A Grinchy Christmas

grinch These are grumpy times which no amount of holly jolly Christmas mall music will be able to cheer. And no wonder – the pictures of sugar plums dancing in our heads have been pushed aside by pictures of migrants, war, environmental collapse, and mean old politicians dancing on TV.

It might also be because of the lump of coal some of us are finding in our Christmas stocking.

We know that it’ll take a good chunk of next year to pay off our Christmas credit card debt. And it doesn’t help to know that the folks in the corporate C-suite will have made our entire annual salary before lunch on our first day back to work in January.

If you’re an autoworker in Oshawa, then you’ll be just another stranded asset to GM. And the $5 billion taxpayers are owed from the big bailout we gave them in 2009? Well, Merry Christmas GM. For the head honchos of GM to claim they need to close Oshawa to re-tool for an electric-car future – after killing their EV1 in 1999 and the Chevy Volt in 2019 – well, their brains are full of spiders and they’ve got garlic in their souls.

If you are a postal worker, you’re still lugging around more packages than your back can handle while your pay-cheque falls a bit further behind inflation. To add aggravation to injury, your boss stalled contract talks, knowing his boss would pass back to work legislation in time for Christmas. Their hearts are empty holes.

If you’re a power worker, your own bid to match inflation (6.6% over 3 years) has been short-circuited by Mr AfFordable himself, the heel. The Ontario government is about to pass back-to-work legislation for Power Workers even before the picket lines go up. When you realize that the CEO of Ontario Power Generation tops the Sunshine List at $1.55 million a year … well, that’s a bad banana with a greasy black peel.

Now there’s Bill 66 sitting in the Ontario Legislature’s to do list. It’s another dreaded omnibus bill that’s like a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce. Somewhere in the middle of it (in Schedule 9) is a provision to simply strip certain workers of their union membership.

For those workers who don’t have a union to fight for them, Mr AfFordable snatched away a measly one dollar raise to the minimum wage. Even if they do file their income tax returns and get his tax break, they’ll be as much as $800 poorer. Oh, you’re a vile one, Mr AfFordable. And part time workers will be earning less than full-time workers doing the same job. You have termites in your smile.

Low Income Ontarians Canada has the third highest rate of working-age poverty of 17 peer countries. Only Japan and the USA do worse. Not surprisingly, we have the sixth highest level of income inequality – only marginally better than Italy and the UK. And yet, #1 in the G7 for subsidies to oil and gas companies. We’re #1 in the G7 for subsidies to oil and gas companies. Ours is an economy full of gunk.