Alexa and Peter are dead.
I was home from work on Friday so I didn't feed them till eleven when I realised that Alexa was dead. Peter was pushing her body around the fish tank sort of aimlessly.
So I took her out and cleaned the tank and the filters and checked Peter for lice etc but he looked okay.
But today, when we got up he was sitting on the bottom of the tank, obviously in trouble. And when we tried to push him gently to see whether he would move, he shot forward, knocked his head against the filter and died!
I feel like such a failure. I'm sure I overfed them.
It's very quiet now with no tank bubbling away in the corner.
Himself has taken them back to the island to bury them under the chestnut tree in the yard.
Together forever...
They were only goldfish but they were great company for me when I was alone here last winter.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Moose Doosie and other critters - two
Not having a green bin down at the house on the island, we dump our organic waste outside the house where it lasts approximately forty seconds before it is taken by one of the many critters that share the neighbourhood with us. Usually the crows get to it first, having a helicopter view of the food situation, but it can attract raccoons and our pet deer too. If the location and time of day are right.
Crows are very intelligent critters, aren’t they? Down on the island, we have a mess of crows that wake us up every morning – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw they go - from about 6.30 onwards, insistently stirring up the whole house.
Usually I burn the toast in the morning, as I forget I am using the oven grill and not a toaster. Plus it’s the morning, so I can’t handle complicated technology.
Also it’s an excuse to put burnt toast out on the deck and watch quietly to see what will come for it.
If we sit quietly for a few minutes, momma crow (that’s who we think she is anyway) usually sidles up along the wall of the house, NYPD style, and slowly sticks her head around the edge of the patio doors for a look-see.
The first hint we get is when the sharp corner of a beak appears in the bottom right hand corner of the door. The trick is not to laugh, no matter how much you want to, as she takes the hump and flies off if you do.
She checks four or five times, exposing more of her head each time. We have to stuff our fists in our mouths to stop shaking with laughter.
Then, when she thinks it’s safe, she whips her head around to signal to the others – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw – who swoop down and carry off the booty.
A sort of crow version of Heist.
Not only that, but if you nip over to the back of the house and check out the kitchen window, you can watch them dipping the toast in a puddle to moisten it.
Very intelligent critters.
We got apples for the deer, to try to get them to come up to the back of the house, and all day that day you could see the crows hauling them, one at a time, off to wherever it is they stash their food.
We see the deer at night usually: a doe and two fawns. They come out of the woods at the back of the house and walk down to the orchard to eat the rose hips growing around the pond. If you drive up to the house at night, the headlights of the car will pick out three pairs of glistening eyes.
Himself is hoping that deer will evolve soon and start to realise that looking at a light is what gets them killed. There’ll be a new breed of super-deer, all wearing designer shades. Of course, it doesn’t stop him from shining a light out the back of the house every night in search of Mr. Buck. Who’s fair game apparently. Who knows this. Who’s far too canny to come down to the house in search of rose hips.
That’s what the missus is for.
She in her turn sends the fawns out first.
They gently nuzzle each rosehip off the branch individually, legs all akimbo trying to balance eating and standing.
It’s hunting season in Nova Scotia, so we are desperately hoping that no one will shoot them by mistake (or design). Hence the apples to keep the doe and fawns coming to our yard at night when the woods are full of people trying to shoot something.
Some people, who are the epitomy of ‘the market will solve everything’ philosophy that results in so many selfish actions, and the reason why this planet is in such bad shape, put apples in piles in the woods and then sit in a tree above the apples and shoot the deer when they come out to eat them.
Those people shouldn’t be allowed to shoot deer. In fact, those people should be invited to a free party, in a big fenced off area, which has a bar under a tree, and see if they like being duped.
Last Saturday morning, Himself had driven to work and I was upstairs when I heard a ‘come quick’ hissed from the kitchen. I went down and K was gesticulating wildly in the direction of the kitchen window, which looks out up the hill behind the house into the orchard and the woods behind.
The doe was frozen to the spot in the yard, staring in the window at us. She’d never been that close before. Then I realised, the car was gone, so she must have assumed the house was empty.
Little minx. She’s been coming down to eat the rosehips when Himself is gone to work.
I get such a kick out of watching animals engage with the possibilities offered by human neighbours.
Last week we had mackerel for supper and left the heads and tails on a platter on the deck for the raccoons.
