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Canadian Values do not include Canada for younger generation

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Eaglelord17 said:
Its easy to say there is jobs in the trades. That being said look at how difficult it is to get qualified in those trades. You can't pay to go to school for it, and you have to fight for a apprenticeship which if you don't have a family member doing that trade (or other similar connections) odds are you will likely never get. Right now I am attending college and the people in my class (all 40 of us) want a apprenticeship, but since none of us have the connections needed to get one, odds are we are screwed in the future.

Companies don't want to hire apprentices as they are seen as a large cost, and once someone is qualified they can go elsewhere. Most the companies hiring apprentices want people who are basically qualified in the trade already just without the ticket so they can pay them less to do the same job as a qualified person.

Yes the jobs are there, but even if you want to do it, they refuse to train you and unlike the military, they want you pre-trained and don't provide you a way to do so.

Yes companies nowadays have a blind side to training and skillsets. Reviewing the big LNG projects here, I ask "So where are you going to get the tug crews from?" Blank look, they don't even realize how long it takes to get a skill certification, for big tug master your looking at 10 years on the water and writing exams
 
Lightguns said:
My wife teaches elementary, we spent $1K, mostly materials that parents should supply.  It only takes 2 or 3 parents to refuse to supply and demand the government supply to screw a class out of fun activity.  So she covers that, there is no use in reasoning with parents who think education should be 100% free.  There is no budget for snot rags in an elementary school, incredibly, so that runs $60 bucks a year with all those runny noses.  We also supply recess snacks for a few and this year a Barbie bicycle for a young lady who never had a bicycle in her 6 years of life.  There is no extra room in the supply budgets, when I was in, I used grab any PPS thrown out at the end of course if I happened across it.  When we lived in Oromocto in a McMansion, we had a PPS room, anything we got went there, free pens from politicians or business, pencils found or on sale at end of school year. Can't do that with the little house now.

My wife is a teacher as well and my experience is similar.  She teaches at an "inner city" school in Halifax that has loads and loads of socio-economic issues.  I would love to be able to claim the amount I put into the students in that school on my taxes.  But my wife loves it, gotta hand it to her I couldn't do it.
 
Halifax Tar said:
This was my experience as well (Kingston, Ont) in the 90s.  And it was perpetuated by my parents.  The look on their faces when I came home with CAF Recruiting documents was priceless.  Their questions were disturbing, "Why do you want to throw your life away ?", "Why do you want to be a drunken wife beater?" and "What did we do wrong as your parents ?" lol

I have to say they have changed their tunes ALLOT but they still hold some of incorrect and unfounded stereotypes about us.

But you're a rugby player, so your parents weren't completely wrong... ;D
 
Part of the problem I see here is that we as a society don't understand or have forgotten what universities are supposed to do.  There is a difference between training and education.  When we train people, we teach them how to do a task (or multiple tasks) as a means to an end.  Education is much more nebulous in that we don't actually teach tasks, but rather thought processes as to how to figure things out.  In a sense, a university is supposed to develop a person's ability to think and reason.

Unfortunately, universities themselves have forgotten this and have in many cases turned themselves into job training centres.  Even more unfortunately, society as a whole has bought into this and nowadays it seems that one needs a "degree" to do just about anything.  This was very apparent during a recent overseas posting.  My wife is a lab technologist with a college diploma and over 30 years of experience.  She was lucky to get licensed overseas because the entry level standard there was a master's degree.  However, although her colleagues were very knowledgeable and could describe chemical/biological processes in detail, they had difficulty initially figuring out their instruments and had no idea what they were looking at in the microscope.  She ended up training people with far more education than she had, in the basic skills they needed to actually be effective.

The other day I heard of someone getting a master's degree in photo refinishing?!  Seriously?  Talk about over-specialization, not to mention the fact that this is a skill, not a thought process.
 
