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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2018-01-11, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 2018. PAGE 5. Other Views Double -double, toil and trouble Premier Kathleen Wynne got the biggest contribution to her re-election campaign from Ron Joyce Jr. — and he didn't even send her so much as a Tim Hortons' double - double and a box of Timbits. Joyce, of course, is a Tim Hortons franchise holder in Coburg along with his wife Jeri Horton -Joyce. They made the Premier's day, week and month — maybe even year — by telling staff at their two outlets that they would be cutting paid breaks and charging them a larger portion of their benefit package as a way of offsetting the 21 per cent increase in the provincial minimum wage. Of course what really played into the Premier's hand was the fact that Ron Joyce Jr. is the son of the billionaire who created Canada's most famous chain. Jeri Horton -Joyce is the daughter of the Toronto Maple Leafs hall of fame defenceman who lent his name to the chain. They were exactly the kind of employers who are easy targets for a Premier defending underpaid workers. Wynne went on the attack, accusing the Joyces of bullying their employees. At first Tim Hortons headquarters said such employee issues were up to the franchisee but within a day, after an online campaign was started to boycott the chain, headquarters threw the Joyces and other franchisees who had tried to cut labour costs under the bus. They called them "rogue" franchise holders and said Tim Hortons employees should never be seen as an expense. The writer of a letter to the editor in The Globe and Mail on Saturday made exactly the sort of connection Liberal Party election strategists must dream of. He noted that it had been estimated that the country's richest CEOs had earned as much by noon on the second working day of the year as the average worker Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk earns in the entire year while the Joyces said they couldn't afford to pay $14 an hour. The point is, of course, there's little connection between the richest CEOs and most of the employers paying minimum wage. The people who own the small town grocery store or family restaurant are more likely to be flirting with a take-home pay at the minimum wage level themselves. Those highly -paid CEOs probably got bonuses for boosting profits by outsourcing jobs to Asia. Look, bosses represent the whole range of human strengths and fallibilities. There are good, caring bosses and money- grubbing abusers. No doubt there are some employers who could easily have afforded to pay the new minimum wage all along but chose to pocket extra profits by paying people less. That's some employers, but far from all. But it's easy to make the boss the bad guy. There are many more employees than employers. Even in the media, it's much easier for a reporter, an employee working for a huge corporation, to understand the employee's plight than the bosses. I wrote a play 40 years ago about a factory worker who thinks he's moved up in the world when he inherits a business. Back in those days when Canadians worried their country was falling apart because of separatism, an older businesswoman tells the dreamer: "There's one thing that unites Canadians — they all hate the boss." The Premier has made it seem there's no downside to her precipitous minimum wage increase. Workers will have more money, which means they will buy things which will stimulate the economy and create more jobs. She never mentions where employers are supposed to find the money to pay a sudden increase in wages. The hidden suggestion is that the boss can just take the money from his excessive profits. The Premier isn't the only one playing the good guy on the issue. While Tim Hortons executives blasted their franchisees for trying to trim their labour costs, they wouldn't allow the storeowners to raise the prices for coffee and meals. They wanted franchisees to absorb the cost of higher wages (some suggested it would be $250,000) while they looked good by holding the line on prices. Meanwhile Ontario labour groups were full of sympathy for employees who saw themselves as being victimized by employers. "Bring your complaints to us" they welcomed. Oh, and think about setting up a union. Let's face it, even when the minimum wage gets to $15 next year, it's still going to be hard for a single -income family to survive in Ontario's expensive larger cities. Some agencies suggest you need more than $16 an hour to get by even here in Huron County. The problem is, where do small businesses find the money to pay those wages when consumers are already shopping online to save money? It's dishonest to think we can have it all without paying a price — whether higher prices or businesses that die. A very trying budget process Every year, journalists across the globe dread the end of December/beginning of January for one reason: budgets. Municipalities everywhere sit down to figure out which projects to keep, which projects to put off for another year and how to try and keep the budget as low as possible. North Huron Council and staff sat through over five hours of budget discussion last week over two meetings and I sat, headphones on, watching it all at work over the township's YouTube channel. Budgets aren't the most exciting fare when it comes to covering council, but, with a draft budget including a 14.7 per cent increase to taxation, I wasn't going to miss (the recordings of) those meetings. Typically, budgets do start with a high taxation increase and council tries to pare it down to make it as reasonable as possible. However, 14.7 per cent was higher than I remember seeing in... well... ever. There are reasons for it of course: new staff at North Huron are trying to bring things up to the standards they feel are necessary which includes purchasing new software, hardware, equipment and other capital purchases. Premier Kathleen Wynne's poorly planned minimum wage hike and increase in benefits also play a part in the increase and, in the paraphrased words of North Huron's own council, we don't even know how much of an increase is coming. Staff talked about individual departments seeing increases of nearly $20,000 due to the minimum wage hike alone with Reeve Neil Vincent saying each dollar of that increase was accompanied by up to $4 of extra benefits to be paid out, meaning, one department alone could see a $100,000 increase due to the Denny Scott Denny's Den government's poor implementation of its `Hail Mary, try