Bad idea. The raccoons came alright, but hauled the mackerel heads off the platter round to the side deck to eat them in peace. Next day there was dried blood everywhere and teeny, tiny, blood-stained raccoon footprints running over and back across the deck, down the steps and along the footpath to the brook that runs in front of the house.
They snuck them out from underneath our noses that time. During the summer, we often got to see them sneak onto the deck to grab whatever we’d left out for them. I always imagine they’re a form of guerrilla fox with their bandanas and small handlike paws.
Then there are the squirrels.
Last weekend we went walking in the woods to see if we could find the buck that must be around somewhere and sure enough after about twenty minutes of tracking prints and scraped earth and trees (it being the rutting season) we turned a corner into a glade and there he was, just about to leap into the trees and freedom. If I was one to anthropomorphise animals I would say he tossed his antlers disdainfully at us before he leaped.
We came out of the woods eventually and met a guy on the road who was going to tend to his apple pile. Himself told him all about the buck we’d seen, up back of the old road, over a piece and toward so and so’s place, just by that alder stand where the such and such happened etc etc.
Captain Golden Delicious was delighted with the news and roared off in his pick-up. We walked on.
“Why did you tell him about the buck?”
“So he’d go lookin’ for it.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Well, he won’t find it where I told him it was, now will he?”
I had to take his word for it. News of his demise has not filtered through the community yet, though, so I have to assume he’s safe.
Not that we didn’t make a desultory effort to get him.
Towards dusk Himself loaded his gun and we went back up to the woods and climbed a tree where he has an old door lashed into place as a deer stand. We sat there for over an hour but Mr. Buck didn’t show.
Of course not.
We were sitting in the wrong tree, as far as I could see, it being about two hundred yards off the deer tracks we’d found earlier. There was another tree a bit further on that would have been more suitable. But I didn’t say anything.
I think Himself doesn’t have the heart to shoot a deer in front of me. I think he just wanted us to sit in a tree and hear the music of the woods settling down for the night.
After twenty minutes it was so quiet I could hear my blood running around my body.
Then a squirrel came along. He jumped from tree to tree underneath us, taking his time. Then he landed on our tree and scurried past and on up the hill. He was headed to another tree further up the glade, where his lady friend lives. I know this because I was sitting under that tree in the sunshine by myself a couple of weeks ago and they started going at it with great gusto, right above my head.
It was nearly dark anyways, and I had to climb out of the tree, so we decided it was time to leave.
You know you’re re-connecting with your environment when you leave the squirrels to enjoy the twilight in peace, don’t you!!
Crows are very intelligent critters, aren’t they? Down on the island, we have a mess of crows that wake us up every morning – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw they go - from about 6.30 onwards, insistently stirring up the whole house.
Usually I burn the toast in the morning, as I forget I am using the oven grill and not a toaster. Plus it’s the morning, so I can’t handle complicated technology.
Also it’s an excuse to put burnt toast out on the deck and watch quietly to see what will come for it.
If we sit quietly for a few minutes, momma crow (that’s who we think she is anyway) usually sidles up along the wall of the house, NYPD style, and slowly sticks her head around the edge of the patio doors for a look-see.
The first hint we get is when the sharp corner of a beak appears in the bottom right hand corner of the door. The trick is not to laugh, no matter how much you want to, as she takes the hump and flies off if you do.
She checks four or five times, exposing more of her head each time. We have to stuff our fists in our mouths to stop shaking with laughter.
Then, when she thinks it’s safe, she whips her head around to signal to the others – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw – who swoop down and carry off the booty.
A sort of crow version of Heist.
Not only that, but if you nip over to the back of the house and check out the kitchen window, you can watch them dipping the toast in a puddle to moisten it.
Very intelligent critters.
We got apples for the deer, to try to get them to come up to the back of the house, and all day that day you could see the crows hauling them, one at a time, off to wherever it is they stash their food.
We see the deer at night usually: a doe and two fawns. They come out of the woods at the back of the house and walk down to the orchard to eat the rose hips growing around the pond. If you drive up to the house at night, the headlights of the car will pick out three pairs of glistening eyes.
Himself is hoping that deer will evolve soon and start to realise that looking at a light is what gets them killed. There’ll be a new breed of super-deer, all wearing designer shades. Of course, it doesn’t stop him from shining a light out the back of the house every night in search of Mr. Buck. Who’s fair game apparently. Who knows this. Who’s far too canny to come down to the house in search of rose hips.