Pusser said:
... My wife is a lab technologist with a college diploma and over 30 years of experience.  She was lucky to get licensed overseas because the entry level standard there was a master's degree.  However, although her colleagues were very knowledgeable and could describe chemical/biological processes in detail, they had difficulty initially figuring out their instruments and had no idea what they were looking at in the microscope.  She ended up training people with far more education than she had, in the basic skills they needed to actually be effective ...
Excellently put!  In my limited experience working with university-educated vs. community-college-trained journalists, I saw some of the same thing:  the university folks generally knew more about government in general, but the college folks generally knew more about what to look for and report on at a municipal council or school board meeting.

I think this is also why an awful lot of university students end up taking a year or two at college after their degree to get the training they need to ensure the best use of the education they've received.
 
Lightguns said:
There are no quality jobs with pensions and benefits, there is no home ownership, there is no vacations, none of the future their parents and grandparents enjoy. The lack of opportunity for the majority is incredible and more incredible how quickly it came about, less than one generation we sold our prosperity. 

Halifax Tar said:
Light Guns is right.  The jobs for the average kid who just wants a middle class life with a pension at the end are disappearing. 

The last time I applied for a job was in 1972, so I can't comment on today's market. But, I can say that those on the job now enjoy some benefits that we never had,

Pension accrual rate increased from 2% to 2.33%.

Meal breaks and meal allowance.

Higher car counts.

Paid out-of-service time for stress.

Presumptive PTSD legislation for cumulative stress.

These things may be taken for granted now, but were unheard of during my time on the job.







 
Not to turn this into a ' in my day we walked to school uphill both ways' discussion, things are considerably different with respect to jobs today and jobs now.

Sure there are way less opportunities for middle class folks to get today's expected jobs with all the attached entitlements.  Each decade added more and more expected entitlements to ordinary jobs.

In 1971 I worked on a CN extra gang.  $1.65/hr 54 hrs a week, no overtime 2 - 10 min water breaks / day, free room and board in a box car. Lots of people had work if they wanted it. Tough to get EI unless you were an East Coast fisherman.

The significant other did not generally need to work to feed a family.

In 1977 a Fed Govt Professional job,  2 wk paid vacation, below average wages, no Maternity leave, no overtime, good pension prospects

In 1991 a Sask Govt Professional job, 4 wks paid vacation, fair wages, maybe 2 wks maternity leave, no overtime, drug plan, good pension.

Today, if you have a government job you are golden with all the built in perks. The problem is there are a lot less permanent job opportunities due decreased need for people to physically do the work and / or institutions can not afford to pay the wages.
 
Interesting point with the mentioned govt jobs (even at different levels) over a period of time.

Our MPP, Jim Wilson (Simcoe County, Ontario) said several years ago that rapidly increasing government employees when the economic growth is not matching (rather gradually shrinking) is completely non-sustainable.

What would happen if government jobs were pro-rated based on what the economies were like at the time? If we lived in a magic fairy world where no unions existed or other non-sense, how would people react if all government employees and yes perhaps even elected officials had their pay pro-rated based on how well the economy is going? Certainly be a lot of pyssed off people. Certain the banks and financial institutions would not accept it either.

Just a thought.
 
ArmyRick said:
Just a thought.

Here's another thought.

Let the GTA  go its own way. Take its revenue and municipal union jobs along with it.




 
ArmyRick said:
Interesting point with the mentioned govt jobs (even at different levels) over a period of time.

Our MPP, Jim Wilson (Simcoe County, Ontario) said several years ago that rapidly increasing government employees when the economic growth is not matching (rather gradually shrinking) is completely non-sustainable.

What would happen if government jobs were pro-rated based on what the economies were like at the time? If we lived in a magic fairy world where no unions existed or other non-sense, how would people react if all government employees and yes perhaps even elected officials had their pay pro-rated based on how well the economy is going? Certainly be a lot of pyssed off people. Certain the banks and financial institutions would not accept it either.

Just a thought.

This is my rice bowel, so a tad fond of it. I find the government employee vs rest a very politically created conflict. In the real world, many families have someone either working private sector/self employed and the spouse working a government job. The government job does not pay great, but provides a steady and guaranteed income, allowing the self-employed to take risks without worrying if the kids will eat this month. In smaller towns the government jobs are the cushion that keeps the wheels on in the local economy if the mill closes for a bit and keeps money flowing through the other small businesses. An example is that when the Ministry of Forest closed an office in a small town, it almost killed off the town, about 12-15 decent paying jobs disappeared overnight, those people left town to find other work, many of the shops and one of the restaurants closed as there was not enough money flowing through the town community. The drop in the town economy had a ripple effect in the area for the outlying rural residents meaning that inventory in the area was not as high and prices also had to go up and services were down. 
 
