Back to Work

With regard to Greg Weston’s CBC piece on the postal strike, it was very one-sided. He quoted directly from the former president of Canada Post and made it clear he agreed with her, but we’ll have to take his word for what the union’s position is because he apparently didn’t talk to any union people.

He also made the mistake of claiming that increased costs at Canada Post will ultimately mean increased costs for Canadian taxpayers. Not quite. In fact, Canada Post subsidizes the Canadian government by providing some services to them for less than cost. Canada Post has been profitable for the last 16 years and over that time has paid over $650 million in income tax plus almost $600 million in dividends directly to the Government of Canada.

Increased operating costs at Canada Post will drive increased costs for its customers, just like any other business in Canada, but it won’t cost taxpayers a dime. If you don’t use Canada Post’s main product, “snail mail”, as many here claim, then you have even less reason to complain about the cost of mailing a letter, which, contrary to what you might have been told, is one of the lowest among industrialized nations.

Finally, the average full-time hourly wage for Canadian workers is around $24.00/hour. That’s a figure from Statistics Canada. This puts the postal workers’ wages squarely in line with those of the average Canadian worker. If you find yourself making a lot less than this, maybe you need to find yourself a better job instead complaining about what average workers make.

And while you’re at it, stop blaming the disappearing unions for the country’s perceived economic woes. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have been pushing a so-called “free trade” agenda for over 25 years. It’s a fraud. The only way a Canadian worker can compete with somebody in Asia (or Mexico for that matter) is to adopt the same standard of living. If you think that’s realistic, ask someone on welfare if they could get by on a fraction of what they currently receive, because that’s what all Canadian workers would have to live on in order to “compete” with labour in many other parts of the world.

Folks have been indoctrinated with the belief that unionized workers are lazy, unproductive drones who drain companies dry of profitability. Many have also been indoctrinated into beleiving that unions might have been necessary once upon a time, but that in our enlightened age unions are an anachronism. If you hold these beliefs, maybe it’s time to ask yourself where you picked up these ideas, because they don’t conform to the facts.

The bee problem is a serious one. Unfortunately, a lot of people still think their food comes from a supermarket, not a farmer’s field, and they don’t understand the important part that pollinators (bees) play in growing a wide variety of food crops.

I think the blame for the falling bee populations can be placed squarely on the hundreds of chemicals that have accumulated in every ecosystem on this planet in the last fifty years.