That’s what the missus is for.
She in her turn sends the fawns out first.
They gently nuzzle each rosehip off the branch individually, legs all akimbo trying to balance eating and standing.
It’s hunting season in Nova Scotia, so we are desperately hoping that no one will shoot them by mistake (or design). Hence the apples to keep the doe and fawns coming to our yard at night when the woods are full of people trying to shoot something.
Some people, who are the epitomy of ‘the market will solve everything’ philosophy that results in so many selfish actions, and the reason why this planet is in such bad shape, put apples in piles in the woods and then sit in a tree above the apples and shoot the deer when they come out to eat them.
Those people shouldn’t be allowed to shoot deer. In fact, those people should be invited to a free party, in a big fenced off area, which has a bar under a tree, and see if they like being duped.
Last Saturday morning, Himself had driven to work and I was upstairs when I heard a ‘come quick’ hissed from the kitchen. I went down and K was gesticulating wildly in the direction of the kitchen window, which looks out up the hill behind the house into the orchard and the woods behind.
The doe was frozen to the spot in the yard, staring in the window at us. She’d never been that close before. Then I realised, the car was gone, so she must have assumed the house was empty.
Little minx. She’s been coming down to eat the rosehips when Himself is gone to work.
I get such a kick out of watching animals engage with the possibilities offered by human neighbours.
Last week we had mackerel for supper and left the heads and tails on a platter on the deck for the raccoons.
Bad idea. The raccoons came alright, but hauled the mackerel heads off the platter round to the side deck to eat them in peace. Next day there was dried blood everywhere and teeny, tiny, blood-stained raccoon footprints running over and back across the deck, down the steps and along the footpath to the brook that runs in front of the house.
They snuck them out from underneath our noses that time. During the summer, we often got to see them sneak onto the deck to grab whatever we’d left out for them. I always imagine they’re a form of guerrilla fox with their bandanas and small handlike paws.
Then there are the squirrels.
Last weekend we went walking in the woods to see if we could find the buck that must be around somewhere and sure enough after about twenty minutes of tracking prints and scraped earth and trees (it being the rutting season) we turned a corner into a glade and there he was, just about to leap into the trees and freedom. If I was one to anthropomorphise animals I would say he tossed his antlers disdainfully at us before he leaped.
We came out of the woods eventually and met a guy on the road who was going to tend to his apple pile. Himself told him all about the buck we’d seen, up back of the old road, over a piece and toward so and so’s place, just by that alder stand where the such and such happened etc etc.
Captain Golden Delicious was delighted with the news and roared off in his pick-up. We walked on.
“Why did you tell him about the buck?”
“So he’d go lookin’ for it.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Well, he won’t find it where I told him it was, now will he?”
I had to take his word for it. News of his demise has not filtered through the community yet, though, so I have to assume he’s safe.
Not that we didn’t make a desultory effort to get him.
Towards dusk Himself loaded his gun and we went back up to the woods and climbed a tree where he has an old door lashed into place as a deer stand. We sat there for over an hour but Mr. Buck didn’t show.
Of course not.
We were sitting in the wrong tree, as far as I could see, it being about two hundred yards off the deer tracks we’d found earlier. There was another tree a bit further on that would have been more suitable. But I didn’t say anything.
I think Himself doesn’t have the heart to shoot a deer in front of me. I think he just wanted us to sit in a tree and hear the music of the woods settling down for the night.
After twenty minutes it was so quiet I could hear my blood running around my body.
Then a squirrel came along. He jumped from tree to tree underneath us, taking his time. Then he landed on our tree and scurried past and on up the hill. He was headed to another tree further up the glade, where his lady friend lives. I know this because I was sitting under that tree in the sunshine by myself a couple of weeks ago and they started going at it with great gusto, right above my head.
It was nearly dark anyways, and I had to climb out of the tree, so we decided it was time to leave.
You know you’re re-connecting with your environment when you leave the squirrels to enjoy the twilight in peace, don’t you!!
Friday, November 17, 2006
Moosie Doosie and other critters - one
I’m no Kate Moss.
For one thing, I’m dating a bassist. Not a lead singer. The bassist in Bandit, doncha know. Not the highly strung, former Libertine and current frontman of Babyshambles. My bassist is not a crack head neither, although he likes his vodka.
