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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

4 comments

  1. Why are three out of the four “city hall” articles on the same subject?  Feeling a bit lazy today?

  2. This is my second time trying to post a comment about the recent move by the city to explore becoming a sanctuary city and why such a move is misguided.

    I personally would never snitch on someone who was in the city illegally. However, the argument that “WE” benefit from their labor is bunk. Yes, there are those who benefit from this underground labor pool — unscrupulous and cheap labor employers, developers, landlords. But for working people in general, the presence of such a large pool of desperate individuals serves to drive down wages and working conditions and exacerbate the high unemployment that has plagued Toronto for at least 2 decades. Is it any wonder why unemployment among youth and young people is at an all time high? Is it any wonder that large segments of youth in Toronto (re: recent TDSB poll) are extremely concerned about their future prospects? Is it possible that people don’t see any link between high youth unemployment and growing youth crime? I don’t believe in reporting folks who are here illegally (many of whom enter the country thanks to Harper’s temporary foreign worker program, which is little more than the new slavery). But I do believe we need to stem the tide of people who are here illegally because of its distorting impact on working conditions as well as the cost of housing.

    Those politicians (who seem to be from across the political spectrum) who refuse to see any connection between the large pool of underground workers in Toronto and the fact that half the workers in GTA/Hamilton are in precarious jobs (SEE feature story in Feb. 23/13 Toronto Star at http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/02/23/half_of_gta_and_hamilton_workers_in_precarious_jobs.html) are either ignorant of how labor markets work, or intentionally misleading the public. the public.

  3. There are 4 articles on the same topic from different papers, which often report on these topic quite differently.