Washington File

Hey Jeff:

Yup.

Fact is there is a need for immigrant workers, legal or illegal to do the work nobody else will do.

Everybody screams about wages or optimum working conditions.

Everyone wants to do the easy jobs regarding little effort.

No one wants to do menial jobs such as pick strawberries, grapes, apples,etc.

No one wants to cook or wait on people so we have people to work for very little.

Coming from an area in Southern Ontario that has migrant workers,I know and have worked with, I know this is true.

They also send money and goods home to help to support their families.It means the difference between eating or not eating for many of their families back home.

When we decide we aren't too good to do these jobs, we won't need to depend on them any longer.

In reality, I don't believe that will ever happen.

Hey! What's going on here! Where are all the other regular posters?!

It's been a week!

Where is Allan from Kamloops?

Where is Roch from Winnipeg?

Where is K. Trudeau?

Where is Wa'el Darwish?

And so on...?

Can it be that I totally hit the nail on the head?

Am I really absolutely right in all your eyes?

Well, well... knock me over with a feather!

This is really a pointless debate. We have continuing conditions in the US that create real labor shortages in certain areas and we have continuing conditions in Mexico and elsewhere that create millions who are more than willing to fill those places.

It doesn't matter one bit what various pundits have to say on the matter or what sort of policy is implemented because so long as those two situations exist, so too will large numbers of illegal immigrants choose to work in America doing the jobs Americans do not want to do and for low wages while American employers choose to look the other way. I do find it somehow odd thought that so many market worshipping conservatives believe they can simply legislate away this issue when there is hardly a more clear-cut case of supply and demand creating a labor relationship anywhere in the modern US.

If this is as significant a problem as some would have us believe then it seems an excellent candidate for a “market adjustment” rather than weak and ill advised market meddlings from the very people who claim those exact policies are ineffective to begin with.

I am disappointed with the Throne Speech, in that it did not include any plans for a wall to be built along the 49th parallel (to keep out the throngs of American illegals who will surely be invading our workforce in the near future).

Here's another thought: For all the sweat and toil illegal immigrants give for such paltry recompense, and for all the millions of them, wouldn't it be better if they would just stay, stand up, and fight to make their heartlands places of opportunities like ours?

Our ancestors fought, were killed and imprisoned for EVERYTHING we now take for granted! History tells us that it did not happen naturaly: The Farmers Revolt, the Northwest Rebellion, The Suffragettes Movement, The Winnipeg General Strike... Without their sacrifices, we would NOT have the vote for Women, Medicare, Welfare, Old-age pensions, a minimum wage...!

At some point in time, they are going to have to go through the same fight that our ancestors did. Otherwise, their heartlands will continue to be hopeless!

As hard as it may be to hear, illegal immigration only prolongs the suffering of the oppressed people.

And yes, I know "it's easy for me to say!"

That's because a multitude of Canadians before me MADE IT EASY FOR ME TO SAY!

That's why they spent their blood, personal comfort, and their LIVES!

My my late Grandfather was a WW II veteran. He said: "I went over there, so that you would never have to fight here." And he was right!

Thanks Grandpa!

And Thanks 19th century Farmers, thanks Suffragets, and thanks Metis, thanks strikers of Winnipeg, and thanks to so many more who I cannot mention because I am limited in space!

Look at what happened in South Africa after decades of struggle! In the end, fighting the good fight will triumph! It's a prooven, manifest, historical FACT!

I wish the oppressed would realize this!

Here is a rallying call oppressed workers in Victorian England chanted as they were stomped on for fighting for their rights:

RISE! AND SHAKE OF THIS DEW WHICH IN YOUR SLUMBER HAS FALLEN ON YOU. YEE ARE MANY, THEY ARE FEW!

And they won!

Good luck! History is on your side! History favours the BOLD!

While Canadian productivity has been rising with the loonie (since that figure is calculated in US$), that Canada's work force is 99.999% legal is one factor that leaves us behind the US. Per unit production cost is lower when 5% of your labour pool is working with fake papers for the legal minimum wage and few or no benefits.

Both Canada and the US saw their economies boom during periods of aggressive, open-door immigration. The question is do you want to strangle the economy by cutting-off workers(who produce wealth) or force business to pay higher wages to the needed legalised workers?
Either way higher wages are on the horizon, as labour shortages both raise wages and impede economic growth.
Legalising the the workers would discourage their recruitment in illegal activities.
But the current political climate favours symbol over substance.

It's not that Americans don't want to work in meat plants, nor landscape, nor wash dishes, nor do any of the other jobs that illegal immigrants do for so little money! It's just that Americans don't want to accept an unfairly low wage!

If there were no illegal immigrants, American employers would be forced to pay their fellow Americans a fair, living wage!

It's true that in such a fair world, Americans would have to pay more, but not that much more, because the employers would still have to compete against each other, and there would always be one who would lower the price of goods or sevices by paying him/herself less than the multi-millions now being paid. Then another would follow and so on!

Currently, ilegal immigration creates a "false" economy where workers get less than they deserve, and employers get way, way more than they deserve!

The solution is easy to arrive at intellectualy, but, it seems, very difficult to implement!

In the mean time, how do you feel about the fact that your children are draped in clothes made by other peoples' children?

Three things are certain; 1) A federal judge from San Francisco will sign on to any liberal cause. 2) Without the illegal workers all fruit and veggies would cost the moon. 3) In two generations America will be an Hispanic country.
Ironically perhaps, the only way to get the illegals to go home (to Mexico) is to pass a universal minimum wage law because then they would not get hired.

The thin-grey-line between legal and illegal migrant workers is one of America’s greatest hypocrisies. Meat processing plants are especially blatant trespassers over this grey-line. Migrant workers are purchased for contract work through various memorandums between countries. If their papers don’t add up there is little incentive to blow the whistle. They aren’t stealing American jobs, their doing the jobs that no American in his or her right mind would take.

The Republican’s own (corporate) constituents realize this. I will not use the word slave labour, but migrant workers are what allow big-business to compete in the manual labour industries. The Land-of-the-Free does not have China’s totalitarian luxuries. A legal game of international Twister must be played in order to put your left foot on yellow and your right hand on profit. And just like playing Twister at home, if you have to park your rear by somebody’s head to win then so be it. That’s why many companies are ignoring Washington. You can’t spin the dial to “fire your labour force” and expect business owners to contort themselves.

It’s not that I think Bush is an idiot. I just think people like sticking their asses in his face. Especially when money’s on the line. Besides, many of the prime offenders are Republicans anyway. Anecdotally, I suspect it’s Joe-Republican on welfare who’s bitching about “them damn illegal aliens”.

It is always easier for a politician to deal with the appearance of an issue than to tackle the substance. Clearly, this is yet another instance of this!