Two commentators have raised issues connected with my stance concerning
contracts of employment for foreign-trained professional engineers hired
directly from their home countries by Canadian employers, to work in Canada. I
have reproduced them below.
Commentator no.1 raises doubts about the idea of contracts of
employment in this context, for a variety of reasons. In my view they are valid
concerns but at the same time they raise other issues that are escaping
everybody’s attention.
My own comments in response are in blue font.
“You mention employers seeking engineers and compensated them at the
lowest rate. While this certainly looks
to be true, companies are, at the same time, facing tremendous global
competitive pressures. Many countries are able to produce products and goods
more cheaply than Canada. This forces
companies to trim costs and we have to acknowledge the competitive pressures
these companies face. This is
especially true in manufacturing, where many engineers are employed.”
This situation has in fact been developing for decades, and serves to
highlight a need for more entrepreneurship, start-ups and innovation in Canada
in order to create new jobs and replace those being lost to foreign competition
in existing industries. On top of that, it is necessary to manage the economy
properly such that it not only caters to the so-called “official unemployed”
but also the underemployed and the “hidden unemployed” falsely categorised as
having ”...given up looking for work...” and/or “...dropped out of the labour
force. It is no use government and everybody else “wishing the problem away”
partly by labelling some people as having “dropped out of the labour force” or
“given up looking for work” - with no evidence to support using these types of
label as valid descriptions of the people referred to.
“Another point is the length of time a company commits to when hiring a
foreign trained engineer. While I like
what you are proposing and I think it should be the norm or minimum commitment,
such commitments are not consistent with provincial labour legislation. Thus if your suggestion was to become law,
it would mean foreign trained engineers would have a greater commitment and
security from an employer than any engineer who graduated in Canada.”
The solution to this is simply to
contract to hire foreign trained engineers for a set time as described, - but
far fewer of them relative to the numbers of them being enticed to Canada,
under the present system without any legally-binding contract of employment
leading to the problems that we know all about.
It must be remembered that these
people do not have the social and professional networks in Canada that
Canadian–born and trained engineers do, and are thus at a relative disadvantage
because of the “...lack of Canadian experience...” factor being constantly used
against them as a means of refusing them employment. For obvious reasons that
can be, and often is, self-perpetuating.
The present system seeks to ignore
the influence and importance of contracts of employment and is clearly intended
to entice large numbers to people to Canada with no regard for the ability of
the job market to absorb them. This is causing Canadian-born and trained
engineers to resent the immigrants because they represent unwanted and grossly
excessive competition for jobs, while the immigrants resent being set up for a
let-down because they were “sold” on immigrating to Canada based on ALLEGED job
opportunities that they find to not actually exist in practice, following their
arrival in Canada.
In my view, the current system is
actually nothing more than a mess seemingly designed to get the two groups to
fight one another endlessly over scarce jobs; employers like this because they
think this is a clever game for procuring cheap labour and cheapening people,
and want to keep it going.
The lesson of this is: if you can’t offer an immigrant
engineer a legally-binding contract of employment for a set time, sufficient to
meet the Canadian experience requirement for licensure in Canada, then don’t
ask him/her to come to Canada in the first place!
In this context, existing provincial labour legislation, which does not even
recognise the existence of the issue, has absolutely nothing to do with the
foregoing argument and is therefore irrelevant. Let’s be quite clear what this
term “Canadian experience” business actually means, in this context: (a) the
Canadian experience necessary to meet the Canadian experience requirement for
becoming officially licensed to practice in Canada, and (b) acquiring some
Canadian referees who know the immigrants’ professional work on a day-to-day
basis, as part of what the said immigrants actually need in order to get other
jobs later if and when they have to or want to.
Arguments attempting to dismiss the
idea of contracts of employment have no place here. No contract, in practice,
actually means abuse without limitation – which, as we know, has become more
widespread and now seeks to become the “elephant in the room” that nobody wants
to do anything about - just because it has been allowed to become so big, based
on unsatisfactory social and economic trends that everybody wants to “justify”
just because “...there is so much of it going on...”, or some such, so as to
make it appear to be immovable. The AXIOM that this represents is NOT A REASON
to do nothing about the situation. And
OF COURSE there are so many “dropouts” and people who are “...lazy because they
have given up looking for work...”, aren’t there, so WE CAN JUST IGNORE ALL
THOSE PEOPLE, CAN’T WE?
