BL: The labour shortage isn’t just in Huron-Bruce. At the end of the day, we need to build an immigration system that meets the needs of Canada’s labour market. We will ensure that Canada’s immigration system emphasizes economic immigration. Specifically, we will improve credential recognition so that skilled immigrants whose skills meet Canadian standards can work here more easily, and we will ensure there is a path to permanent residency for lower-skilled and temporary workers who desire to stay. We will improve language training and integration services for newcomers to our country. AT: There are a number of ways to tackle the labour shortages in Huron- Bruce. A critical aspect of this is the shortage of affordable housing and the virtual lack of rural transportation other than private vehicles. Time and again you hear from employers who can’t fill positions, from potential employees who can’t afford to live in the communities where the jobs are, or can’t afford to travel to work from the communities where they can afford to live. We need to work more effectively with municipalities, both the political leaders and planners, and also with housing developers to find ways to fast-track projects that could provide for more affordable housing in our small towns. By the same token, we need to look for innovative strategies for creating the equivalent of rural transit services. Another aspect of the labour shortages is the need for more workers in the agriculture and agri-food sectors. The Liberal government is moving forward with a Rural Immigration pilot project a community-driven program designed to spread the benefits of economic immigration to smaller communities by creating a path to permanent residence for skilled foreign workers who want to work and live in one of the participating communities. The idea is to use immigration to help meet local labour market needs and support regional economic development, create welcoming environments to support new immigrants staying in rural communities and help increase long- term retention of skilled newcomers to rural areas. TM: I’ve already touched on the importance of housing and transportation to attract workers and allow them to get to work. New Democrats are committed to working with the provinces to ensure that Canadians have access to education throughout their working lives, including proactive training and retraining as well as support when they are unemployed. We will work with the provinces to establish national training priorities and create a new Workers Development and Opportunities Fund to expand training options beyond people who qualify for Employment Insurance. It will include dedicated support for marginalized workers and those in transitioning sectors. Immigration is also important for helping address this shortage. I came to Huron-Bruce as an immigrant, hired hand on a dairy farm in 1971. To help make immigration more attractive we will help keep families together through faster family reunification that includes grand- parents. We can help immigrants contribute to the economy more quickly by improving foreign credential recognition. And we can welcome refugees fleeing violence and persecution and ensure they have access to the training described above to help them move into jobs. To make Rural Canada more attractive, the New Deal for People has a section on investing in rural communities to make it easier to retain families, attract workers and stop out-migration. NW: Our plan to increase renewable energy will create jobs in the new clean economy. We will need many workers in our plan to retrofit all buildings across Canada for energy efficiency. KK: The logical plan would be to encourage unemployed Canadians living in other provinces, like Alberta, to relocate and help meet the local employment demands. When we bring in hundreds of thousands of immigrants who do not gainfully contribute to our economy, we put pressure on our inadequate subsidized housing and social programs. Those homes and apartments that people can afford, when fortunate enough to earn the equivalent of a living wage in our area, are quickly occupied by newcomers and older generations forced out of the cities by overpopulation and a lack of affordable housing. Increasing the population when you cannot adequately provide the basics of food, shelter and clothing to those in need already in Canada does not make economic or social sense. Second, the challenge facing this seemingly common-sense idea are the mounds of red tape involved in interprovincial trade of people and resources. I know because I am one of those Canadians who knows what it’s like to live from paycheque to paycheque. In 2012, I found myself out of work for almost 10 months. I looked for a job everywhere around, but no one was hiring. I was fortunate to be single and mobile, so I packed up a van and headed west. I stopped near the Rockies in Alberta in May, 2013 and had a job in under two hours. Following that summer job, I got a permanent full- time job that I remained at until the collapse of Alberta’s economy by 2017. The hardest part in moving out west and the return to Ontario was the very expensive and complex red tape from one province to another. We need to reduce the barriers that divide us and make it easier for employers to seek new employees from other provinces within Canada first before hiring temporary foreign workers. Reducing the burden of the unemployed from Alberta, if only temporarily, will help to relieve the pressure on their social services and economy while giving their residents gainful employment in the provinces that need them the most. This interprovincial people-trade plan will not work, however, until we reduce the stress placed on our housing and services by not bringing in tens of thousands of unskilled labourers and dependent families desired by both the Liberal and Conservatives. PAGE 34. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2019. National immigration system needed says Lobb 31 West St, Goderich ON Phone Number: 519-612-5622 Email: ben@benlobb.ca Website: www.benlobb.ca RE-ELECT $XWKRUL]HGE\WKH2I¿FLDO$JHQWIRU%HQ/REE News Media Canada is a passionate advocate for the news industry. 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