Rabble Rant: Temporary Foreign Worker Exploitation; Billions for Billionaires and Battleships; Our Leaders are all Landlords
Topic 1: Temporary Foreign Worker Exploitation
Jamaican Migrant Farm Workers in Ontario have long been decrying the poor working and living conditions they face as part of the longstanding Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SWAP). A recent one day protest by workers on a farm in Norfolk County resulted in 6 being sent home to Jamaica early.
We look at the whole Temporary Foreign Worker Program, its impact on workers and the movement fighting to secure the rights of migrant workers in Canada.
Topic 2: Billions for Billionaires and Battleships
The Irvings, already the second richest family in Canada secured the largest single purchase in the Canadian governments history, the CSC Project. If that wasn't enough, the Liberals just handed them an additional $463 million to 'modernize' the facility tasked with building the warships Canadians will pay almost $400 billion for in the end.
The money for war is always there, rarely questioned. What is the political reasoning behind this? And what is at the root of these bailouts for billionaires?
Topic 3: Our Leaders are All Landlords
With the recent disclosure that the wife of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh purchased an investment property and became a landlord during a housing crisis, 4 of the 5 federal Party leaders are now landlords. Why do we keep electing wealthy people to lead the working class? Is this what Representative Democracy looks like?
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Resources:
- The Maple: Find Out If Your MP Is A Landlord Or Invested In Real Estate
- MSN: Irving Gets 463 Million More
- Harvesting Freedom | Justicia for Migrant Workers
- Migrant Rights Network: Full Immigration Status for All
- CBC: Open Letter Penned by Jamaican Migrant Workers (2022)
- CTV: Jamaican Migrant Workers Sent Back
Transcript
There is so much out there to get mad about. Social injustices, class warfare, continued
Speaker:colonization, the act of destruction of our planet by those focused on prophets and not
Speaker:people. We can find it overwhelming at times. The good news is there are equally as many,
Speaker:if not more, stories of people coming together and rising up against the forces at play. So
Speaker:the creators of Blueprints of Disruption have added a new weekly segment, Ravel Rants, where
Speaker:we will unpack the stories that have us most riled up, share calls to action, and most importantly,
Speaker:celebrate resistance. I'm not sure people know just how much we rely on migrant workers to
Speaker:feed our cities and just how poorly they're treated here in Canada. A story hit the news
Speaker:this week that again reminded us why migrant workers need full immigration status. Six Jamaican
Speaker:migrant workers that are working in Norfolk County, that's an area of a lot of tobacco,
Speaker:they staged a one-day protest against their living conditions, their working conditions.
Speaker:I mean, they live in what looks like a barracks, a bunkie, which is very common for migrant
Speaker:workers. They need to rely on... pretty much whatever accommodations that their employer
Speaker:has for them. And they're usually in really crowded living conditions with very little
Speaker:privacy. But I mean, this was something else. This is flooded and they just described a horrible
Speaker:boss on top of all of that. And they staged a one day work stoppage, tools down. Following
Speaker:that, six of those workers were sent home to Jamaica, two months. earlier than anticipated.
Speaker:They were fired. Now, authorities are saying they're going to investigate, but the reality
Speaker:is these employers that operate under the temporary foreign workers program or more specifically
Speaker:the seasonal agricultural worker program, let's say WP, have a lot of leeway, a lot of exceptions.
Speaker:Pretty much these folks. The working relationship that they have does not fall under the Employment
Speaker:Act or most of the labor laws that we have here in Canada. That is the whole purpose of that
Speaker:program. And so they're able to tell authorities, the farm in question here, the piece of shit
Speaker:worker that you see on the video going viral, he tells authorities, well, they are having
Speaker:problems with the crop. So they sent six workers home. But one of the remaining workers on site
Speaker:has let us know that Six new migrant workers have since shown up at the farm. These workers
Speaker:are from Mexico. So clearly it's a tactic being used by the employer to punish any time, to
Speaker:punish any type of resistance that's happening amongst the workers, any kind of pushback,
Speaker:right? Another one of the excuses this worker's using to defend what he's done is that, well,
Speaker:not all the Jamaican workers were sent back. So some sort of... indication that it wasn't
Speaker:inspired by the protest, that it wasn't a response to their protest but just a day-to-day business.
Speaker:So did you watch that video? Yeah, yeah, no, the video was disgusting to watch, quite frankly.
Speaker:I mean, the way that this whole thing is structured, where they have control over their place of
Speaker:living and as well as the fact that their ability... to stay in the country is tied to whether or
Speaker:not they're employed by this specific employer gives that employer entirely too much power.
Speaker:Employer slash landlord because that's what they are. Entirely too much power and you can
Speaker:see here the kind of power trip that this fucking asshole was on. I found it telling that...