I’m not dressed like her neither. No thigh high boots topped by a pair of slinky shorts for this girl, although I’ve had my fashion moments. I’m wearing jeans and a fleece top, to ward off the evening fog creeping in from the Bay of Fundy.
I’m not chopping high grade cocaine into lines on top of an amp, long brown hair hiding my face.
I’m not hanging with Pete and his mates in a recording studio somewhere in trendiest London. I am in Freeport, Long Island, Nova Scotia. With Himself and his band mates, who are tuning up and drinking beer and doing all the noisy, pointless things that men do when they’re getting ready to play.
We are sitting in Bandit’s band shed. And it is Saturday night, just as it is all over the world.
We all find our own level of glamour. This is mine currently.
No rock stars in my firmament. Just real ones. Peeking through the fog swirling around Freeport.
Moosie Doosie is staring at me from underneath his fez. At least, I think he is. I can’t see behind his enormous yellow Elton John sunglasses. When I asked the guys, they said Himself had gotten him in Cape Breton and brought him home. He’s their mascot. He being the head of a four hundred pound bull moose, mounted onto a mahogany panel for display purposes. I found out later that Moosie Doosie used to hang on the living room wall in Himself’s house, where he convinced his young nieces and nephews that Moosie ran down the hill so fast he burst through one day and got stuck.
Looking at Moosie, I thought nice buy, dude, despite the fez and the sunglasses. Well spotted. He has a great eye for the eclectic, my man. A nip into some grubby ‘antiques’ store in Cape Breton must have resulted in this find.
Then I’m told Himself found Moosie Doosie standing in a swamp in Cape Breton, tracked him, circled him, shot him in the heart, then shot him six more times to stop Moosie’s death charge towards them in its tracks, tagged him, bled him, then winched him onto a truck and drove him home.
Of course.
Silly me.
Anyways, he’s retired from the house onto the wall of the band shed, alongside a poster of Elvira looking very 1985, pouting down from where she is draped over the bonnet of a classic car.
This is not the first band shed I have hung out in during a long life of trying to score the coolest guy in the room, but it is by far the coolest. And I’ve scored the coolest guy in the room.
Band sheds. As women have houses and living rooms and kitchens beauty parlours and shopping malls to bond in, men have band sheds.
Being a doyenne of these things, I understand the privilege of my position – a girl in the band shed. So I sit and drink my beer and stay quiet.
Across from my perch on the sofa (or cot as they say on long island), the wall is lined by an enormous baby blue cooler, lifted from a Dairy Queen years ago. Its got wonderful fifties curved lines. A relic of the days when things were made by people who had jobs in factories and mortgages and cars, not life sentences for sedition and a cot in a labour camp.
Down at the far end is a wood stove and a dart board.
Male heaven. Aren’t I the privileged little Queenie. Being allowed into the bandshed.
I am sitting on a green sofa, which is surprisingly clean and comfortable for a band shed sofa. I have a twelve pack of Schooner and three of the Bandits are tuning up while the drummer, who’s had quite a bit to drink today apparently, tries to crawl to the drum kit.
It’s proving pretty difficult for him to manoeuvre his way through the cables and amps and mike stands arranged around the practice area, even on all fours. In happy acknowledgement of his master’s quadrapedic behaviour, his Mamaluke is wandering around knocking things over with his tail.
Hell that’s a big dog. He can eyeball me when I’m sitting down. An Alaskan canine version of Boxer (Animal Farm), bred to pull extraordinarily heavy weights over short distances on ice. Because of that breeding, his shoulders are huge and his haunches are over-developed, but because of his thick fur you can’t see the muscle, and so he looks like an obese huskie without their cold cold eyes. After he knocks over my beer twice in vain attempts to lick me with his loofah of a tongue, I get his owner to put him outside.
This proves more traumatic for the owner than for the Mamaluke, as outside can only be reached by a steep staircase that plunges into the darkness of the hall. I forgot to mention that, didn’t I. The band shed isn’t a shed, it’s an old house the guys have done over to hang out in.
Of course.
What do you do when you’re in your thirties and you can’t play guitar at home anymore because you’ll wake the kids? You buy an old house in Freeport, near the Legion of course, and turn it into your dream hangout.
For one thing, I’m dating a bassist. Not a lead singer. The bassist in Bandit, doncha know. Not the highly strung, former Libertine and current frontman of Babyshambles. My bassist is not a crack head neither, although he likes his vodka.
