Canada Oilsands Boom Passes Ontario Factory Workers....what a surprise

[WIP]

This could be filed under the Bleeding Obvious category:Canada Oilsands Boom Passes Ontario Factory Workers: Economy

Since part of the reason the Harper Government is on a full court press to diminish native sovereignty is connected with the grand scheme of turning Canada from a manufacturing economy back into a resource seller, reality is expressing a differing opinion than Harper and his Conservative and business cronies:

Harper and his cabinet ministers have argued that developing Alberta’s oilsands, part of the world’s third largest oil reserves, will bring economic opportunity across the country. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver estimates that more than 600 major resource projects may lead to C$650 billion of investment over the next decade.

“A strong resource sector in the west means high-quality manufacturing jobs in the east,” Harper said Jan. 4 at a Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. factory in Oakville, Ontario.

The numbers suggest otherwise. Companies in the mining, quarrying and oil and gas industries have increased payrolls by 11,700, or 4.4 percent over the five years to the end of 2012, according to Statistics Canada data. Over the same period, manufacturing employment has dropped by 182,900, or 9.4 percent, as factories struggle with the impact of a strong currency and weak global demand.

Factory Firings

Put another way,

for every natural resource job that’s been added in Canada since the end of 2007, more than 15 factory jobs have been lost.

[Moonlight Graham]

I feel bad for the workers who lose their jobs but a lot of these manufacturing jobs can't persist in a global market at the salaleries the unions ensured. $30+ w/ beneifts for an assembly line job is unsustainable for these auto and other companies is unsustainable. The choices: let the North American auto companies go bankrupt, have worker wages/benefits massively cut, heavily subsidize the manufucturing industry & worker wages & cripple the Canadian/US economy with more debt, or let the manufacturing jobs be exported and at least keep the companies & non-manufacturing jobs afloat. I'd argue that maybe there's a way they could/should have cut manufacturing jobs less suddenly (cutting wages and using gov subsides) so that the impact on workers and the economy has time to adapt.

The oil sands are the future for Canada's economy and we should be very grateful we have the massive oil reserves we do.

[Bonam]

Not to mention the fundamental flaw in the premise: that the only way Canada can compete is by making sure our currency stays low. That might work if you're a third world / developing nation, but as one of the most advanced nations in the world, you need to be adding value, not competing on the basis of a low currency.

And of course there are the absurdly cherry-picked dates in the OP. Of course a lot more jobs were lost than created over the past 5 years: 2007 was the peak of the bubble before the global recession started. You can do better than that, WIP.

[WIP]

I feel bad for the workers who lose their jobs but a lot of these manufacturing jobs can't persist in a global market at the salaleries the unions ensured. $30+ w/ beneifts for an assembly line job is unsustainable for these auto and other companies is unsustainable.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good argument!

But is the problem that UAW members get too much? Or that

everybody else gets too little

? There's a broad consensus that, over the last 30 years, real wages for the typical American worker have stagnated—in contrast to the 30 years before that, when unions thrived and real wages doubled. As an exercise, I asked Dean Baker, from the Center for Economic Policy Research, to calculate informally where wages for the typical working-age American would be if they'd continued to rise as they had done before the 1970s, while the unions were strong and helping to raise living standards for everybody.

He determined that somebody between 45 and 55 years old, roughly the average UAW age today, would be making about $25 per hour—which is very close to the $28 per hour the typical UAW member makes.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/archive/auto-bailout-detroit-obama-recession?page=0,2

So, what does that tell us today about what wages workers deserve? In the U.S. example, if Americans hadn't embraced supply side economics, globalization and union-busting legislation that saw organized labour decline in half over a 30 period, the average American worker would be earning what the auto workers were making before a new contract that cut wages in half for new employees!

Time to step back and look at the big picture, and take a look at where people place their priorities. How many people have responded to the attack on their wages and living standards by demanding that union workers also be kneecapped and reduced to the same miserable earnings that they take in? May not be a majority, but there sure are a lot of fools out there that carry water for the right wing business class that has been the only segment of society that has seen their earnings rise over the last 30 years! While the people who actually do the work to make the products have had their earnings cut and facing further attack, the people who control wealth and earn more money through the manipulation of money are the only growth industry that exists anymore! Problem is that bankers, investment brokers and insurance brokers, do not produce any tangible products that can be put to use. But they are the ones who profit under a system where money is created out of thin air by banks (fractional reserve banking makes up over 97% of the money supply), and they consume greater and greater amounts of a nation's real wealth merely by collecting debts on money that did not even exist until it was loaned into existence in the first place!