ArmyRick said:
What would happen if government jobs were pro-rated based on what the economies were like at the time?

It's the essential services arbitration process. Ability to pay versus ability to tax.

Many Ontario municipalities contend the arbitration process is not taking into account their ability to pay wage hikes for essential services workers.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/04/02/why_scugog_firefighters_earn_more_than_those_in_toronto.html
"What four words strike fear in the hearts of many municipality budget planners and councillors? Essential. Services. Arbitration. Awards."

Escalating Emergency Services Labour Costs and the Ontario Taxpayers’ Ability to Pay
https://www.amo.on.ca/AMO-PDFs/Reports/2011/2011AbilitytoPayPositionPaper2011.aspx

"Ontario now faces the prospect of two tiers of public sector workers – those with their wages frozen by legislation and those who will continue receiving pay hikes. That is both unfair and unsustainable. The government has to find a better way."
Toronto Star Editorial – Province Needs New Approach – November 11, 2010

See "Ability to Pay Act" Ontario
http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/bills/bills_detail.do?locale=en&BillID=2672

Colin P said:
The government job does not pay great, but provides a steady and guaranteed income, allowing the self-employed to take risks without worrying if the kids will eat this month.

daftandbarmy said:
With respect to pay and compensation....


Public sector workers paid 10.6% more than private sector average: Fraser Institute

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/fraser-institute-salary-1.3887133
 
I can tell you that we (feds) pay clerical workers well, but we do not come close for technical workers and have difficulty attracting them now. We used to be able to offer security and pension as an alternative to higher wages. Now no one believes the pension will be there and a lot of jobs are being offered on short term contracts. Currently there is no guarantee you be getting paid at all either.
 
There was a bit of an odd rant of an opinion piece over the weekend which eventually arrived at the idea that the Canadian identity is suffering a legitimacy crisis.  Throw that crisis on top of youth not feeling an emotional investment/connection to the idea of Canada and we start to see things like university student councils canceling Canada Day.

The idea of ‘Canada' is in even bigger trouble now than in 1967
Colby Cosh
National Post


Could it be that going all-in on a 150th anniversary… was a mistake? One hundred and fifty is sort of an awkward number to be the occasion for a grand national celebration. That the word “sesquicentennial” exists, and that it is only ever used to describe contrived festivals of this sort, seems like a hint.

Me, I would probably be unenthusiastic over a rounder number anyway. My suspicion and resentment of any state-led hoo-rah or whoop-up is probably about half politics and half personality. No doubt in 1967 I would have been writing columns grumbling about Expo 67 being a showcase for high-modernist delusion, doomed hopes for national unity, and brutal industrialism.

But, of course, there is much to be said for the grouchy view. From our vantage, we look back mostly on the fashions and design coups of Expo 67 and ignore the larger details. Any ordinary cultured person of 2017 whisked back to Expo 67 in a time machine would step out of the pod and recoil instantly at the sexism of signs blaring “Man And His World.” We would look askance at the abusive landscaping of the Montreal riverside. We would sprain our eyebrows raising them at the glorification of European explorers and the endorsement of an unjust world order.

We would know what attendees could only sense: that the old premise of Canada as two founding nations yoked together, combining complementary racial virtues to achieve material and spiritual progress, was about to enter an irreversible crisis. We would be aware that the city of Montreal was going to be a prominent victim of the crisis—that the technocratic ambition that made Expo 67 a success was destined to metastatize. (When I was very young it was still taken for granted that Toronto and Montreal were equals, twin capitals of one civilization. Canada has since become, like Britain, a land with one representative, dominant multiethnic metropolis.)

