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In this scenario effort, capabilities, potential and knowledge mean nothing – so that people not associated with the favourable circumstances just referred to (otherwise expressed as a favourable “track record”) to are automatically dis-regarded / dis-favoured as if they cannot even read. This is actually a surreptitious (and usually not provable) form of “black-balling”. In the same way, the “life-long learning” philosophy, now considered essential in the work place, is conveniently forgotten or deliberately ignored. Further, such social and professional cliques seem to demand loyalty to a fixed set of opinions – not necessarily well-informed, and which they do not want “outsiders” to know about – and automatically regard anyone outside as an un-welcome interloper or troublemaker.
14. The author recognises that there are people who will not like some of what has just been said. The answer is that the current set of behaviours on the part of some people in the Canadian workplace, rooted in tradition, the lack of available jobs and the apparently ubiquitous ignorance of / dis-interest in the implications of failing to deal with the problem, are destroying Canada as a society and will continue to do so if left un-checked. If we don’t do things properly, starting right now, there will be consequences. One of these consequences will be that the people who do not like what the author is saying now will later on complain about “excessive income taxes” – because nobody saw what was going to happen in the first place, so nobody did anything to prevent the circumstances from getting out of hand. Then they will wonder why – and of course, they won’t know. The best course of action that such people can take is to make an effort to look at the data and understand what is going on without delay, what it implies for them (for example, their income taxes and availability of health care), and then seriously consider changing their views.
2 WE NEED A HUGE NUMBER OF NEW FULL-TIME JOBS. WHERE ARE THEY ALL GOING TO COME FROM?
In Ottawa, the report “Ottawa’s Hidden Workforce”,
released by The Ottawa Partnership (TOP) in the fall of 1998, estimated that
there were about 145,000 new full-time jobs needed (within the Ottawa Census
Metropolitan Area) to solve the problem in real terms – in a population of
almost exactly 1 million (about 1/30th of Canada’s population). Bob
Chiarelli, then R.M.O.C. Regional Chair and now Mayor of the City of Ottawa,
then publicly challenged local business to create 145,000 jobs, through an
article in “The Ottawa Citizen” newspaper.
Latest
Estimate for Ottawa-Gatineau - click HERE (for April 2003)
Following this, the former R.M.O.C. – part on the
City of Ottawa since January 1, 2001 – commissioned ICF Consulting of San Francisco to undertake a study concerning
Ottawa’s economy and how to make it grow. This, the Economic Generators
Initiative, was part of TOP’s on-going work in leading the growth of Ottawa’s
economy. The study, “Choosing a Future: A New Economic Vision for Ottawa”, was released in August 2000. In terms of
media reporting, the media appeared to have “gone back to sleep” concerning the
size of the problem - i.e. they failed
to remind people of it, and its implications, when they announced the study’s
release. On the other hand, the study itself did make reference to the
“Ottawa’s Hidden Workforce” report as well as the so-called “official
unemployment rate” – by reason of the former’s obvious importance. This
contradiction must be seen as reflecting on a serious problem – as if it is not
obvious enough already – concerning complacency and ignorance on the part of
the media. This study must constitute the starting point for thinking about new
solutions to the question of how we will create jobs in the necessary numbers;
therefore, it is clearly “required reading” for anyone seriously interested in
what is being discussed here.
Since then, there have
been some set-backs – caused, among other things, by the sudden eruption of difficulties in the telecommunications
sector, notably involving the sudden down-turn in the market for the products
of JDS Uniphase Inc. and Nortel Networks Inc., which led to thousands of
layoffs in Ottawa (including the author) since January 2001.