Interesting report released by StatsCan today about chronic unemployment. Not surprisingly, Atlantic Canadians are over-represented among the chronically unemployed.
I say “not surprisingly” because I grew up there, in a fairly poor area of the province, and could see the culture of work avoidance that some people had. It was a circular process, where the culture fed the environment and the environment in turn fed the culture, but the culture definitely existed; for a select few “drawing pogey” was a full-time aspiration.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 
Thoughts on how to break the cycle?
If I had some good ones I’d be the labour minister. 🙂
It’s tough, obviously. There are even regional differences; the Atlantic Provinces are, in my opinion, afflicted by two specific things that don’t affect the rest of Canada as much: 1) a large portion of industry being seasonal; 2) an established culture of nepotism and patronage. The former goes lockstep with EI abuse (I can’t tell you how many times I’d hear about people adjusting their hours just slightly so that they’d “get their stamp” and not have to work for the next six months); the latter serves to frustrate the people who are actually trying to find work, possibly so much so that they give up in extreme cases.
One possible solution could be to get the federal government to actually think about where their grant money should go and not let the provinces allocate it for their own purposes. Maybe give tax breaks to stable, year-round businesses who choose to locate there. Maybe instead of giving year-by-year bailouts to the fishing industry, give them a declining 10-year bailout schedule in which they can either retrain, refocus their business or switch completely before the govt $$ runs out.
Part of it you’ll never get rid of because it’s human nature, but part of it can probably be traced to corruption, incompetence or holes in the system. It’s those last reasons that need to be addressed.
While I do think there are some obvious issues with patronage and nepotism to say it does not affect the rest of Canada as much I think is short-sighted. I believe the patronage may be more pronounced in the Maritimes as a result of the “everyone knows everyone” factor of a much smaller region. Patronage and nepotism are front and centre because you cannot hide in the massive population like you can in Toronto and Montreal.
I agree that money is handed out to some very seasonal businesses but the fact of the matter is most small business in the Maritimes is seasonal. Tourism, agriculture, forestry (to some degree) and fishing are all seasonal. Large businesses (like call centres and manufacturing) are the ones who really give year round full time work. Bringing them to the Maritimes is very hard to do at the best of times (Halifax and Moncton) and impossible to smaller rural towns (Amherst, Parrsboro, etc.) where seasonal employment is enculturated and they could have the biggest benefit.
Forcing people away from seasonal employment is not desirable (especially for a small businees person like a farmer who relies on seasonal employees to harvest crops). Educating and helping them spread themselves beyond their one traditional seasonal job. Yes, that can and should be done.
A tough problem with no one single solution. It will take a number of initiatives to really make a dent unemployment rates as the “culture of unemployment” which we talk about here. The question is: Does government have the political “will” to get the ball rolling and truly spearhead some of the initiatives and work with the private sector?
Leave it. The people will never change. They like it the way it is, and wouldn’t know what to complain about if they all got year-round service industry jobs.
That’s overstatement. It’s really a minority (although a bigger minority than other parts of Canada). But I do think you’ll never eliminate, and barely reduce that.