So maybe the grouches are usually right in the long run, and particularly about moral enterprises of the state, which are so often born and planned in a frenzy of self-congratulation and political calculation. Celebrating a 150th anniversary is inherently weird, but when I have pointed this out I have usually been offered the justification that Gen X-ers like me missed out on Expo 67 by accident of birth, and probably will not make it to see Hadrien Trudeau preside over CanadaFest 2067.

This makes of the whole thing an odd form of intergenerational welfare. The premise of the party, or whether Canada merits one at all, is acknowledged to be beside the point. There is also the minor but persistent problem that Canadian statehood was more of a process than an event, and that 1867 as a date for the founding of Canada is merely the least incoherent of many possible alternatives.

The idea of Canada is in more trouble than it was in 1967, though even in 1967 it was too late to build a compelling founding myth upon the political machinations of white male “Fathers of Confederation.” Expo 67 looked forward, not back, but the idea of progress has fallen out of fashion. Our First Nations have succeeded in obtruding on the 2017 feast with a commanding, mood-ruining “ahem,” but this is just a manifestation of a wider trend—an overall moment in which the Canadian state and civilization are subject to a constant, harsh new light of self-interrogation, motivated by a perceived failure to share the material and libertarian accomplishments of a century and a half with aboriginal occupiers of our space.

This legitimacy problem, whatever you think of it as a proposition, is not just going away. The easy traditional methods of deflecting the aboriginal moral challenge—pointing out how well Canada works for descendants of immigrants from everywhere else on Earth, or celebrating the development of the country’s liberal legal order, as one might have expected us to do in 2017—seem destined to become ever less intellectually effective and convincing.

No radical solution to the legitimacy crisis is likely or conceivable. Not really being willing to bulldoze Centre Block or incinerate every Canadian flag in existence, we content ourselves with ritual, even poetic formulae, like the new habit of acknowledging on public occasions that Canadian territory is “unceded.” But this just makes the psychological problem worse. Is Canadian history a single prolonged, conscious, intentional, continuing racist crime?

What is a liberal’s, or even a present-day conservative’s, answer to this question—“Yeah, sorta”? It is no wonder we have half-baked nationalism for a half-centennial: and that is probably what we will remember of it in 2067.
 
 
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-half-baked-nationalism-for-a-half-centennial/wcm/91a8a662-0b81-4f4a-b0ae-7b1c7aabac00
 
We would be aware that the city of Montreal was going to be a prominent victim of the crisis—that the technocratic ambition that made Expo 67 a success was destined to metastatize. (When I was very young it was still taken for granted that Toronto and Montreal were equals, twin capitals of one civilization. Canada has since become, like Britain, a land with one representative, dominant multiethnic metropolis.)

Montreal may have begun its sunset as early as 1959, when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened.

Trans-oceanic shipping no longer had to stop there. Trade could bypass Montreal and go directly to the Great Lakes.

I believe 1959 is when the ascendency of Metro Toronto began in earnest.


 
Since much of the discussion is about "values" it is interesting to compare Canada's 150th anniversary with President Trump's speech in Poland. The "official" celebrations were all about diversity and multiculturalism. There was a background hum in social media and even some people I spoke to casting Canada in a negative light because of the usual SJW complaints of racism, colonialism, privilege etc.

President Trump, in contrast, gave a ringing speech on the principles of Western Civilization, and the need to maintain them and the will to exercise these principles to ensure the West could never fail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adpgw93_DfE

We write symphonies.  We pursue innovation.  We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.

We reward brilliance.  We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God.  We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.  (Applause.) 

We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success.  We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives.  And we debate everything.  We challenge everything.  We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves.  (Applause.)

And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom.  That is who we are.  Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.

What we have, what we inherited from our -- and you know this better than anybody, and you see it today with this incredible group of people -- what we've inherited from our ancestors has never existed to this extent before.  And if we fail to preserve it, it will never, ever exist again.  So we cannot fail.

The rejection or lack of understanding of the principles that are the basis of Western Civilization among the Canadian people (not to mention the political, bureaucratic, media and academic classes) are most certainly a key factor in why Canadians and especially youth turn to "alternatives", with radicalization being an extreme manifestation of this.
 
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