The choices: let the North American auto companies go bankrupt, have worker wages/benefits massively cut, heavily subsidize the manufucturing industry & worker wages & cripple the Canadian/US economy with more debt, or let the manufacturing jobs be exported and at least keep the companies & non-manufacturing jobs afloat. I'd argue that maybe there's a way they could/should have cut manufacturing jobs less suddenly (cutting wages and using gov subsides) so that the impact on workers and the economy has time to adapt.

So, the choice is to adapt to the new feudalism....where bankers, major shareholders of large corporations, and executives, own 99% of the nation's wealth and control every aspect of society that counts, while the middle class disappears and everyone else goes back to the old system of being the new peasants!

The oil sands are the future for Canada's economy and we should be very grateful we have the massive oil reserves we do.

Complete insanity! it's not "oil" sands in the first place. That term does not apply to degraded petroleum deposits known as bitumen, and more honestly identified by their previous term - TAR sands. And, nevermind the facts mentioned in that article which show exploiting tar sands is no better than any other resource exploiting industry at creating jobs. And 15 manufacturing jobs are lost for every job created through forcing bitumen out of deep deposits and investing huge amounts of energy to convert it into useable petroleum products....and inflating the value of our dollar, just as happens with every other petrostate in the world! Countries that have more than 20% of their economies devoted to oil, experience a decline in the rest of their economies, and, in the case of undeveloped economies - remain undeveloped except for pumping oil out of the ground. So, here's Canada going from a diverse economy to Saudi Arabia - North, and some people are cheering this! Anyone who is not directly working in this industry or earning money from it by other means, has to be a fool.

And that's not even getting to the part where that bitumen in the ground...."that we should be grateful for"....will be the final nail in the coffin of human civilization, if we fully exploit this dirty, carbon-intensive resource to the limits.

[Bonam]

So, what does that tell us today about what wages workers deserve? In the U.S. example, if Americans hadn't embraced supply side economics, globalization and union-busting legislation that saw organized labour decline in half over a 30 period, the average American worker would be earning what the auto workers were making before a new contract that cut wages in half for new employees!

Time to step back and look at the big picture, and take a look at where people place their priorities. How many people have responded to the attack on their wages and living standards by demanding that union workers also be kneecapped and reduced to the same miserable earnings that they take in?

WIP, sometimes I am worried for you. On one hand, you seem concerned that our exploitation of resources and consumerism is gonna cause the collapse of civilization. On the other hand, you seem to think that people should have double or triple the wages they earn and thus partake in twice or thrice the consumerism they presently do. I recommend you review your own stances and positions for mutual consistency with each other.

As for experiencing an economic decline due to too much oil wealth having an adverse affect on other sectors, just take a look at Norway.

[WIP]

Not to mention the fundamental flaw in the premise: that the only way Canada can compete is by making sure our currency stays low. That might work if you're a third world / developing nation, but as one of the most advanced nations in the world, you need to be adding value, not competing on the basis of a low currency.

And of course there are the absurdly cherry-picked dates in the OP. Of course a lot more jobs were lost than created over the past 5 years: 2007 was the peak of the bubble before the global recession started. You can do better than that, WIP.

The basic fundamentals remain: there are more jobs in manufacturing....actually making stuff, than there is by taking things out of the ground and selling them on foreign markets. That should be obvious and if you're half as smart as you think you are, you would already known this was obvious.

As for the bubble....this is where things get complicated; and I'm not going to say that just turning back globalization, regressive taxation on wealth, and other economic reforms would turn everything back to the way it was pre-recession. There is a general unwillingness to examine or even look at the connections between environmental degradation and growing resource scarcity, with our present economic woes. If we add up the damages from increasing storms and droughts, the costs of climate change are having a dampening effect on economic growth, and will be even more so in the near future.

And, I've covered the issues of resource scarcity previously, and how even one resource - conventional oil, is already putting the brakes on global economic growth -- real economic growth means larger increases in energy use -- which means higher oil prices and greater dependence on expensive unconventional oil -- until economic growth fizzles out -- demand for oil decreases somewhat -- and we are back to square one. So, what's been happening to world economies over the last five years?