As things are, it seems to me that when hiring direct
from outside Canada, Canadian employers are free to:-
(a) make
offers of employment appearing to mean guaranteed work for two years (for the
sake of argument), but not really amounting in a court of law to contracts of
employment for that length of time – by omitting certain words or phrases from
the job offer letter.
(b)
not bother to tell the person hired about certain Employment Insurance
eligibility rules applicable to “new entrants to the Canadian labour force”, in
particular the necessary minimum number of insurable weeks of employment to
“qualify”, and without bothering to ensure that government will give the person
hired the relevant information.
(c)
dismiss somebody with the minimum notice period or payment in lieu
mandated by provincial legislation, and before the dismissed person has
sufficient insurable weeks of employment to “qualify” for Employment Insurance
benefits – whilst neglecting or deliberately exploiting issue (b)
(d)
feed money to poor-quality lawyers to destroy the lives and careers of
people treated like this when they complain about the situation, partly by
instigating vexatious and unnecessary delays calculated to delay or prevent any
court hearing concerning wrongful dismissal.
(e)
feed money to poor-quality lawyers to instigate or threaten to instigate
SLAPP –type lawsuits alleging “libel” to suppress any media reporting about the
type of abuse just referred to.
(f)
deliberately exploit the conditions caused by bad job markets and a
mis-managed economy making it difficult or impossible to find alternative
employment, in order to aggravate the problems noted under (a) to (e) above at
the expense of the dismissed person who is trying to get a new job.
The “poor-quality lawyers” are poor-quality lawyers on account of
agreeing to make stupid messes of the type referred to, at the behest of
private sector corporations and others. The reason why they agree to do this is
simply because of careerism on their part, “following orders” - and the opportunities that they see for
making money out of obfuscating, wasting time and making stupid messes by
fiddling about in an office.
Items (a) to (f) are all deliberate actions on the part of the business
community and others to defeat the rule of law based on the Charter rights that
Canadians and foreign-trained professional immigrants supposedly have. All
involve un-ethical behaviour based on exploiting the letter of the law so as to
be able to allege having “...done nothing wrong...” according to the letter of
the law - while actually destroying their lives, and then covering it up.
To conclude: for the above reasons and others, Canada is a
socially-disingenuous society controlled by socially-disingenuous business
leaders, aided and abetted by corrupt lawyers and stupid government bureaucrats
and socially-disingenuous politicians who are really interested only in
procuring cheap labour and cheapening people.
THIS CONCLUSION STANDS AND IS NOT OPEN TO DISPUTE,
UNTIL SUCH TIME AS I CAN SEE SATISFACTORY PROOF TO THE CONTRARY – ON THE PART
OF THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY, ABOVE ALL ELSE.
In a Quebec Court of Appeal judgement from November 1987 concerning the
wrongful dismissal of Dr. Michael Stanley Short by The SNC Group, judges
Mailhot, Moisan and Chouinard asserted that anybody changing employment by coming
to Canada to work for a Canadian company, which had actively recruited them
from their home country, was expected to assume all the associated risks. But
who actually creates the risks involved, and what are those risks in practice?
On top of this, the three judges were not told about The SNC Group’s continual
efforts, and the efforts of certain of their executives such as Jean-Paul
Gourdeau to have themselves portrayed in a favourable light in the mass media
and through other means; one example of this was a write-up about them in a
1986 book while Jean-Paul Gourdeau was their President and C.E.O.; he still was
at the time of the Quebec Court of Appeal judgement just referred to. The book
just referred to was, “The 100 Best Companies to Work for in Canada”, which
alleged that “...the company is considerate, and this applies even to the way
layoffs are handled...”. The judges were not told of this, because the
foregoing “...was not part of the advertising used by the company in the U.K.,
to recruit Dr. Short....” – in other words, it was thus “...not admissible in
court...” as evidence of unethical behaviour by the company towards Dr.
Short. I was told this by Me. Sylvain
Lussier, who was Dr. Short’s lawyer in Montreal at the time of his Quebec Court
of Appeal hearing. More recent examples
concern their former President and C.E.O. Guy Saint-Pierre, for instance in
1991. I have everything documented on my web sites and elsewhere - so anyone
with a mind to dispute what I’ve just said would be ill advised to attempt it.
What was the “bottom line” here? The company behaved unethically towards Dr.