Speaker:The part where he got most angry was when one of the workers brought up about the standards
Speaker:of the living conditions. There was a toilet that was overflowing, flooding the floor. And
Speaker:the response by the employer was essentially like, oh, you think I'm not fucking angry about
Speaker:that? This is my fucking property. Like, you know, like you guys are not taking care of
Speaker:my fucking property. No, actually, hold on. This is where they live. That's a lot more
Speaker:important than your fucking property. When I look at this story, you know, I can't help
Speaker:but wonder whether or not we would know about it at all if it wasn't for the fact that the
Speaker:Jamaica's labor minister met with some of the farmers in Jamaica now that they're back in
Speaker:Jamaica and is currently investigating the circumstances. around this. Can't help but wonder if we would
Speaker:have ever heard about this if not for that, because clearly there was no process to prevent
Speaker:these workers from being sent away unfairly. And we're only worried now that, oh, we might
Speaker:have actual international repercussions and it might affect Canada's ability to get more
Speaker:temporary foreign workers from Jamaica in the future if this becomes a larger issue. really
Speaker:shows you the power dynamics at play here. Absolutely, and to your point where we probably wouldn't
Speaker:have heard about it, it's not like these conditions are new either. This is not to minimize the
Speaker:experience of those Jamaican workers in Norfolk County. It's to say that this has happened
Speaker:many, many times over. If you look at any of the work for some of the groups around the
Speaker:resistance to this, the Migrant Rights Network or Justice for Migrant Workers, the amount
Speaker:of horror stories. So Under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, because these workers are
Speaker:not protected by the same labour laws as you and I, and because they are in such a power
Speaker:imbalance, so you have to imagine they come over here for eight months typically sending
Speaker:money back to their family. So you must need a job real bad to travel away from your family
Speaker:for eight months in a land you do not know, to work in conditions that apparently no one
Speaker:in Canada wants to to do. They're so awful, you know, they're so underpaid and the hours
Speaker:that they have to work, the labor that's involved, then the living conditions that are available
Speaker:for them. Because you have to imagine they're in the middle of a rural area. So the support
Speaker:services that exist that they would in urban settings do not. All right. That's why these
Speaker:migrant rights networks and all of the networks to support these workers are so important because
Speaker:they're isolated as well by other and surrounded by other farms that are repeating. this pattern
Speaker:over and over again. It's completely normalized in these communities. And working in these
Speaker:precarious conditions allows them to be exploited, sometimes very legally, or under minimum wage.
Speaker:They pay taxes but have no access to healthcare. So I've heard stories of, especially during
Speaker:COVID, where workers would get sick and... because they couldn't be sent home, were just put in
Speaker:isolation until they died. And only in isolation so they didn't impact the operations of the
Speaker:farm, not for any kind of compassion, and they received no adequate healthcare. Before COVID,
Speaker:if you got sick, you were just sent home. The farmer's not gonna pay for you to get healthcare.
Speaker:You cannot afford to get healthcare. You've now become a liability because they just see
Speaker:these migrant workers as like tools. And in fact, like a year ago, Jamaican workers from
Speaker:Norfolk County, migrant workers, they lost one of their comrades to an accident on a tobacco
Speaker:farm. And in response, they wrote this heart wrenching letter to the labor minister describing
Speaker:what they call systemic slavery, where they are putting conditions where... They're just
Speaker:absolutely trapped. They're treated like garbage, punished for not working fast enough, having
Speaker:to live amongst rats and poor plumbing. Horrible, horrible conditions. And yet we still look
Speaker:at these as completely acceptable. Right, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program has been around
Speaker:since 1966. Well, at least the... seasonal part of it, the seasonal agricultural. We have been
Speaker:bringing in workers from Jamaica since 1966 and they expanded that to include other parts
Speaker:of the Caribbean and Mexico. And we completely rely on that. We don't acknowledge that and
Speaker:we rarely fight for their improved working conditions. You know, when we're talking about labor fights,
Speaker:this is one that's often left off the agenda as well. And it's worth mentioning the coercive
Speaker:tactics to even bring these foreign workers over in the first place, right? Because you
Speaker:mentioned sending money back home to their family. Well, that's part of the promise, right? When
Speaker:you live in a country where, you know, there's a big difference in how much a dollar is worth
Speaker:and they'll tell you something like, oh, you'll be making 14, 15, 16, however many dollars
Speaker:an hour, right? That's how they'll sell it to you. And then they'll tell you, this is worth
Speaker:this much back home, right? To emphasize the difference in buying power. What they don't
Speaker:tell them is how expensive the cost of living is here. They actively mislead them. And so
Speaker:what ends up happening very often is you'll have people here. Sometimes it'll be, you know,
Speaker:parents who have kids back home, you know, they'll... take these jobs because they're under the impression,
Speaker:okay, I'll be able to send back money home to take care of them. But then because the cost
Speaker:of living is so expensive in Canada and they're being paid so little, well below any living
Speaker:wage in Canada, well, what happens is that they don't end up actually having any money to send
Speaker:back home. So there's doing all this work just to be able to afford to live here in Canada,
Speaker:they're living out in the middle of nowhere. and then they don't get to send any money home
Speaker:and eventually they get sent home when they're no longer useful. So it's an absolute exploitation.
Speaker:I mean, this is,
Speaker:the fact that we allow something like this in today's world shows you, I mean, it shows you
Speaker:first of all, just what happens when you fucking, why we need workers protections, because this
Speaker:is what happens when you don't have workers protection. If there's this idea, that companies
Speaker:will just do the right thing? No. And a lot of these are also like, you know, like smaller
Speaker:farms, like, you know, they're not doing the right thing either. Hiring these temporary
Speaker:foreign workers because these are jobs that Canadians don't want, quote unquote, right?
Speaker:Like that's what they say. Well, we can't find anyone in Canada to work these jobs. We need
Speaker:to bring other people in. Let's talk about that. Now they've made. what they call improvements
Speaker:to the temporary foreign worker program in terms of what companies are allowed to claim that
Speaker:they can't find the labor. But I'll tell you that Tim Hortons, you know, it came out years
Speaker:ago that Tim Hortons regularly was using the temporary foreign workers program to staff
Speaker:their stores. So it allows employers to say, hey, we can't find, you know, this type of
Speaker:skill, the level. of employment, you know, so we can't find enough people to fill these spots.
Speaker:And that could be remoteness. But either way, their solution isn't actually to move people
Speaker:from southern Canada up to remote areas to staff this. It's to rely on dire economic situations
Speaker:in other countries that are so desperate for good jobs that they will send people over.