The way I see it, most of what's wrong with today's economy has been inevitable and was bound to happen....if it wasn't now, it would have been a few years from now when a day of reckoning arrived. Because the fundamental problem is we have an economic system addicted to growth. And growth is essential because modern banking has to keep creating new money through loans, and the only way those loans are payed off is through continued economic growth. A return to flat, no growth economies, as existed prior to a couple of centuries ago, would just be the lead up to total collapse.

So, that's why politicians of all stripes, and economists on the left, and economists on the right, are always stuck on the point about how to resume growth. But, what if we've hit the time when our finite world is applying natural limits to our desires to consume more energy and resources? Well, that's when we need a whole new kind of economy, an end to bank-created money, and a political system that guarantees a more equitable share of wealth than the winner-take-all system we have now. Not that it's a likely possibility!

[WIP]

WIP, sometimes I am worried for you. On one hand, you seem concerned that our exploitation of resources and consumerism is gonna cause the collapse of civilization. On the other hand, you seem to think that people should have double or triple the wages they earn and thus partake in twice or thrice the consumerism they presently do. I recommend you review your own stances and positions for mutual consistency with each other.

As for experiencing an economic decline due to too much oil wealth having an adverse affect on other sectors, just take a look at Norway.

I think I explain most of my thinking in the previous post to your prior comments. My point is that the benefits shouldn''t all be going to people who do not make things, or create new inventions. Most of the increases in wealth and earnings over the last 20 years are going to people who start with inherited wealth from large estates and through the manipulation of tax and investment laws, have used their money to acquire greater amounts of real wealth.

I am very concerned with how our economies are destroying the environment, and using up resources at an increasing rate; but the wealth that is created in the economy should be shared more equitably than it is now. I want to see a flattening of income levels, even if it means I have to pay higher taxes. I'd rather have the satisfaction that everyone's basic needs are being met, and we are moving towards a sustainable economy, than try to grab a bigger slice of the pie.

[bud]

we shouldn't try to manufacture demand when it's not there. it may not be convenient at first, but we need to adapt to the always changing market in a responsible way. there are so many jobs available in the oil industry which only require a 1 or 2 years training in order to be qualified. we're going to be short 20% of the workforce by 2020 due to new opportunities, retirement and lack of replacements. the jobs are in different levels and in different wage brackets.

that said, i am not saying we should put profit above all the other consequences of taking advantage of our natural resources. we should make sure that our energy interests are used in a way that will at least, minimize harm to our national environmental interest. i also think that we need to start investing (privately and provincially), to tap into the potential of the IT and renewable energy industry as well.

[WWWTT]

As for experiencing an economic decline due to too much oil wealth having an adverse affect on other sectors, just take a look at Norway.

If we look at Norway,then we should look at adopting their social platform.

But that's not what you are really getting at is it?

It works in Norway because their social development program works in distributing wealth.And that's where your argument for using Norway pretty much ends and you will revert back to another angle.

WWWTT

[cybercoma]

you seem to think that people should have double or triple the wages they earn and thus partake in twice or thrice the consumerism they presently do..

This would certainly create jobs.

[cybercoma]

we shouldn't try to manufacture demand when it's not there

Not a big fan of Keynes, eh? Don't remember the Great Depression either, I take it.

[WIP]

we shouldn't try to manufacture demand when it's not there. it may not be convenient at first, but we need to adapt to the always changing market in a responsible way.

Bullshit! Why should we have to adapt to the demands of the market? Putting aside the obvious fact that the market doesn't really function without interference, the overall decline in happiness and wellbeing in North America since the 1950's, combined with the increase in social isolation (people today report having half as many close friends as those surveyed in the 50's), and a wide range of other measures of sociological research tell us that the market is driving us crazy; making us more materialistic; and making us less satisfied overall. It's time the "market" was adapted to the needs of people, instead of the present system of doing it all backwards.

there are so many jobs available in the oil industry which only require a 1 or 2 years training in order to be qualified. we're going to be short 20% of the workforce by 2020 due to new opportunities, retirement and lack of replacements. the jobs are in different levels and in different wage brackets.