Short (and myself, for that matter) – but has been passing itself off in public
as an ethical company to work for, and has been allowed to get away with this
based on exploiting the “...letter of the law...” in order to make the
un-justified pretences referred to, or indirectly create un-justified
impressions, to the effect that it was an ethical company to work for. Note
that The SNC Group was re-named
SNC-Lavalin Inc. in 1995 by the same Guy Saint-Pierre already referred
to; this followed The SNC Group’s takeover of the insolvent Lavalin Inc. which
took place in August 1991.
All the above took place long before Robert Card came to SNC-Lavalin
Inc. in 2012 and he is in no way responsible for it.
Various people at different times have said to me personally that I
“...should have been more careful...” concerning getting involved with SNC in
the first place, with particular reference to the job offer letter and how it
might actually be interpreted by a Canadian court of law, in Quebec, in terms
of a contract of employment. So, on the one hand, there have been suggestions
that I “...should have been more careful...” over this, in certain ways that
nobody wanted to define or could define back in 1981, in order to have avoided
all the trouble at my expense that started in 1982. That trouble was aggravated
and compounded by others who had nothing directly to do with SNC. But now, in
2015, because of the even worse economic conditions that have developed partly
connected with the “globalization” phenomenon, “everybody” wants to suggest
that a contract of employment of the type referred to was too much to expect in
the first place - and SHOULD ON NO ACCOUNT be proposed now, for foreign-trained
engineers being enticed to come work in Canada.
This is a complete state of muddle, incompetence and imposition of
hypocrisy and double standards at my expense which “everybody” is hell-bent on
imposing, all based on popular social prejudices and disinformation, supported
in turn by a thoroughly bad economic situation and associated stupid social
trends in the Canadian workplace, and corrupt lawyers which “everybody” claims
that we can do nothing about. UNSATISFACTORY, OBFUSCATORY, UN-PROFESSIONAL,
UN-ETHICAL AND TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR.
Don’t the Canadian federal government and Canadian provincial
governments - and for that matter the American federal government, along with
others – recognise that national economies are composed of PEOPLE? And NOT just
big business entities, a small clique of business leaders and their lawyers,
and government bureaucrats?
So “times are tough”, are they? And why do you think that is the case?
Why has it been allowed to happen?
So you want to continue “justifying” the mess that has been going on at
my expense?
I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT
ANY SUCH “JUSTIFICATION”. GET USED TO
IT.
“Oh, there is a third point I forgot.
It is whether there is a shortage of engineers or a shortage of jobs for
engineers. My perspective is that this
is not looking at the problem through the correct lens. It is not employers don’t respect the
training an engineer has. Most respect
the discipline and analytic skills of an engineer. However, in today’s market it is not being an engineer that gets
you a job. It is the skills on top of
being an engineer that get you the job.
It should be noted that the skills employers are looking for in a
knowledge based economy changes rapidly (in some industries in as short a
period as 2 to 3 years and in most industries within 5 years). Depending upon our traditional academic
institutions to provide these skills, is expecting too much from them. Universities cannot respond that
rapidly. Therefore other options,
outside of the traditional university curriculum, are needed to keep engineers
current with what business’ are seeking when employing engineers.”
There are several distinct issues here:
(a)
There is no doubt that there is a shortage of jobs relative to the
numbers of trained engineers available and this situation is the result of
decades of negligence in the management of the economy caused by the “hidden”
mis-reporting about unemployment and underemployment, referred to elsewhere on
this site. The “recession” following the financial “crash” from about 2008
onwards simply served to severely aggravate a situation that had already been
bad for decades.
(b)
With respect to the disciplines and analytical skills that trained
engineers have, versus the skills they actually need to get jobs, there is no
doubt that they need “soft” skills in addition – namely, the ability to
cooperate and work with others in a team, management skills and so on. But that
has nothing to do with the situation posed by large numbers of applicants for every
job posted. No matter how good their soft skills are, or how much effort they
make to improve them, it does nothing to alter the fact that if there are
between 300 and 800 people competing for a job (Paul Swinwood, April 26th 2003)
every time one is posted, only one person will get it.
(c)
The disciplines and analytical skills that they need, in a
knowledge-based economy, may indeed change a lot over a 5 year period or even
over as little as 2 or 3 years. This is not a problem provided that they have
sufficient warning / notice of the need for the new skills so as to be ready to
use them when called upon. Like all other activities that humans undertake,
they must have satisfactory conditions in order to learn and practice the new
skills.
