Dear Editor:
Who would get the jobs if Northern Gateway gets approved?
According to Pat Daniel, president and chief executive officer 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, "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." (Financial Post, March 28, 2012)
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, but the new rules will allow employers to pay up to 15 per cent less.
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.
By 2011, there were some 300,111 temporary foreign workers of all kinds in Canada.
Is this what Conservative voters had in mind when they gave Harper his majority?
What are they going to tell their kids and grandkids, when they ask them in 20 years why government turned Canada into a Chinese resource colony? And when they want to know why their wages are so low? But 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