How long are those jobs going to last? Even aside from the obvious catastrophic environmental consequences of increasing tar sands exploitation, these deposits....and every other non-renewable natural resource in the ground is a finite resource. And yet, how is our modern, globalized capitalistic economies responding to resource shortage? By using increasingly greater amounts and becoming more desperate and ruthless in the search for more and more sources of NNR's. A heroin addict who followed this sort of strategy in the quest to satisfy his drug needs would be condemned by society, and yet we have a whole army of economists and policy-makers - from liberal to conservative, who advocate that our economies and way of life function in the same manner as the desperate drug addict who has no regard for consequences of his actions or cares about the future!

that said, i am not saying we should put profit above all the other consequences of taking advantage of our natural resources. we should make sure that our energy interests are used in a way that will at least, minimize harm to our national environmental interest. i also think that we need to start investing (privately and provincially), to tap into the potential of the IT and renewable energy industry as well.

And, on this note, part of the desperation to find ways to force pipelines through the Oglala Aquifer in the U.S., and the salmon fishing streams of B.C., is the desperate attempt to get bitumen to foreign markets and gain profits. The present course of expanded exploitation of tar sands, doesn't even make sense on economic grounds as it stands now; because without the pipelines to carry it away to the U.S. and China, there will be a glut of heavy oil in local markets....and that will drive the prices down to the point where the huge costs of recovering bitumen and upgrading it to petroleum products isn't even breaking even. A more sensible strategy would be that....if we really do need tar sands oil, we should keep the operations smaller and use it for our own longterm needs.

[WIP]

If we look at Norway,then we should look at adopting their social platform.

But that's not what you are really getting at is it?

It works in Norway because their social development program works in distributing wealth.And that's where your argument for using Norway pretty much ends and you will revert back to another angle.

WWWTT

I don't know a lot of the details about how Norway managed not to follow the course of other oil exporters....somehow they avoided the hollowing out of their economy that happened to all of the others....even England on the other end of those North Sea deposits....but it would be worth taking a good look at, considering the damaging effects of allowing oil to dominate an economy and political system, and then having to deal with the wreckage after the oil runs out! A former Venezuelan government official made a famous observation over 20 years ago about the double-edged sword nature of oil - calling it "the Devil's Shit" or the equivalent in Spanish as I understand it.

[blueblood]

Not a big fan of Keynes, eh? Don't remember the Great Depression either, I take it.

Keynes was an idiot

[blueblood]

This would certainly create jobs.

Not necessarily. Ask Zimbabwe

[August1991]

In WIP's Canada, we would have no cell phones. We would use payphones, and create jobs collecting coins from payphones.

WIP (and other "progressive" Leftists) would forbid cellphones and return Canada to a world of payphones, where everyone had a secure job for life.

[Wayward Son]

I don't know a lot of the details about how Norway managed not to follow the course of other oil exporters....somehow they avoided the hollowing out of their economy that happened to all of the others

Well actually Norway did follow the same course as other oil exporters. The difference is when (about 2 decades ago) they saw that their dollar was increasing and that was hurting other industries they asked themselves do we have to be stupid about this? They came up a shocking answer...No, they actually did not need to be stupid. They decided to be as smart as possible, base policy on reality and they will benefit for decades after their oil is gone. On top of having an economy that puts ours to complete shame, they also have more money locked away in their Government Pension Plan (which is not really a pension plan, but where they invest their oil wealth to stop it from flooding the economy) then they know what to do with. We asked ourselves the same question and decided to be as stupid as possible and base policy on denying reality. When we see negative results we conclude that if we could just take that stupidity to a new level then things will turn around. Any day now I am sure it will.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Wayward Son

[kairos]

The Tar sands is a disgrace. It is a stain on Canada. It shows Canadians as ruthlessly greedy, and unconcerned with trashing the very planet we live on. Then to add to that the conservatives commit treason by selling those resources to foreign companies so that they can ruthlessly exploit and trash Canada and receive mass profits by doing so.

Edited January 13, 2013 by kairos

[WIP]

In WIP's Canada, we would have no cell phones. We would use payphones, and create jobs collecting coins from payphones.

WIP (and other "progressive" Leftists) would forbid cellphones and return Canada to a world of payphones, where everyone had a secure job for life.

I'd be fine if we had no cellphones! You just pulled the wrong example to impress me, since after having my cellphone stolen when my car was broken into 12 years ago, I haven't bought one since or felt the need to. The only way I'll buy one now is if this trend towards eliminating public payphones continues.

[WIP]

The Tar sands is a disgrace. It is a stain on Canada. It shows Canadians as ruthlessly greedy, and unconcerned with trashing the very planet we live on. Then to add to that the conservatives commit treason by selling those resources to foreign companies so that they can ruthlessly exploit and trash Canada and receive mass profits by doing so.