I’m not dressed like her neither. No thigh high boots topped by a pair of slinky shorts for this girl, although I’ve had my fashion moments. I’m wearing jeans and a fleece top, to ward off the evening fog creeping in from the Bay of Fundy.
I’m not chopping high grade cocaine into lines on top of an amp, long brown hair hiding my face.
I’m not hanging with Pete and his mates in a recording studio somewhere in trendiest London. I am in Freeport, Long Island, Nova Scotia. With Himself and his band mates, who are tuning up and drinking beer and doing all the noisy, pointless things that men do when they’re getting ready to play.
We are sitting in Bandit’s band shed. And it is Saturday night, just as it is all over the world.
We all find our own level of glamour. This is mine currently.
No rock stars in my firmament. Just real ones. Peeking through the fog swirling around Freeport.
Moosie Doosie is staring at me from underneath his fez. At least, I think he is. I can’t see behind his enormous yellow Elton John sunglasses. When I asked the guys, they said Himself had gotten him in Cape Breton and brought him home. He’s their mascot. He being the head of a four hundred pound bull moose, mounted onto a mahogany panel for display purposes. I found out later that Moosie Doosie used to hang on the living room wall in Himself’s house, where he convinced his young nieces and nephews that Moosie ran down the hill so fast he burst through one day and got stuck.
Looking at Moosie, I thought nice buy, dude, despite the fez and the sunglasses. Well spotted. He has a great eye for the eclectic, my man. A nip into some grubby ‘antiques’ store in Cape Breton must have resulted in this find.
Then I’m told Himself found Moosie Doosie standing in a swamp in Cape Breton, tracked him, circled him, shot him in the heart, then shot him six more times to stop Moosie’s death charge towards them in its tracks, tagged him, bled him, then winched him onto a truck and drove him home.
Of course.
Silly me.
Anyways, he’s retired from the house onto the wall of the band shed, alongside a poster of Elvira looking very 1985, pouting down from where she is draped over the bonnet of a classic car.
This is not the first band shed I have hung out in during a long life of trying to score the coolest guy in the room, but it is by far the coolest. And I’ve scored the coolest guy in the room.
Band sheds. As women have houses and living rooms and kitchens beauty parlours and shopping malls to bond in, men have band sheds.
Being a doyenne of these things, I understand the privilege of my position – a girl in the band shed. So I sit and drink my beer and stay quiet.
Across from my perch on the sofa (or cot as they say on long island), the wall is lined by an enormous baby blue cooler, lifted from a Dairy Queen years ago. Its got wonderful fifties curved lines. A relic of the days when things were made by people who had jobs in factories and mortgages and cars, not life sentences for sedition and a cot in a labour camp.
Down at the far end is a wood stove and a dart board.
Male heaven. Aren’t I the privileged little Queenie. Being allowed into the bandshed.
I am sitting on a green sofa, which is surprisingly clean and comfortable for a band shed sofa. I have a twelve pack of Schooner and three of the Bandits are tuning up while the drummer, who’s had quite a bit to drink today apparently, tries to crawl to the drum kit.
It’s proving pretty difficult for him to manoeuvre his way through the cables and amps and mike stands arranged around the practice area, even on all fours. In happy acknowledgement of his master’s quadrapedic behaviour, his Mamaluke is wandering around knocking things over with his tail.
Hell that’s a big dog. He can eyeball me when I’m sitting down. An Alaskan canine version of Boxer (Animal Farm), bred to pull extraordinarily heavy weights over short distances on ice. Because of that breeding, his shoulders are huge and his haunches are over-developed, but because of his thick fur you can’t see the muscle, and so he looks like an obese huskie without their cold cold eyes. After he knocks over my beer twice in vain attempts to lick me with his loofah of a tongue, I get his owner to put him outside.
This proves more traumatic for the owner than for the Mamaluke, as outside can only be reached by a steep staircase that plunges into the darkness of the hall. I forgot to mention that, didn’t I. The band shed isn’t a shed, it’s an old house the guys have done over to hang out in.
Of course.
What do you do when you’re in your thirties and you can’t play guitar at home anymore because you’ll wake the kids? You buy an old house in Freeport, near the Legion of course, and turn it into your dream hangout.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Why there is a worker shortage in Nova Scotia
I am tired listening to employers whinge about how they can't get workers. I really am.
