Who would get the jobs if
Northern Gateway gets approved?
According to Pat Daniel, CEO of Enbridge, the largest of China's state-controlled oil companies, PetroChina, wants to build the Northern Gateway Project and is considering purchasing an
equity stake.
"They have made the point to us that they are very qualified in building pipelines, and we will take that into consideration when we are looking for contractors,"
Mr. Daniel said to the Financial Post.
"It's an open bid process. They are a very big organization, they build a lot of pipelines, and they would love to be involved from what they have told me."
And Steven Harper's Conservatives are doing everything they can to facilitate this.
Previous rules required foreign workers to receive the "average wage" paid to Canadian workers in the same region, but the new rules will allow employers to pay up to 15 per cent less than that average wage.
While Canadians found it difficult to compete with low wage countries like China in the past, Canadian workers will now have to compete with cheap foreign labour right here in Canada.
Since Harper assumed power in 2006, the number of foreign temporary workers admitted into
Canada has grown by 40 per cent.
By 2011, there were some 300,111 temporary foreign workers of all kinds in Canada,
according to the Toronto Star.
Is this what Conservative voters had in mind when they gave
Harper his majority?
We are fortunate in Canada to be able to elect our dictators, or to toss them out if we eventually come to our senses.
Egon Rapp
Houston