I'm sure that Harper and his cronies already have millions of dollars in handshake deals with oil and other resource companies that they will be able to collect on after they are our of office.

You're absolutely right that turning Canada from a nation that at least said the right things about environment to one that doesn't even bother with the facade because of the unbridled exploitation of tar sands, is one of the biggest black marks to Canada's international reputation. Add this to the way Harper has turned Canada from a tradition of independence from U.S. foreign policy to one of slavish adherence, and young Canadians today would be well advised not to put Canadian flags on their luggage when traveling outside Canada or the U.S.

[WIP]

Well actually Norway did follow the same course as other oil exporters. The difference is when (about 2 decades ago) they saw that their dollar was increasing and that was hurting other industries they asked themselves do we have to be stupid about this? They came up a shocking answer...No, they actually did not need to be stupid. They decided to be as smart as possible, base policy on reality and they will benefit for decades after their oil is gone. On top of having an economy that puts ours to complete shame, they also have more money locked away in their Government Pension Plan (which is not really a pension plan, but where they invest their oil wealth to stop it from flooding the economy) then they know what to do with. We asked ourselves the same question and decided to be as stupid as possible and base policy on denying reality. When we see negative results we conclude that if we could just take that stupidity to a new level then things will turn around. Any day now I am sure it will.

Thanks for the info!

It seems that the main difference between Norway and every other oil producer, is that they recognized potential pitfalls early and developed strategies to minimize them, unlike every other oil producer, who go hogwild with the money, and have little thought or care about what comes next until the oil runs out.

[bud]

Not a big fan of Keynes, eh? Don't remember the Great Depression either, I take it.

?

time to move forward.

manufacturing plants need less and less human power. we shouldn't try to force to hold onto these plants if they're inefficient and are not working out. not to mention that, back during the great depression, there was no IT industry. things change and we should try to adapt to the times.

canadians, both at the provincial level and privately need to start investing more into the IT and renewable energy industries and as long as we're able to, we should use our natural resources responsibly. what's wrong with using oil to bring wealth to our country?

i'm not a fan of most of what harper does, including his disregard for the environmental consequences and him selling out to the chinese corporations. at the same time, i think we should take advantage of our oil while it is still relevant. another thing we can do is to build an oil refinery so we can refine our own oil. this would not only create a lot more jobs, but the ROI would multiply.

Edited January 14, 2013 by bud

[Topaz]

In my view, both, industries have their ups and downs. The oil, there's a need, especially in the US for the oil. The down, is the environment and the latest cancer-causing agents they are finding within 90 Kms from the oil sands. Many workers could ended up with cancer down the road. I hope they have a very health plan and benefits and life insurance. The worse this industry does is the damage to the environment and I would hope that the oil companies are doing what they can to protect the water, land and air but it doesn't seem that way. The Ontario manufacturing biggest problems was most of those maufacturers were American and went back home , Mexico or Third world countries. If Ontario can't get back many of those jobs then Ontario needs to re-create itself in other areas. Some of you on here, feel the wages are too much at 30 hour. I don't agree with that. Those wages help keep the economy going because if a worker is only making 10.75, there's no house buying, new car buying, not much spending period.

[Accountability Now]

There is something I have never liked about this topic....is that it doesn't make sense. I get it that our Manufacturing industry does better when the dollar is weak but so does oil. Both are exports and do better when the dollar is weaker. Ultimately exporting countries like Japan want to keep their dollar weaker (as shown recently in Japan by government initiatives to weaken the yen) thus keeping their exports strong.

Having said all this, we in Canada cannot help the fact that we are in a Global recession any more than any other country. I'm sure that Canada is doing well with its resources and all but the glaring fact is that the US and the Euro are struggling.

So as much as anyone would like to beleive that Mr. Harper is pulling magic tricks here to boost dollar, I would have to say he is only responding to what's happening outside of Canada. The reality is that Manufacturing will return to Canada once the US recovers. If we can have a resource and manufacturing base working for us at that time, then we will all be doing well.

[Wayward Son]

The reality is that Manufacturing will return to Canada once the US recovers.

Good to know. I guess the fact that Canada lost (according to stats Canada) more then 1/7th of its manufacturing jobs in the 4 years leading up to the start of the financial crisis and US recession - a time when the US economy was humming along and while Canada had a high dollar - combined with the strength of our manufacturing sector during the preceding years when our dollar was much lower....are not reality.