and win a bunch of votes' plan. And pay attention there, anyone who wants to say I'm wrong and Bill 148 is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I said the implementation was what caused these huge spikes. While I disagree with Bill 148 at its core, I think the biggest problem that many people will have with the change is how it was shoved down our throats almost all at once. Anyway, I'm getting off -topic here. Councillors have a difficult row to hoe ahead of them and, in those two meetings, they had already started considering some significant moves to try and lessen the amount of money it takes to run the municipality. For example, concession stands at local arenas could be on the chopping block. While council has hemmed and hawed over closing the concession booths for years, there has always been a will to keep them going because arenas are important to communities. I'm fully on board with that sentiment. I spent a good chunk of my childhood enjoying scalding, less -than -flavourful hot chocolate from arena booths while my father coached a Senior 'A' hockey team or enjoying a quick snack while watching my siblings play. Unfortunately, as a taxpayer, I can no longer argue with council members who want to do away with the concession booths. Due to the increased minimum wage, running those booths is either going to drive the cost of a hot chocolate to Starbucks levels or cost taxpayers significant amounts of money. Take note, those who disagree with me over Bill 148, if council does away with the concession stands and the part-time jobs associated with them, it will be proof that Wynne cost us jobs in rural Ontario (and I'm sure more of that will come in the near future). Other centres have either been built without concession stands or, like Brussels, done away with them and instead brought in vending machines. It's not an ideal solution, but even I, the man who will go to his death bed saying ice sports are what make us truly Canadian, can't argue concession booths are sustainable. Capital expenses are usually where a council starts cutting to try and make the budget work but, as Councillor Trevor Seip pointed out during the meetings, all that does is pass the buck further down the line. Normally, council can get these increases below five per cent but I wouldn't be surprised to see North Huron's above that and, take it from me, with the exception of some fitness equipment that doesn't really benefit the people of Blyth and East Wawanosh, there isn't a heck of a lot to cut. Normally, I'd weigh in and say don't cut this or that, but when faced with a 14.7 per cent increase, I only have one suggestion for North Huron Council: Even if you want to switch Wingham to the OPP, this may not be the year to consider adding $480,000 to the budget. Save that for a year when Wynne hasn't left you hamstrung. On a side note, if you do decide to go with the OPP, the costs to shut down the Wingham Police better be pro -rated and not taken out of general reserves as seemed to be the suggestion during the budget meeting. That's not an expense for Blyth and East Wawanosh. 4, ,-7::st Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense Me Too' comes north The "Me Too" movement has hit home here in Canada with Albert Schultz, founding director of Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre, stepping down amidst claims of sexual harassment and assault. "Me Too", which has since shifted to the term "Time's Up", has taken aim at the powerful men in the entertainment industry who have abused their high stature and used it to rape, abuse and intimidate women for decades. With the creation of the Time's Up project, many in Hollywood and other wealthy philanthropists have created a legal defence fund for those without the means to defend themselves against such abuse of power. Whether it's agricultural workers, waitresses or office workers, the fund will be available to those who feel they have been sexually abused, but, for one reason or another, are unable to make a legal challenge on their own. Like Oprah Winfrey acknowledged on Sunday night's Golden Globe Awards, so many women have bills to pay and mouths to feed and they can't risk losing their source of income speaking out in the midst of a system with the odds stacked against them. Time's Up hopes to shift the power and create an environment where all feel safe to work, no matter the industry and no matter the circumstances. Back to the allegations against Schultz. He is the first high-profile Canadian name to be identified in such a case after the watershed allegations made against Hollywood giant Harvey Weinstein. There was, however, the case of Jian Ghomeshi not too long ago, however, that was a bit of a precursor. For me, it was a little shocking because Schultz is the first person accused of these horrible crimes who I've seen in the flesh. I don't know him personally, but I have seen him on the stage at Soulpepper. And, of course, there have been many Blyth Festival artists who have no doubt had dealings with him through the small world of Canadian theatre. Just recently, Festival Associate Artistic Director Severn Thompson won a Dora Mayor Moore Award for her direction of Peter Pan, which was produced by Bad Hats Theatre and Soulpepper. A small world indeed. Her star was Fiona Sauder, who was just recently in Blyth working on the as-of-yet-unproduced Fighting 61st project with Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt and Canadian theatre giant Paul Thompson. In fact, just published was a letter from nearly 300 artists who have thrown their support behind actresses Diana Bentley, Kristin Booth, Patricia Fagan and Hanna Miller, Schultz's accusers, and on it are some names we may recognize. In addition to Canadian heavyweights like Sarah Polley, who many will know from her work in Hollywood, there are a handful of Blyth Festival alumni who have put their name to the letter, including Kate Lynch, Kelli Fox, Greg Gale, Anusree Roy, Rylan Wilkie, Christopher Morris and Marcel Stewart, among others. Those who have been critical of the movement have said that no one is safe from being accused of some sort of misconduct. However, perhaps that is a telling turning of the tables of a situation in which, for many, many years, no woman was safe from this kind of behaviour and criminality. Kudos to the women who have had the courage to come forward to tell their stories and to the artists who have put their names on the line to support them. Regardless of the outcome of any legal proceedings, you can know you're doing the right thing.