09.06.2011 01:07 PM

What you need to know about Hudak’s politics of anger and division

This is about growing our economy, and also about our values.

What you are seeing from the PCs is the politics of anger, the politics of fear, resentment and division. What you get from Ontario Liberals is everybody working to move forward, together.

This is a tax credit for businesses that hire skilled Ontarians already living here to help them achieve the training they need for Ontario certification. So we’re talking about professions like lawyer, accountants or pharmacists who need Ontario job-experience in order to be certified here. These are folks who are in Ontario, but might be driving taxis instead of working in a pharmacy helping patients.

And Tim Hudak had a very similar proposal last year. He introduced legislation for 10 per cent wage subsidy for any business hiring a skilled newcomer in Ontario – and there was no cap to the program. Now he’s changed his tune. If you want the politics of anger and division, then vote for Hudak. If you want to work together to strengthen our economy and create more jobs for everyone, then Ontario Liberals have the right plan for you.

That’s not all.

The PCs seem to have a real problem with all things “foreign.” They’re against businesses coming to invest here in Ontario. They’re against students wanting to come here to do their research and contribute to our economy. And now they’re against skilled Ontarians living here putting their education to work for our economy.

They’ve got a problem with all things “foreign.” But to those thousands of workers at Toyota, and Honda, and Samsung – there’s nothing foreign about the paycheque they’re bringing home.

This tax credit should help about 1200 workers get the training they need.  That’s giving people a leg up, not a hand out.

We need to move forward, together.  Not move backwards, divided.

40 Comments

  1. Even before I read this post, I have noticed a narrative happening in the campaign: the Liberals seem warm and caring; the Conservatives seem cold and distant. I don’t know what Tim Hudak can do to change this perception. Perhaps he can visit a family, kiss a three-eyed fish, and eat a baby. Or was that kiss a three-eyed family and eat a fishy baby.

  2. sharonapple88 says:

    It’s getting really ugly out on the internet. People calling immigrants “foreign workers.” (How long before someone can become an Ontarian?) People talking about “native Ontarians.” What scares me is that they might win the campaign on this misinformation blitz.

    Before anyone says anything, please read stories like Farhad on the CBC posted on 011/09/06 at 1:52 PM ET.

    First of all I have an issue with the PC candidate calling Canadian Citizens as foreign workers and secondly if people don’t agree with the new citizens getting into the work force with the valid credentials that they carry then we should change the Immigration laws and let people in with mops ONLY apply for the immigrant status. I came to Canada 25 years ago and if it wasn’t for the liberals imposing a %5 of workforce should be from visible minorities law then I would probably be still driving a cab. I was educated and had experience but nobody would hire me because I didn’t have any CANADIAN experience so the argument that we should hire based on merit doesn’t really work for people like me because after all I would never ever had any Canadian experience to get into my first job.

    Now my wife is a new Canadian citizen and is a foreign graduate from a well known Med school and had practiced in her field for at-least a couple of years. She has passed all her equivalency MED exams and passed but can not get into the system here since there is a quota for foreign graduates (it may work out to 2- 5%) and I thought we had doctor shortages??? Her friends got into the US system almost immediately and here were we are so proud of our diversities and etc, and making fun of Americans this and that…. For those who mentioned that they are tax payer, well guess what I have been paying my taxes too and I happened to create jobs for others (note, not mentioning a first class or second class citizens), so to say I’m not a burden to the society as some try to portrait the new citizens as being such.

  3. Harith says:

    As an immigrant who came to Ontario first as a student then as a skilled worker I am honestly scared at the hatred I’m seeing.

    • Michael S says:

      Sadly, Randy Hillier freely quotes from a White Supremacist’s blog, so you can get an idea of where he is coming from. The Rural Revolution folks see our changing cities and suburbs as a threat.

    • sharonapple88 says:

      Me too. Didn’t like Hudak before, but with all the crap lately, I’m nauseous thinking about it. Donate. Volunteer. Starting to think he’d be worse than Harris.

      • Northbaytrapper says:

        Harris did a good job considering…Bob Rae had begun to undo the horrible job he started near the end of his turn…Harris then cut income taxes by around 30% (correct me if I’m wrong), lowered the deficit and absorbed a massive 30 billion dollar hit to transfer payments from Chretien.
        He wasn’t cozy and he wasn’t soft which is what Ontario wanted…he was the punk rock to Bob Rae’s disco.

        The real cry of this election isn’t house calls and baubles…it’s folks not being able to make ends meet. That one is going to be the one that premier is going to have trouble shaking.

  4. steve says:

    Great explanation Warren, now why dont you help them on the sneaky eco tax, that was not sneaky and was not a tax.

  5. Jelena says:

    Very well written Warren. Now the next thing the Ontario Liberal Party should do is to get out television
    ads and radio spots saying exactly what you just wrote about the immigrant tax credit. The emphasis
    should be on how it will grow our economy and also bump up staff levels in critical fields such as
    pharmacists, ect.

  6. Ted says:

    Hear hear, Warren.

    A friend of mine had been a physician for over a decade in South Africa, a general family practitioner and ran a couple of clinics. He fled South Africa because it was too violent to raise his young family of 3 kids. He tried for years to get some recognition of his license and his years of practice, but there was no route for him but to do his MCATs again, go back to school, get licensed, do residency all over again, etc. And pay for it all. He couldn’t afford the funds or time required and is now a medical researcher at the Med School library. A fraction of the income, not creating any direct health, not using all of his skills and knowledge.