Speaker:to be exploited, right? So the labor minister in Jamaica, yes, he should be outraged at the
Speaker:treatment of his nationals, but at the same time, he's responsible for the labor conditions
Speaker:within his country that allow, that force folks to have to travel so far to gain any kind of
Speaker:adequate employment. But the fact that Tim Hortons can claim... under the under the rules that
Speaker:used to exist. And in fact, Justin Trudeau has recently, I hate using this term, cut red tape
Speaker:around the program due to a migrant shortage, no doubt, spurred on by COVID and other factors,
Speaker:but, you know, making it easier for people to bring over easily exploitable workers. And
Speaker:no doubt these conditions are comparable to systemic slavery. Not just the individual relationships
Speaker:that we're hearing about, like these horror stories of bad bosses using this leverage over
Speaker:their employees, but also just the systemic issue, the systemic nature of it, how probably
Speaker:we know the United States also, we know the United States also heavily relies on migrant
Speaker:workers to keep their farms running. That, and they also rely on prison workers. Right. I'm
Speaker:not sure. I confess I don't actually, I should turn this off. I confess that I don't actually
Speaker:know whether or not the situation applies to Canada. But I know in the US, they treat their,
Speaker:they treat inmates as just essentially slave labor. Absolutely. Do we do that here? Do you
Speaker:know? Like, I don't actually know. I don't know, but I've been trying to get some prison abolitionists
Speaker:on for the show, so maybe they can help answer our questions there. It shows you though, like
Speaker:all of this really goes to show you just like what our societies are built on, right? And
Speaker:of course, me being me, I have to mention the fact that, you know, we're not just exploiting
Speaker:foreign workers that we bring over to Canada. We're also exploiting foreign workers in their
Speaker:countries with the companies that we bring to their countries. so that we can make money
Speaker:that comes back to Canada, but it doesn't actually go to Canadians, it goes to the richest amongst
Speaker:us, right? So our society is built off of the exploitation of poor workers and the coercion
Speaker:of poor workers across the world. That's what keeps this society running the way it does.
Speaker:A lot of people defend farmers in this situation and say, you know, if they had to pay Canadians.
Speaker:and provide benefits and use workers that weren't part of the temporary foreign workers program
Speaker:that they couldn't pay for cheap, that they couldn't operate. But again, that's going back
Speaker:to what kind of business model have we created. And I mean more as a society, not the individual
Speaker:farmer, that our farms can't exist without slave labor. What has our government done in terms
Speaker:of securing our food? by means of relying on migrant labor. And it's not the fact that these
Speaker:folks are traveling and coming from other places or taking Canadian jobs. This is how our economy
Speaker:has operated for generations. These aren't really jobs for Canadians. You know, we have structured,
Speaker:we apparently have told ourselves that we deserve better working conditions and that we are not
Speaker:willing. to subject our people to farm life, like hard work on the farm and actually, because
Speaker:I see them. I see this, I live in farm country and you see the migrant workers out there doing
Speaker:those long, long hours and living in these tiny, tiny buildings and it's, yet when I go to the
Speaker:farmer's market, I do not see them. You know, we like to pretend like this is not happening.
Speaker:And I think it would shock people. I don't think many people do know about the Temporary Foreign
Speaker:Workers Program and that we have laws in place that actually allow employers to completely
Speaker:exempt themselves from the Employment Act. All of those rights that we thought were like the
Speaker:bare minimum that we fought tooth and nail for, for some reason Jamaicans don't deserve it.
Speaker:Mexican workers don't deserve that. not on our soil. And that's horrific. So hopefully as
Speaker:more people know about it and more people plug into the resistance movements around it, we've
Speaker:mentioned them again, we'll throw their links in the show notes, but the status for all movements
Speaker:is something to really pay attention to like that is demanding full immigration status for
Speaker:all migrant workers. And I know there's a lot of people that will be like, whoa, that's,
Speaker:that's a big ask. But in reality, under the way that our Canadian laws are structured,
Speaker:that's the only way to be able to secure many things for them. Employment laws, health care,
Speaker:the right not to be just sent home arbitrarily like these Jamaican migrant workers. I remind
Speaker:people too that we're an incredibly small population. 35 million people, something like that, Canada,
Speaker:in the second largest country in the world. And I know, I know we have our winters and
Speaker:I know that, you know, we can't move everyone. to Northwest territories, but we have, you
Speaker:look at the United States, you know, the amount of like people who live in Northern parts of
Speaker:the United States. We have more than enough room here. And you know, we talk about housing,
Speaker:like, okay, so we're bringing in temporary foreign workers because we don't have enough people
Speaker:in agriculture. And you know, what are people gonna say about giving us? Oh, well, we don't
Speaker:have enough housing. How about we bring in people who are able to do construction, we give them
Speaker:full proper status, we pay them properly and we build some houses. You know, like that's
Speaker:the thing with more people comes more resources. And one thing that's also worth mentioning
Speaker:for just because you know, there's so much ignorance around this is that immigrants contribute much,
Speaker:much more to the economy per capita than people who were born in Canada. doing so much, yet
Speaker:they are so easy to blame. Like, oh, we don't have enough. Oh, it's those fucking immigrants.
Speaker:No, actually you have more because of them. Like there is no well-intentioned argument
Speaker:against this. There's no good faith argument here. Everything that any counter-argument
Speaker:is made in the worst faith possible because the evidence is overwhelming. So yeah, I don't
Speaker:wanna hear it. Let's talk about some of those Canadian families, the Irvings. So the Canadian
Speaker:government isn't going to bring any migrant workers over for public housing anytime soon.
Speaker:They don't have the money for that. But we heard this week that they do have half a billion,
Speaker:be half a billion dollars extra to give to the Irving family, specifically Irving shipbuilding.
