Why Stephen Poloz’s advice for young Canadians is so totally wrong: Salutin

[CHIMO]

Finance minister Joe Oliver chimed in unhelpfully saying the young face a Catch-22 since you can’t get the experience you need if you don’t already have some. Ergo take the free work. Sorry, Joe, but no. They’ve tried that. Plus they’re probably temping to scrounge enough for rent and coffee — as “associates” in retail or hospitality, say, where they get inflated titles in lieu of decent wages. They work while they work to find work.

My own response to hearing the young talk about this is mostly sadness — at their inclination to take the burden of responsibility on themselves. They assume they haven’t done enough, maybe they should check those listings once more, pad the resumé a tad, volunteer again. This in turn opens the way for “life coaches” who reinforce the sense that it’s all your personal failure. Meanwhile those with resources to seriously expand the job market keep cutting jobs instead. This week Scotiabank slashed 1500, after “sky-high” profits.

You know what really scars the young? Being betrayed by an older generation with the power and position to affect the forces that affect them, who say instead to work for free and maybe, eventually, it might work out.

This week I attended a gala for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and happened to meet Jean-Pierre Kingsley. He’s a brave bureaucrat, former boss at Elections Canada. He fought lengthy battles with Stephen Harper over integrity in the voting process. Others with guts, like budget officer Kevin Page and StatsCan head Munir Sheikh, are gone too and replaced by ciphers (or worse) such as Poloz. But, like The Doctor in Doctor Who, those guys managed to regenerate after an earlier generation of high-level civil servants went over to the dark side. The question is, How many regenerations do they have in them?

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/11/06/why_stephen_polozs_advice_for_young_canadians_is_so_totally_wrong_salutin.html

[riverbendviewgal]

1. what an elitist smuck

He is a Harper Harpee, an American wanna be Romney. I hope his children never can find a job. Ha, but they will be handed theirs without ever looking on a jobs page. We know the banks practice nepotism and hire their executives children.

I miss Mark Carney. He was human.

[arikara]

2. I worked for free for a gov't agency

It was supposed to be a 3 week "work experience" which could lead to paid work, after completing a computer science program. I did all the work the micromanaging b*tch had lined up in the first couple of days and she complained that I worked too fast. The third afternoon she had me in a cold dirty storage room located underground in their parkade, writing down the serial numbers of old computer systems. That was my last day and I would never do slave labour again, nor recommend it.

A person should be paid when they work. Period. And if they do an unpaid "work experience", the so-called experience should relate to the job they are training for.

[laundry_queen]

3. Agreed.

I will never agree with unpaid internships. Ever. It's nothing more than slave labour. It never helps the people who need it - it only helps those who don't need it at all.