(d)
There is no question that other options “...outside of the traditional
university curriculum...” are important. On-the-job training is one of them -
and is, in fact, an unavoidable necessity.
One of the 'various reasons' of someone apparently 'ceasing to look for
work' is the lack of proper reference (or willingness to provide a reference)
by an employer who broke the law, was reported after collection of evidence,
and the following cover-ups. Apparent lack of protection of whistle-blowers and
of their families. Lack of provision of security of information: manipulations
observed of job applications, of LinkedIn and Facebook profiles and / or
comments on those and of what one likes and what one doesn't like.
This commentator was referring to two things:-
(1) a
comment made in 2011 by then-federal Minister for Industry Tony Clement
involving an un-qualified and glib statement
about “... those who have ceased looking for work for various reasons...”., in
response to questions from me
(2)
lack of legal protection in Canada for
“whistleblowers” who expose or attempt to expose corporate wrongdoing.
Another reason might be: potential supervisor did not exhibit proper
behaviour in an interview (job offer might be without the promise of relevant
training), so the P.Eng. candidate of good character must decline the offer.
Other than that might be unethical conduct (or more severe) observed of
potential supervisor (and am referring only to P.Eng here, whom I would expect
a certain level of conduct from). Tired of reporting and complaining. For sure
all this does not contribute to my well-being, which P.Eng should be caring of.
And while P.Eng are not supposed to take on work not qualified for, other
(non-licensed) do take on work and might be more appreciated, as might close an
eye on illegal activities.
Always a potential problem area. As things stand, in
general employers don’t recognise the role and importance of on-the-job
training. In addition, at job interview time, they tend to exploit the job
seeker’s bad situation in order to be abusive and cover up illegal or abusive
practices – expecting that there will never be any consequences.
Personally I have also encountered employers who attempt to cover up
their own un-professional conduct and dubious business practices at job
interview time, by criticizing job seekers (e.g. North Hatley Design Services
and Enercentre - both in Montreal, Quebec)
See also http://www.exposethismuck.com/THECAUSE/EBADINST.htm
We need a better enforcement system. If nothing else works, we need to
obtain the right for enforcement to enter workplaces where illegal activities
would be suspected. It is not a (proactive) solution to wait until someone will
be able to obtain tangible evidence. Until evidence would be gathered, someone
might be subjected to threats, bullying, harassment and other behaviour which
was more characteristic of criminals (in my opinion). As for the need of right
to enter workplaces, see the Ontario Hydro related suspected non-compliance. In
my opinion a chain (system, business or organization) is only as strong as the
weakest link of the chain.
This, again, serves to highlight the importance of proper legal
protection in Canada of “whistleblowers” who expose or attempt to expose report
corporate wrongdoing.
GENERAL COMMENT CONCERNING ALL THE ABOVE
Even before the financial “crash“ that started making the headlines in late
2008, there had been a problem with the increasing “casualisation” of labour
across all the trades and professions ever since I arrived in Canada in 1982.
One indicator of this was the March 2006 Statistics Canada report, “Work
Hours Instability in Canada”. This was based on a 5-year survey which found,
among other things, that only 35.4% of people officially classified as “employed” had “standard full-time work”
considered to be between 34 and 46 hours per week.
In my view, this is one of the factors involved in causing the
“….complete state of muddle, incompetence and imposition of hypocrisy and
double standards at my expense which “everybody” is hell-bent on imposing, all
based on popular social prejudices and…. associated stupid social trends in the
Canadian workplace…” that I referred to earlier, which is tending to oppose the
idea of contracts of employment for foreign-trained engineers recruited
directly to work in Canada by Canadian employers.
Meek acceptance by some people of this state of affairs might suit their
political purposes and emotions – but merely represents the type of
incompetence involving the conversion of axioms into “reasons”. Put another
way, it’s like being told to accept the presence of a growing “elephant in the
room” that stinks and makes mess, to the point that it gets so big as to appear
“immovable”, at which point people start lecturing us about having to accept it
because “…there is so much of it going on that you can’t POSSIBLY do anything
about it…”, or some such. To summarise this in two words: totally asinine.
Robert T. Chisholm – Associate Member, OSPE. Ottawa, June 2015.