Speaker:Now, that was enough to get me mad, right? Like that headline alone, because I understand who
Speaker:the Irving family is for those who maybe don't. We're talking about the second richest family
Speaker:in Canada, huge stakeholders, landowners in oil and gas out East. I probably don't even
Speaker:understand the full breadth of their portfolio, kind of like how we learned about Galen Weston.
Speaker:I learned after that side note. They're also into healthcare and a bunch of other things,
Speaker:the Westins, but the Irvings are not to be outshone. They also create warships. Yay, really good
Speaker:contributors to the Canadian economy. Right, fuck migrant workers. We need to pay the Irvings
Speaker:another $463 million to modernize their factory that is making our new fleet of warships. Now
Speaker:here's where folks... are going to get even more angry. Okay. Where this money is going
Speaker:is specifically into the facilities that are fulfilling the Canadian Surface Combatant Project,
Speaker:the CSC project. So as I'm looking at the numbers, it gets worse and worse and worse. This is,
Speaker:and I don't know how we didn't all know about this. I mean, maybe you did and everyone's
Speaker:just going, how did you not know about this? This is the largest single purchase in the
Speaker:Canadian government's history for 15 fucking warships. Warships. So I'm sitting trying to
Speaker:explain this to my mom before we record it. You're like, okay, here's what I'm gonna get
Speaker:mad about this week and she wants to hear about it. And I tell her all the money and she goes,
Speaker:we need warships? And I had to check myself because my kid was sitting next to me. I'm
Speaker:like, no, we need fucking public housing. It's like just what you said there, Santiago, but
Speaker:no. So this project to buy 15 new state of the art warships was originally told to cost $26
Speaker:billion. It's now as high as $84.5 billion. This is all going to the Irving family. This
Speaker:is a contract given to a single company to make an entire fleet of ships. And all these numbers
Speaker:that I'm talking about not. even one bolt has been put in. They have not started construction
Speaker:on these. And the last one won't be delivered till 2050. So not only will it cost 84, so
Speaker:this company is already getting $84.5 billion in a contract to build warships, which they
Speaker:admit they will profit off of. And somehow they convinced the federal government during the
Speaker:summer when nobody's looking to give them another $463 million. These warships, now this money
Speaker:won't go to the Irving family, but in the life cycle of these warships, they will cost us
Speaker:another $300 billion. Warships! Something no Canadian, no person in the world will benefit
Speaker:from, save maybe if they're involved in some evacuation somewhere, or maybe they're searching
Speaker:for some billionaires who've gone lost looking for the Titanic. I don't know, but $300 billion
Speaker:to maintain. these worships, and I don't imagine that includes the staffing of these worships
Speaker:and the training. There's got to be costs that clearly aren't part of this line item here.
Speaker:How does something like this, I mean, we could start a whole discussion on the Canadian media
Speaker:on top of this, but like how this, it hasn't been front page news every single time those
Speaker:costs have ballooned or how it's not a side note every time the Liberal government comes
Speaker:out and says, you know, we don't have it in the budget yet to give emergency payments to
Speaker:disabled people that we know are starving. We still have to have rounds of consultations
Speaker:around that, but the Irvings come and say, hey, we need new shiny new digs so that we can pump
Speaker:up warships a little bit faster. No problem. That money appears, no problem. It's probably
Speaker:not a consultation. We're probably talking about a few phone calls, few round tables, and that
Speaker:money appeared out of nowhere. We always have money for war. And so few Canadians question
Speaker:that. We have people shitting on immigrants for coming over here. and taking our housing
Speaker:and requiring social services and, you know, like pitting unhoused people from Canada against
Speaker:unhoused people from other countries. And meanwhile, the Irvings are raking in kajillions and they're
Speaker:not even a footnote in some of these articles. Yeah, no. I mean, I'm still stuck on the dollar
Speaker:figure there because I can't help but think of what could we do with that money? Yeah.
Speaker:What kind of programs could we run with that money? You know, when a housing crisis, we
Speaker:can build all the houses we need with $300 billion. We could have completely universal health care
Speaker:with $300 billion. We could end food insecurity with $300 billion. 15 ships. That's just 15
Speaker:ships. So I'm not talking about the aircraft. I'm not talking about helicopters. I'm not
Speaker:talking about guns, bombs, all of the other things that we spend when we go to war or...
Speaker:our peacekeeping missions, whatever they want to call them. This is just on boats we don't
Speaker:have yet to replace the boats we do have, because they want better boats, faster boats that have,
Speaker:I mean, even the name of it alone, Canadian surface combatant. We're not even pretending
Speaker:that they're protecting anything. They're combatants. That's a form of aggression. That's a really
Speaker:kind of positive enforcement there. And again, we're subsidizing fucking billionaires. Like
Speaker:the Irvings are worth billions already, right? They were awarded one of the largest contracts
Speaker:too, off of the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador to extract natural gas. And it's never ending
Speaker:the profiteering and destructiveness that is tied into that family. Like the resource extraction
Speaker:and the weaponry. These people shouldn't exist. And I know I don't mean... violence on them,
Speaker:how we've created a society where you've got essentially Mr. Burns sitting there just profiteering
Speaker:off of our destruction, and they are called into galas, and they are honored in a million
Speaker:different ways, and we put them on the cover of Time magazine, and our liberal government
Speaker:can find money to make their factories modernized. Why are those costs not incurred on the billionaires
Speaker:themselves or their... companies like how is it even possible they consider this and I'll
Speaker:tell you why it's because they've already invested and committed to 84 billion dollars so what
Speaker:that factory is enough to snuff if that factory can't fulfill that contract they're gonna be
Speaker:even more screwed so now whatever happens to that they need to just they're beholden to
Speaker:the Irving family and Irving shareholders until that contract is fulfilled and we're talking
Speaker:about 2050 So apparently taxpayers are just gonna continue and continue to just pay out
Speaker:the nose and none of it is going to the right places. I know I had an argument with somebody
Speaker:from the taxpayers, Canadian Taxpayers Federation. And I even roll my eyes talking about them
Speaker:because I hate framing people that way as taxpayers. You know, it's like, that's your only value,
Speaker:but. You know, he said to me something that I couldn't argue with, and I think I've mentioned
Speaker:it here before on the show, it's just when we're talking about taxing the rich and so that we
Speaker:can get the things that we want. He goes, but you don't. The government has billions and
Speaker:they don't spend it on what you need. So why is taking more billions in taxes going to be
Speaker:any different? That money essentially will just go back to the billionaires. And I couldn't
Speaker:argue with that. I honestly couldn't even argue with that if you had an NDP government, because
Speaker:we know that they see most of those companies as job creators and investors in the Canadian
Speaker:economy, and they would too prop them up in ways. It's a neoliberal ideology that does
Speaker:that, but it was hard to kind of continue that argument that if we could just have a rich
Speaker:tax and create enough revenue, the issue isn't revenue. It's the choices of where we spend
Speaker:that money. You know, it's not on paying workers adequately. It's not on subsidizing our food
Speaker:so that we don't have to rely on slave labor. It's on bailing out the weapons industry. Yeah.
