Questions?
Comments? E-mail Robert T. Chisholm, Associate Member OSPE, at attention_to_the_facts@hotmail.com
A1.2. MORE ABOUT OTTAWA’S HIGH TECH UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM
A1.2 (A) GENERAL
The comments in this section apply
specifically to the NCR but contain important lessons for the whole of Canada.
Refusal to answer questions, of the kind
raised below, will have extremely serious consequences for any part of Canada
that might run into the kinds of problems referred to.
SOME QUESTIONS THAT SHOULD BE ASKED IN PUBLIC - BUT
HAVE NEVER BEEN ASKED:-
(1)
Popular opinion “…OF COURSE...must always…” be right - just because it is
popular, irrespective of what the facts and cause-and-effect relationships are.
Just like a certain elephant, or piece of furniture, that “MUST” remain in the
room – simply because it has “…always been there…”. Right? WRONG!
(2)
Why did nobody in the mainstream media pick up on the Ottawa Business Journal’s
“Time For An Upgrade” series in early 2006 dealing with the problems of
Ottawa’s high tech unemployed – and in particular the Summer Supplement that year which contained
the following article: “Special
Report: Is there, or is there not a skills shortage? “
(3)
Why did nobody in government and in the political system follow up on the
article in “The Ottawa Citizen” of July 13th 2006, “Behind the Numbers….”
By James Bagnall and Andrew Mayeda?
(4)
Why was there almost no discussion in the mainstream media about the
implications of Statistics Canada’s “Life After the High Tech Downturn” report
of July 20th 2007?
(5)
Who instigated the production of this Statistics Canada report, and why?
(6)
Why did nobody in the federal government pay attention to this report – other
than the Statistics Canada people who authored this report?
(7)
Why did Ontario’s M.T.C.U. seemingly also ignore the “Life After the High Tech
Downturn” report of July 20th 2007 at the time of its release, or at
all times since?
(8)
Why did nobody in the mainstream media pick up on the failure of Chris
Bentley’s own officials in Ontario’s M.T.C.U. to inform him of what they
were doing, in July 2007?
(9)
Why, on July 17th 2007 at the Kanata Y.M.C.A., did M.T.C.U.’s Ottawa
representative Patrick Donnelly categorically tell an assembled audience of
O.T.I. people that Ontario government funding for O.T.I. was going to be
stopped, only for the then-Minister for M.T.C.U. - Chris Bentley - to imply the
exact opposite in a subsequent interview with Nevil Hunt, the Kanata Kourier
Standard ‘s editor?
(O.T.I.
– the “Ottawa Talent Initiative” has since been dissolved and was set up in
2004 to help laid-off high tech workers in Ottawa, following the layoffs from
late 2000 onwards, involving tens of thousands of people from Nortel, JDS
Uniphase and others. Its “sister” organisation – Vitesse Re-Skilling –
continues in operation and commenced operations in Ottawa in 1996 as a “pilot “
project under the name “O-Vitesse” specifically to conduct retraining for
aspiring high tech professionals such as computer programmers)
(10)
At the meeting referred to in question (9), why did the said Patrick Donnelly
categorically refuse to answer any questions from the audience? (reported
afterwards in the “ Kanata Kourier Standard”)
Worse,
there are likely problems with certain people hiding behind the scenes and
gossiping amongst themselves - for the purpose of seeing to it that there are
NEVER any answers to the difficult questions of our time. These people are
likely government bureaucrats and lawyers, or some other kind of politically
motivated office "manager" only interested in showing off how
"tough" they think they are at everyone else’s expense.
No
wonder that in May 2002 Stephen Harper called Canada a “…nation of defeatists”.
Why can’t we in Canada deal with our social,
unemployment and economic problems properly? When are we going to cease superficial
approaches that really only make a “show” of solving our problems but
which actually leave them mainly un-touched?
O.C.R.I.,
unfortunately, was one of the sources of the “boosterism” referred to
in the Carleton University report of June 2005, “Steering on Black Ice…”.
The start of
the “tech
crash”
in Ottawa in late 2000/early 2001 coincides approximately with when Jeffrey
Dale became the head of O.C.R.I. He, in
turn, was succeeded in 2009 by Claude Haw who stepped down in 2011. He in turn
was succeeded by Bruce Lazenby. Then in 2012, O.C.R.I. was re-tasked and
re-named “Invest
Ottawa”.
All of them
seem to have mis-understood the problem, based on the available information
being either incomplete “at source”, wrongly analysed or both. In a newspaper article on
January 4th 2014,
Reference: “Hi-tech industry's future bright in Ottawa”
- Ottawa
Citizen January 4, 2014
Bruce Lazenby
speaks of a “burgeoning” high tech sector in Ottawa – as if the
problems between late 2000 and January 2014 never in fact happened. So he seems
to be working under the same mis-apprehensions as his predecessors Jeffrey Dale
and Claude Haw. What he really means is “burgeoning” relative to the recent absurdly low base
following the tech crash, the financial crash of 2008 onwards, the Nortel
bankruptcy etc. - about which people in general would “conveniently” have forgotten about, unless they were
directly affected.
Questions? Comments? E-mail Robert T. Chisholm, Associate Member OSPE, at attention_to_the_facts@hotmail.com