EMPLOYMENT IN SAINT JOHN; TRUTH, NOT IRVING PROPAGANDA

In dear old New Brunswick, well over 95% of all English language newspapers are owned by one family, the Irvings. They also control a great many of the English language radio stations and at one time, this family of billionaires also owned television stations. So bear in mind, anything you hear or read in the media about Saint John has already been through the media filter. And just what is the media saying about employment, including our own taxpayer owned CBC, which is following the rest of the media as it does so well. Media reports abound about the huge economic boom happening to Saint John New Brunswick.

Media reports Saint John as having the hottest economy in the Maritimes. Reports abound about low unemployment rates, a host of jobs going available, lots of money to be made and a just general rosy picture of Canada's oldest incorporated city.

Here are also some headlines that the Irvings conveniently report on, but usually bury on page 19 of their absolutely terrible publication, the Telegraph Journal. The Telegraph is newspaper that truly lives up to the old adage, "if you are the only game in town, how good to you have to be."

Saint John has the poorest population (per 1,000) in Canada. This honour used to belong to Montreal. Go shopping anywhere in Saint John when the welfare cheque is out and the stores are booming for a couple of days. Saint John also has the oldest apartment units in Canada with average apartment units in Saint John built in the 1940's. Some areas and neighbourhoods in Saint John look dumpy because they are. Saint John, and New Brunswick in particular, has the longest wait times to see a medical specialist or surgeon in all of Canada. My wife waited well over 1 year of necessary surgery and she suffered in terrible pain every day of that long wait. You see, we didn't have a family doctor to prescribe pain control medication and our band-aid stations or after hour medical clinics, could not help. Saint John also has one of the longest wait times in all of Canada to get a family doctor. Currently, there are over 5,700 people in greater Saint John without a family doctor. Let me put this in terms that a politician might understand, it is a 3 to 5 year wait to even get a doctor.

I noticed a headline in the Irving rag the other day that Saint John's regional hospital was 25 years old. I thought, I am sure that there are still people waiting in the out patient department (called the outdoor by Saint Johners) for emergency services. Not that absurd. Wait times at the Emergency Department, Saint John Regional Hospital, are past absurd. After an wait of 4 hours (my wife was in excuriating pain) we left. One fellow told us he had been brought in by ambulance and was still waiting for emergency service after six hours. The emergency department was not busy that day. It was very dirty and the staff there have long forgotten that patients are people. We are also tax-payers and voters, the only strength the little guy has left.

There is work available in Saint John. There are a vast amount of jobs available in the McJob field, fast food and retail stores all have openings. They will pay you $7.50 per hour and yet the economy here is as expensive as any other western "Have" city. So you need two or three of these McJobs to even begin to think of making ends meet.

There is also work in Saint John in any one of the electronic sweatshops or also known as call centers or contact centers or service centers, whatever this miserable industry wants to call itself these days. Average burn out rate in these hell holes is 9 months. You will be promised 40 hours per week but because of LWOP or leave without pay when the damn phones are not busy, you would average 30 to 35 hours per week or less. Many of these companies, after being given millions of taxpayers money to set up and train employees only to pull the plug on their operations a few years later. A great way to build a solid career with a company. Time and again, the call center operations pull out of New Brunswick not ever fulfilling their committment to the province regarding the millions of incentive money given them. It appears that a call center that leaves NB is not required to give severance pay, vacation pay and many of them ignore overtime rules, employment standards act and labour act. These call centers get away with a great deal, at the expense of the poor slobs that work in them. Lots of jobs in this industry. Wonder why?

There is lots of trade work currently available in Saint John. If you have a trade as a carpenter or plumber of whatever, there is currently work. But the big mega projects that our government and the Irving Press keep reporting on have not started yet. Construction of the LNG pipeline has not started and the completion of phase two of the construction of the LNG port and containment tanks are a few months from completion. This is an Irving project. The construction of a proposed new oil refinery, another Irving family project, has not started yet and will be a few years getting underway. Construction of a second phase for Lepreau Nuclear Station is years away.

The truth from this little guy is that there is a labour shortage in Saint John. The good jobs, good pay and the good life are elsewhere in Canada. That is why there are McJobs available here. Our government, both provincial and municipal, would rather use propaganda, gloss over the realities that make life here not great. A stunning example of the type of leadership we have here in New Brunswick is the problem of health care. Having the longest wait times in all of Canada, a growing waiting list for a family doctor, an emergency department at one of our major hospitals that has not worked in years; our provincial health minister Mike Murphy has decided to spend millions of our tax dollars on creating electronic medical file management, computerized medical record management. The prime purpose of this is to sell this new computerized system to other provinces. Even though a Canadian think tank has already stated that this will actually cost more and do nothing to speed up access to medical care. Lets export our health minister, after all, he is obviously smarter for the direction he has taken then a prestigous think tank. As far as long waiting lists for surgery, a 3 to 5 year wait for a family doctor, an emergency department that sees nothing wrong waiting several hours for emergency service our governments are doing not one thing.

In conclusion, if you have a well paying job in the oil fields, if your career is going places, if you have a family doctor, access to reliable emergency services, you are living in a progressive community. Here in Saint John, our leaders ignore these problems and hope upon hope, that the taxpayers and voters, the little guys, will just rant and forget. And I am here to keep reminding that we the voters have the real power, or at least , we should.