Speaker:And it's money that also when it gets funneled into like people like the Irvings, you know,
Speaker:that's taken out of the economy, it slows everything down. There's a big difference between. giving
Speaker:money to rich people and versus when you give money to social programs, what happens with
Speaker:that money is it goes right back into circulating the economy and it makes everything run better.
Speaker:I mean, this is like, like for fuck's sake, any like any economist who knows even the most
Speaker:basic level of economics will tell you the exact same thing. That's how we know that this is
Speaker:intentional and malicious. You know, that's how we know that they're not looking out for
Speaker:the people because they have the solutions in front of them. If they ask the professionals,
Speaker:they're gonna tell them, yeah, these are the solutions in front of you and this is why you
Speaker:should do it. It's kind of a no brainer. And you know what? It's what they do in plenty
Speaker:of other countries in the world where they have much more in-depth social programs than what
Speaker:we have. And even that, I mean, like. I have my criticisms there. That's not nearly enough.
Speaker:And obviously what we're advocating for is well beyond social programs. We're advocating for
Speaker:complete systemic change. But for fuck's sake, they don't even do the social programs, you
Speaker:know, like it's a level of frustration. And I know, like, you know, we're talking about
Speaker:warships here, but I just I can't help but think it's all of it, though. It's everything. It
Speaker:comes back to everything because, you know, we start talking about the temporary foreign
Speaker:workers, it's like, OK, you know, I calculated it for a second. You know, I was like. there's
Speaker:135,000 temporary foreign workers, how much would it cost to subsidize a salary of $60,000
Speaker:a year? I just picked $60,000 random number and it's like, oh, that would cost just less
Speaker:than 8 billion. Holy shit. No way. So like, you're not joking when we say like, that number
Speaker:could solve all the world's problems. When you're talking about all of a sudden, you're going
Speaker:to pay $100,000 or You're going to pay all of these workers. A hundred thousand workers,
Speaker:60,000. I mean, that's not a great wage, but it's well above the Canadian average. Right.
Speaker:And in some areas that might be a livable wage. But surely as a subsidy to start, it's more
Speaker:than a start. But it and then other people, you could have, you know, take that same number
Speaker:and say, how many public housing units can we build? How many hospitals can we find? How
Speaker:many nurses can we train and then pay adequately? It's always about choices. And the reality
Speaker:is our governance is 100% ordained by capital and backroom deals. Because like Santiago said,
Speaker:it doesn't even make good economic sense to hand the Irvings that kind of money, as opposed
Speaker:to divvying that $463 million out to every person in Canada. That money would actually go right
Speaker:back into the economy and the Irvings could pay for their own repairs. And their stupid
Speaker:war machine deal would still be on and we'd all be the better for it. And they know this.
Speaker:Yeah, it's also worth mentioning the fact that the Irvings, I mean, they're quite connected
Speaker:when it comes to Canadian politics, especially out East. And I didn't fully understand how
Speaker:connected they were until during the last Halifax, not sorry, not during the last New Brunswick
Speaker:provincial election, I was speaking with some people who were running campaigns down there.
Speaker:It seems like you couldn't go five minutes without the Irving family coming up in one way or the
Speaker:other. What I learned was that they really control all of the politics down there, all of the
Speaker:funding. And it reminds me quite a bit of like what The kind of thing you hear in places like
Speaker:Mexico when they're talking about Carlos Slim and stuff, where it's just like everything's
Speaker:connected to like these incredibly rich and powerful individuals. It was everything comes
Speaker:back to Irving. So, you know, you wonder how the hell did Irving get tens to hundreds of
Speaker:billions of dollars here? Well, maybe it's not that much of a mystery, is it? No, because
Speaker:even though we have individual donor limits, We're talking about a family and a family that
Speaker:employs many, many executives who can make many donations. And then we have the ability of
Speaker:third party advertisers to exist and for them to be infinitely funded. So absolutely. I don't
Speaker:know if you edit this out, but our governance is always just capitalists making backroom
Speaker:political deals, not economic deals, not. even always good Canadian PR, it's strictly to benefit
Speaker:the individuals in the call, right? The heads, the CEOs, and the politicians that they're
Speaker:meeting with. And this political class with the capital class just collude with one another
Speaker:to our demise. Mostly unchallenged, to be honest. This brings me to our last rant. It's no wonder
Speaker:that we make no headway within the political class in terms of making even good economic
Speaker:policy decisions, let alone social policy. We find out this week MPs have to make full disclosures
Speaker:on their property holdings and any liabilities that they might have or their spouses might
Speaker:have. And this week we find out that the leader of Canada's NDP, Jagmeet Singh, is a landlord.