Serious rant alert boys and girls...
There is a growing workers shortage in the province of Nova Scotia. In order to solve this problem we must admit to ourselves exactly why there is a growing shortage.
There is a shortage primarily because there aren't enough people to work in the Halifax Regional Municipality, where most of the jobs are. You might think this is a no-brainer, but in Poland for example, they have an 18% unemployment rate and a shortage of workers. So it is important to make this distinction. Demographic shifts, an ageing workforce, a baby boomer generation who have good pensions and can retire early, and a massive drop in births are the big drivers of this.
I say primarily because there are two other reasons why there are worker shortages.
In some parts of Nova Scotia (Cape Breton, South West Nova) there are high-ish levels of unemployment side by side with worker shortages. In this situation, the government's labour market policy has failed to shift workers from a declining sector (usually primary production or traditional manufacturing) into a developing sector (usually business services or health services). Alternatively, labour market policies have failed because they didn't make it easy for unemployed people to enter the workforce, take up a trade, for example, or to learn IT skills when it became clear that there would be a shortage of these workers.
In some sectors of Nova Scotia (mostly health) there are shortages because there is no one with the available specialist skills and it takes a lot of time and money to create these workers. Tomes have been written about the shortage of health workers in the developed world and there is no consensus apart from the fact that you get what you pay for.
Basically, it is not just demographics. A lot of this is the government's fault. They should have prepared for this.
Now that it's happening, the first thing we need to do is find out what shortages are there exactly, in what sectors, how many and for how long (if there will be too many nurses in three years, then there's no need to panic is there)?
Do what the Paddies did. Set up an Expert Group on Future Skill Needs. Get business, labour, post-secondary and labour market people involved. Make them responsible for their own recommendations. Do separate reports on key sectors - healthcare, trades, ICT transport.
Identify the shortages, identify the reasons for the shortages, identify the ways in which we can eliminate those blockages, identify the future workers, identify how we will train them and when they will be ready. They can be immigrants, or unemployed people brought back to work, or Nova Scotians lured home, or young people coming up, or women, or Mi'k Maq or African Nova Scotians who have been ignored until now or whoever.
Leave no stone unturned.
The next thing we need to understand is why people are leaving. So we can staunch the bleed. All the people I know who left for Alberta did so because they were tired of scratching a living on Nova Scotian wages, paying Nova Scotian taxes and paying off huge Nova Scotian student loans. They would rather live here (where their wives, children, families are) but they can't afford to.
Rant alert
The middle class in this province has its head in the sand about poverty. If you make $60k here and you're in a dual income household you have a pretty good standard of living - two cars, cottage, meals out, bottles of wine, etc with few of the strains of big city life. Why is that? This nice lifestyle is on the back of people who get paid crappy wages to deliver services to you. That's why they're so cheap. This has not sunk in with most people. Europeans take it for granted that in order to have social stability and low levels of poverty, you must have good service wages and a high cost of living.
Extreme rant alert
Here, poverty is an opportunity to show how generous you are. I have never, ever, ever in my life encountered a place where you have to buy a lorry-load of tinned food at the start of the Christmas party scene and pop one or two Campbell's Soup cans into your velvet purse every time you go out. Why? Every social occasion in Nova Scotia is used to collect food for the Food Bank.
I'd rather pay more tax, really I would.
I feel like Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist. It's off to the poor house with you me lad!!
- Pharmacy assistant - $8 an hour x 40 = $320 per week
- Call centre person - $11 an hour x 40 = $440 per week
- Labourer - $10 an hour x 60 = $600 per week
- Truck driver - $15 an hour x 90 = $1,350 per week
Crappy work environment examples:
- A friend recently told me that she earns $10k less in Alberta than she did in Nova Scotia and she still comes out $5 richer on a pay packet.
- Overtime starts in this province after 48 hours. It's worse in the construction sector.
- OHS standards in the construction sector are the worst in Canada. More people die at work here than anywhere else.
- They've just started discussing whether to have legislated lunch breaks here. I kid you not. Even the queen of white collar herself - i.e. moi - rarely gets one.
Enough said.
Okay, back to demographics - a key issue, but one that occurs in other provinces and in other countries. They solve that with immigration. Atlantic Canada's immigration policies have failed for a number of years and very little has been done to redress that. People talk about the need for more immigration. This is true, and we need to develop innovative immigration policies but we also need to look at why there are so few immigrants, apart from the fact that we are not made feel very welcome in AC.