    A similar story with an engineer acquaintance who could design and build buildings but now works behind the security cage at a bank downtown.

    You may want to track down some of Harper’s quotations on re-certification. He made a big point of that in the 2008 election if memory serves.

    Calling your fellow Ontario citizens “foreigners”, who pay taxes just like the rest of us, just because they were born in a different country is truly retrograde and sickening.

    • Jelena says:

      Very well said, Ted. It would be great if you and others could post your statement along with the
      Harper quotes about re-certification unto the comments section of online newspapers such as the
      Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, National Posts, ect. Also on blogs and the comments section of the
      CBC. I have seen nothing but vile, disgusting and ignorant racist comments on these web sites all
      day. Those of us who despise racism, xenophobia and the politics of division really need to spend
      some serious time to countering all the Ontario PC Party supporters in cyberspace. Its very easy to
      set up member accounts on all of these aforementioned web sites actually. I post on these websites myself, but alas, my progressive voice is largely drowned out by the legions of Conservative bigots
      online.

      Let’s all go do battle against the sea of ignorant Conservative darkness in cyberspace!.

      • The Doctor says:

        I just took a look at the comments section of the Globe article on this. Every one of the recent comments was ripping into this proposal of McGuinty’s. So either the PC trolls are very well organized, or this thing’s not going over so well with John and Jane Q. Public . . .

        • Warren says:

          Newspaper comments sections. Yep. The voice of regular people.

          • The Doctor says:

            You’re funny. And I don’t mean funny lookin’.

          • JenS says:

            And heaven knows, Cons would NEVER astroturf. (Eye-roll.)

          • Jelena says:

            Don’t underestimate your opponents Warren. I still think you guys need to put out television ads and radio spots clearly explaining this issue to Joe Public. Unfounded rumours, half truths, and outright lies have a funny way of being accepted as the truth by many people. You guys need to fight back on this issue. Don’t just rely upon Tim Hudak’s racist and anti-immigrant comments to speak for themselves in tomorrow’s newspapers. You guys need to define, explain and defend this policy.

            You need to take to the airwaves ASAP and show everyone what a bigot Hudak is based on his response to the immigrant tax credit plan.

            I fear the election polls taken over this coming weekend could show a Conservative surge on this issue unless a proper fight back is staged by you guys ASAP.

            Maybe I am worrying for nothing, do you think I am?! 🙂
            I just don’t trust the Hudak smear machine and how he will most likely pray on the fears of the ignorant and misinformed. The Ontario PC Party is filled with ruthless and racist SOBS. Don’t underestimate them please.

          • Warren says:

            I never do. None of us do.

    • frmr disgruntled Con, now Happy Liberal says:

      Did your friend consider BC?…..I know of two S. African doctors working at the clinic where I go, and as I recall, the regs arent quite as onerous for Commonwealth trained physicians out here on the Left coast, I believe……and we’re still critically short of family physicians…..the ER in Princeton had to shut down recently because there was no physician available……I know this doesnt help Ontario, but it seems a shame your friends skills and knowledge arent being fully utilized…..

      • Ted says:

        Too late now. He’s been here for 9 years or so, so he’s been out of practice and settled here in Toronto with his family. A real shame the professional unions go to such lengths to protect their members. Er, sorry, I mean, have not flexibility in their desire to protect patients from unqualified professionals with degrees from unknown foreign educational institutions. Yeah. That’s what I meant.

  7. W.B. says:

    I just heard the CBC Toronto radio news at 3:30 pm today (Sept 6) refer to the proposal applying to “foreign” workers, so even the CBC news is using Hudak spin and not describing what the proposal is actually about.
    Hopefully the experienced Robert Fisher won’t repeat this when he takes over news from 4 to 6.
    Warren, I don’t think you guys are doing a great job of fighting back on this one.

  8. Dan says:

    I hope that the Tory trolls are in overdrive on the the comment section for the Globe and Mail article and not that they are so many bigoted and small minded Canadians.

    Almost all of us living in Canada are immigrants or descendents of one. And if you are like my family, everyone knows the stories about how hard your grandfather/great-grandfather, mother, brother sister et.al had as a first generation immigrant when moving to Canada. Do you not think that they would have welcomed a small break to try and even the playing field?

  9. The only problem with new Canadians with foreign credentials is that the proposed Liberal tax credit program may not help them. Someone trained as a doctor outside of Canada is not going to get hired by a hospital or medical clinic if he/she does not have a provincial licence to practise in Ontario.

    • Ted says:

      Doctors are only one example of the worst of this certification problem.

      But you are right in the narrow sense that private employers are not hiring doctors to be doctors.

      However, it does apply to other medical professionals (radiologists, for example) but also to many other professionals trained and certified abroad (engineers, architects, certain trade contractors, electricians, mechanics, etc.).

  10. As I commented elsewhere on Warren’s blog, the Liberals do need to clarify the tax-credit proposal. Otherwise, voters will be misinformed and confused. Will the Liberal proposal be a wage subsidy for businesses? If so, how will it affect new Canadians and other Canadians? If not, what will it be?

  11. I just heard McGuinty on CP24. He stated that the tax-credit would help new Canadians who seek certification in a professional field in Ontario. My understanding is that the money will not go to Joe’s Pizza to hire new Canadians over other Canadians. He needs to be clear about that tomorrow (Wednesday). Otherwise, every other issue that he presents will be overshadowed by the tax-credit issue.

  12. Nigh Eve says:

    I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Hudak Nation ought to be delighted it will lead to opening up a thousand or so unskilled jobs. Exactly what they are qualified for.

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