Speaker:Now, I don't want to hear about it being in his spouse's name. Don't give me that shit.
Speaker:That is, that is his property. I saw a tweet and I can't even remember who sent it. So I
Speaker:apologize if I'm, I'm stealing this content here, but it made this argument that I'm going
Speaker:to make here in this housing crisis where homelessness is. Incredible. The levels of homelessness
Speaker:is incredible. And the responses to it. minimal. In this time where we know renters are spending
Speaker:sometimes their entire paychecks on rent. and folks are being evicted so that landlords can
Speaker:make even more money. And all of these policies are being normalized. At the same time, the
Speaker:leader of the so-called working class party, the same man who is up there talking about
Speaker:greedflation and the greed of CEOs and the greed of RBC, this man decides in this moment in
Speaker:time, he's going to become a landlord. He's going to get in on this game. And frankly,
Speaker:that should fucking horrify every NDP member who hasn't already abandoned ship. Your leader
Speaker:is making money off someone else's shelter. He thinks that's okay. There is no hope for
Speaker:that party to decommodify housing when your leaders are landlords. So when you're scratching
Speaker:your head as to why he won't attack capitalism, it's because he's making bank off it. And it
Speaker:really gets me upset not just because we hate fucking landlords, but because he has pulled
Speaker:the wool over people's eyes. Or people are completely complacent knowing this, that they have just
Speaker:hired an actor. They have hired an actor who they think would best convince Canadians to
Speaker:vote for their political party. Everything else be damned. He talks well, he dresses well,
Speaker:and you know, he came up really strong in a campaign. So they're OK having a landlord wearing
Speaker:a Rolex representing the poorest people in Canada and have convinced themselves that he will
Speaker:actually advocate for renters or unhoused people. Our idea of representation is so fucked and
Speaker:it has really messed with our system. Our democracy would operate a little bit better, even with
Speaker:all its structural issues, if we actually elected people who were like us. Right? If there was
Speaker:a fucking cap on the maximum income a politician could have beforehand. Or I, like, these criteria
Speaker:are silly, I know, but the idea that we hire the wealthiest amongst us, the most educationally
Speaker:accomplished, financially accomplished, however, whatever words we want to throw behind it.
Speaker:But we think that they're better than. And so somehow we should send them off to Ottawa to
Speaker:fight for what we need. But they have no idea what we need. Correct me if I'm wrong. In the
Speaker:United States, don't they have a law that prevents politicians from publicly trading in the stock
Speaker:market? Like they're not allowed, I believe. I don't know, but a lot of them got in trouble
Speaker:for investing heavily in... big pharma ahead of the vaccination rollout. Or I think they
Speaker:have to, I think they have to like hold on to what they have or something like they're not
Speaker:allowed to sell or there's some sort of law around that. Reason I bring that up is because,
Speaker:you know, I've heard a lot of conservatives talk about how politicians shouldn't be able
Speaker:to profit off of the stock market. Well, while they're in office, you know, this is something
Speaker:that like, pretty universally people will say, yeah, no, that seems pretty, like a pretty
Speaker:bad idea. You know, people always like to call real estate an investment, right? Like buying
Speaker:multiple parts. That's an investment. Why are we allowing them to make investments? You know,
Speaker:shouldn't it be that like a sacrifice to be in office is that you're not allowed to, because
Speaker:then how could you have any sort of objectivity. Right? I mean, this is this is basics of democracy
Speaker:right here. Like this is something that like everybody regardless of where they are politically
Speaker:should be pretty fucking pissed off at. Right. Particularly people on the left because I think
Speaker:the decommodification of essential goods is critical to leftist ideology. Right. Like there's
Speaker:no way folks need to be paying. Like if we control the means of production and redistribution.
Speaker:we should not charge for shelter. Right? Like we're making the best society possible. We
Speaker:can we have that control. We would do that. But there is some validity in creating a balance
Speaker:where public office isn't a hardship. And I'm not going to make the argument that not being
Speaker:allowed to be a landlord or invest in the stock market is any kind of hardship. But they do
Speaker:need to be adequately compensated. So I definitely I never want to play into the tropes of conservatives
Speaker:who... try to devalue that work. I guess we're guilty of it too. We keep saying Pierre Pulevera
Speaker:has never had a real job. Yet we say Jagmeet has a real job. I mean, political office is
Speaker:a job. It shouldn't be a career because it does remove you from, or should remove you from
Speaker:the ability to gain other incomes for that time being. And in fact, if you're a leftist, it
Speaker:becomes a bit of a liability. Well, a real leftist. It becomes a bit of a liability. liability
Speaker:to hold office, to be honest, for the most part. So they have to, you know, not it so that it
Speaker:doesn't feel like a service that nobody wants to do it or only the worst people want to do
Speaker:it for. They have to be properly motivated as well. But it's unfathomable that progressives
Speaker:are OK because Jigmeet is only the newest member on the list of NDP landlords. So we are singling
Speaker:him out because he's the leader of the federal party and this is new news to us so that he
Speaker:didn't just inherit this property and let it out because, you know, they've got it and they
Speaker:need extra income. They went out and took a mortgage with RBC nonetheless, the same bank
Speaker:that Jack Mead has been tweeting out about their greed all week. All of his mortgages are with
Speaker:RBC and they incurred another one just so that they could profit off of somebody's shelter.
