Building a nation on the backs of Temporary Foreign Workers

BC Premier Christy Clark was in Ottawa yesterday signing an agreement that greenlights in advance the unlimited use of Temporary Foreign Workers in the development of Liquified Natural Gas infrastructure.

This is a stab in the back to all Canadian workers and a betrayal of those Canadian employers who do make the investment in training their workforce.

Here is an except from the Vancouver Sun;

OTTAWA — B.C.’s natural resources sector, including the budding liquefied natural gas industry, was declared to be in Canada’s strategic interests Monday as part of a non-binding federal-provincial deal that includes a commitment to encourage the active use of the Temporary Foreign Worker program.
The accord was signed as Premier Christy Clark, bringing with her what she described as possibly the largest B.C. delegation to Ottawa in Canadian history, declared that the LNG sector could be a “nation-builder” at least as important as Alberta’s oil wealth.
But she said that the industry’s enormous LNG potential depends on access to skilled Canadian and, if necessary, foreign workers.
Without that workforce the industry could look for other opportunities, she warned.
“You cannot build an economy without people who are trained and ready to take those jobs,” she told a gathering of federal and B.C. politicians.

What Canadian politicians should be talking about is their commitment to training Canadians, not their commitment to encouraging the use of Temporary Foreign Workers.

What kind of nation is it that Clark and her Conservative counterparts in Ottawa intend to build? Obviously one in which concerns about the environment and the interests of Canadian workers are a distant afterthought to the "need" of energy and construction conglomerates to maximize their profits.