Speaker:And Even if they're breaking even, the idea that they would take this step means they don't
Speaker:have the same ideology as the rest of us, to be honest. And when I say the rest of us, I'm
Speaker:talking about socialists and leftists and people that are trying to actually eat away at the
Speaker:system. He is actively feeding into it. And it's no wonder that we really didn't get many
Speaker:calls for a rent freeze during the height of the pandemic lockdown. So when a lot of people
Speaker:weren't allowed to go to work and weren't really most people were not getting paid to stay home.
Speaker:The real solution would have been a rent freeze, not a landlord subsidy. And of course that's
Speaker:off the table even for most progressives because within their caucus are landlords. It's 38%
Speaker:of NPs apparently. That's really, really bad. That's a horrible, horrible number. And we
Speaker:expect to get anything done. And they're also taking money from the developers, of course,
Speaker:as we talk about constantly on this show and nowhere else, because outside of election season,
Speaker:nobody seems to mention the developer money. So they get them on both sides of it. Absolutely.
Speaker:And we can't forget that MPs and MPPs are given housing subsidies. So there is no MP or MPP
Speaker:that should require a second property. to make ends meet. Not only are they paid adequately,
Speaker:but they're also given a housing allowance. So amidst these conditions still, Jugme thought
Speaker:it would be a good idea, good optics even, to become a landlord during this crisis. You know
Speaker:who else is a landlord by the way? Andrea Horwath. She's a landlord. Another fun one. is Chris
Speaker:Glover, who is, was my MPP. And I find that funny because he comes across as like this
Speaker:really like hippie dad biker guy. And then, you know, Kathleen Wynn. Okay, no surprise
Speaker:there. I mean- But of course leaders seem to be particularly keen on this. And there's four
Speaker:NDP, current NDP MPs who are landlords apparently. We got Alexandro Bollucci. I don't know how
Speaker:to... God. I'm bad with names. Alexandre, Boularese, from Quebec, Alastair, MacGregor, Adam B.C.,
Speaker:Laurel Collins, and Victoria B.C., and Laurie Idlote? And none of it. And that must be an
Speaker:older list because either the recent disclosures probably haven't been accumulated into something
Speaker:that we can kind of digest, but because... Jekmeet is now on that list. And now we add Jekmeet
Speaker:to the list. In terms of just like, oh, here's a fun one. If I'm not mistaken, yeah, Elizabeth
Speaker:May is also, Elizabeth May and Mike Morris are both landlords. So the Korean party is also
Speaker:landlords in case you're wondering. I'm pretty sure, yeah, I mean, we know Pierre Polyaev
Speaker:is definitely right. And I can confirm that. What about Trudeau? I'm just here as a landlord.
Speaker:Let's see. You know, I'm going to start searching. Because someone posted something about how
Speaker:many leaders. It was like four out of the five party leaders were landlords or something.
Speaker:So that might mean Trudeau's. No, he's a landlord. Yeah. So I think just Bloc is not at this point.
Speaker:That kind of makes sense in a weird way, doesn't it? Yeah, Pierre Polyev, he's a landlord. They're
Speaker:all landlords, you know? It's 38%, but how come we're not surprised by the names? And yet when
Speaker:I kind of post about housing, people are talking, I mean, this is replicated on the municipal
Speaker:and provincial level, I'm sure, but folks are scratching their heads. Why aren't the feds
Speaker:solving the housing crisis? They have such a huge role to play here. And, you know, even
Speaker:if these are, we're talking about representing the interests of landlords and they might just
Speaker:hold one. house, one unit within their house that they let out or whatever it is. It's their
Speaker:mentality that we're talking about. So maybe they're not the corporate landlords we're talking
Speaker:about when we do the blueprints of a rent strike, but it's still the idea that folks that are
Speaker:profiteering off of other people who can't afford to own a home are somehow best suited. to solve
Speaker:the housing crisis. I mean, I gotta be honest for me, it's quite a principle thing, you know?
Speaker:Like I do have a moral argument here of just, yeah, you cannot ethically be a landlord whatsoever.
Speaker:And if you're choosing to do this, like- How about period? Yeah, period. Period, but especially
Speaker:as an MP. Yeah, no, that's why, like if you're an MP and you have- I mean, you definitely
Speaker:have more than the average person's access to surviving in life, you know? And you're also
Speaker:a landlord? Like there's no excuse for that. There's no justification. I want to hear like,
Speaker:oh, it's my wife's property. It's just a bedroom in our house. You know, it's too big. We don't
Speaker:like, no, fuck off. Sell it. You know, like I don't care. Even just for optics. Like you
Speaker:folks couldn't wait a few years until they finally get rid of Jagmeet as leader to like, have
Speaker:your Yeah, that's a part of this. I think we really need to like, like the fact that this
Speaker:is new that he wasn't a landlord. And now he is really shows how he's sitting quite comfy.
Speaker:You know, how not scared he is of our response. And it really tells you what they think about
Speaker:us. Because they know, oh, we're in a housing crisis. So you mean not sitting comfy as in
Speaker:he's wealthy, but that politically he's so comfortable that he can do or say anything. And the convention
Speaker:in October is going to come and go with, I predict, 84 percent approval rating for Jugmeet. Yeah,
Speaker:why not? I mean, they kept Andrea in Ontario for as long as they did. And she's a landlord
Speaker:and that didn't seem to work against her, at least within the party. So. What the fuck are
Speaker:they worried about? Nothing, apparently. That's what I mean. So yeah, keep spending time in
Speaker:the NDP because they definitely care about what you think. Not. Sorry, I'm a little salty right
Speaker:now. But. No, you have every right to be because I joke when I say, shame Jugmead and I picture
Speaker:the free stickers that they try to hand out that has the cartoon of Jugmead. And we've
Speaker:talked to. before leadership cults on how the NDP has completely centered themselves on this
Speaker:personality of Jikmeet and not values, right? Like they don't feature other MPPs or MPs,
Speaker:they don't prop up movements and highlight them. It's very focused. And if you look at the budgeting
Speaker:around campaigns, it's very national campaign, leader focused. The other parties do it too.
Speaker:I get it. But we're talking about the NDP here. So when it's that figure. that person where
Speaker:you're like texting team Jigme and like you are his cheerleaders and then you sit back
Speaker:and realize this man owns two properties. He does not need you sending him a ten dollar
Speaker:donation. He is not doing anything in your best interest and they're okay with parading a wealthy
Speaker:landowner. as some sort of leader of the working class. And they made that conscious decision
Speaker:and they continue to. And so, yes, it does become about who that person is because their entire
Speaker:campaigns are centered around who he is, his life growing up, you know, it's all about,
Speaker:and I know storytelling is important in campaigns, so I'm not coming down on that part of it.
Speaker:It's crucial in connecting with people, but it's everything. Right? It is everything. And
Speaker:knowing it's not anyone to champion, I think I'm most frustrated knowing this probably won't
Speaker:change a thing with many NDPers. I mean, if you're still in the game after the BC NDP and
Speaker:all the other debacles, I'm not sure this is going to make much of an impact on them. And
Speaker:you've seen the latest polling, right? With the Conservatives, their lead is growing. They're
Speaker:looking like they have enough maybe for a majority government. Last I checked they were pulling
Speaker:at what 38%? You know, getting to that 40 mark. Yeah, and it's like, okay, Pierre Pulevert
Speaker:is also a landlord, but he's also- Doesn't help the same weight. It doesn't, but he still will
Speaker:get up there and say, we need to build high rises at every subway stop. He comes out with
Speaker:kind of tangible solutions to housing when the NDP does not, right? They will attack figure
Speaker:like greed and banks and other execs. And but rarely do they put forth actual solutions that
Speaker:people will hear and go, Hey, that's a good idea. Quite often, even if it's public housing,
Speaker:it's still as vague as saying public housing, and that doesn't really have any tangible meaning
Speaker:to people. And it's purposeful. They are not committing to anything because they are so
Speaker:wishy-washy. They go with whatever the tide brings. And Pierre Pulever, and he's okay with
Speaker:completely lying, bold-faced to everybody that I'm going to help the people. But he's saying
Speaker:the right things. Jake Mead actually comes across as part of the capitalist class, to be honest,
Speaker:when you hear him speak. And knowing that he actually is it comes back to the like being
Speaker:scared to call a socialist being called a socialist, I guess. Right. Like that's kind of what it
Speaker:feels like a little bit again. Did you buy that property so we can't call him a commie? No,
Speaker:I mean, just like the whole like narrative of it all, you know, like no one's going to call
Speaker:up here probably ever socialist. So he gets to parrot some of our talking points to make
Speaker:him sound more appealing. Oh, I understand. That's yeah. Yeah. But like. Well, that is
Speaker:ironic, right? That's a disconnect. But that becomes, I think, part of the political miseducation
Speaker:that we've had that folks don't really understand what socialism is. Because I tweeted out something
Speaker:that was someone to tweet like, this is socialism, you know, public health care is socialism,
Speaker:public education is socialism. Rapid disaster response that's publicly funded is socialism.
Speaker:And it's not that isn't socialism. Socialism is controlling the means of production and
Speaker:then distribution of resources, right? If you buy the people, buy workers or collectives
Speaker:or, you know, it takes different forms. But no doubt those things would exist under a socialist
Speaker:regime, because if we all got together and decided, hmm, we've got a billion dollars here, what
Speaker:should we spend it on? And half of the people are like, well, I don't have a house yet. We're
Speaker:like, OK. Housing first, done. Well, look, people are getting sick. We're gonna fully fund some
Speaker:hospitals. Oh, we need to educate ourselves. We will fund public education systems that
Speaker:actually prepare you for life and not just a life in the factory. And, you know, yes, these
Speaker:systems will exist and be well maintained, but they aren't in themselves socialist. And we
Speaker:know this because they exist under neoliberal regimes. They look completely different, but
Speaker:they aren't socialism. They also can be taken away at any moment. under these neoliberal
Speaker:regimes. That's a part of why we talk about the systemic change, because you'll get these
Speaker:victories, and then you'll get a conservative government, and then they'll take it away,
Speaker:and then you've got to work for it again. Like, that's why we talk about, and when I mentioned
Speaker:it earlier, that we need systemic change. We're not just advocating for social programs, because
Speaker:if workers actually, if people were actually in control of the means of production, if we
Speaker:actually had a society that wasn't based around capital and based around the control of the
Speaker:rich, then who the fuck is going to take away these programs? Would you make that decision
Speaker:for yourself if you're benefiting off of this to get rid of it? No, because people make the
Speaker:decisions that are good for them. And what's good for the people is good for all of us.
Speaker:That's how it works. We see how it works when you give workers more control in a business
Speaker:and they do better. you know, like bring back my statistic that I was like to quote about
Speaker:how worker cooperatives have over 80% five-year survival rate versus less than 40% for traditional
Speaker:businesses, because people will make the decisions that are good for them. That's overwhelmingly
Speaker:true in however many studies you look at, however many different systems you means to have something.
Speaker:No, you actually give people control, then it works better. Right? That's how society can
Speaker:function too. So that's why we're advocating for complete change, not just little. temporary
Speaker:social program solutions that will then get repealed and we're going to be left with even
Speaker:less. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also
Speaker:a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. Blueprints of
Speaker:Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter
Speaker:at BP of Disruption. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo. Please
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