Let's see:
- It's really difficult to get a well-paid job here if you are a graduate.
- Most immigrants to Canada are graduates.
- Immigrants are not prepared to work for $7 - 15 an hour while paying off heavy student debt loads any more than Nova Scotians are.
The business community, having lost the opportunity to lord it over average joe Nova Scotians with crappy jobs, terrible labour standards and mediaeval human resource practices, are now grasping at immigration as a straw.
They have missed the point completely.
Instead of asking themselves - why are all our former workers sitting homesick in Fort McMurray (or Fort McMoney as it's called now), working long hours in terrible weather in a polluted atmosphere, paying exorbitant rents for crappy trailers, when they could be home with their families - they are now thinking, ahaa, we'll get immigrants to come over and fill these spots. Sure they'll be delighted to be let into this great friendly little province.
- Immigrants are not stupid.
They will wonder where all the young people are. And then they will find out and why and move to join them. Because you don't move yourself and your family halfway across the world for $10 an hour.
Yes, in the long term we need better immigration levels, but it's going to take years to convince people to come and settle here, particularly as many young people are leaving. What we need is flexible, innovative migrant worker policies for key sectors. Both skilled and unskilled.
Lots of people would come to work here for a year if it were possible. Then they might possibly like the place and ask to stay for longer. Of course, you would have to attract these people with good wages and resettlement packages and have a govt unit that works with employers to ensure they can drive, get car insurance or health insurance, a credit card, a health card, etc - all the things that are an incredible hassle to organise if you are a migrant worker at the moment.
Extremely extreme rant alert
The government spends all its time advertising Nova Scotia as a place to live to the people who already live here. See www.novascotialife.com for an hilarious look at how important Nova Scotian media analysts think Nova Scotia is.
They should maybe think about advertising it to people who think Halifax is a place in England with a crappy football team and don't realise that it's actually the centre of the universe and the best little city in the world etc. Most people in the world don't know where Halifax is.
I know that's a terribly shocking thing to say but I know my geography and this time two years ago I didn't know where Halifax was. Never mind Pictou County.
So I should wrap up this rant. What I'm trying to say is that there is a reason why this is happening, that is cultural, that is much deeper than ageing population or not enough immigrants. This cultural identity, which is 'I'm alright Jack, so it must be your fault if you're not getting on' fits quite nicely with right wing ideology. It is rampant in Nova Scotia. People have had enough and are leaving in droves. Immigrants are not settling here because it is anathema to them.
Yeah, immigration, training, improved access to education and interesting labour market interventions are exactly how we should solve this problem. They should have a conversation about why they're in this mess sometime too.
We could have a potluck. Talk it over. Don't forget to bring a can for the food bank with you though, or we'll think less of you!!
Serious rant alert boys and girls...
There is a growing workers shortage in the province of Nova Scotia. In order to solve this problem we must admit to ourselves exactly why there is a growing shortage.
There is a shortage primarily because there aren't enough people to work in the Halifax Regional Municipality, where most of the jobs are. You might think this is a no-brainer, but in Poland for example, they have an 18% unemployment rate and a shortage of workers. So it is important to make this distinction. Demographic shifts, an ageing workforce, a baby boomer generation who have good pensions and can retire early, and a massive drop in births are the big drivers of this.
I say primarily because there are two other reasons why there are worker shortages.
In some parts of Nova Scotia (Cape Breton, South West Nova) there are high-ish levels of unemployment side by side with worker shortages. In this situation, the government's labour market policy has failed to shift workers from a declining sector (usually primary production or traditional manufacturing) into a developing sector (usually business services or health services). Alternatively, labour market policies have failed because they didn't make it easy for unemployed people to enter the workforce, take up a trade, for example, or to learn IT skills when it became clear that there would be a shortage of these workers.
In some sectors of Nova Scotia (mostly health) there are shortages because there is no one with the available specialist skills and it takes a lot of time and money to create these workers. Tomes have been written about the shortage of health workers in the developed world and there is no consensus apart from the fact that you get what you pay for.
Basically, it is not just demographics. A lot of this is the government's fault. They should have prepared for this.
Now that it's happening, the first thing we need to do is find out what shortages are there exactly, in what sectors, how many and for how long (if there will be too many nurses in three years, then there's no need to panic is there)?
Do what the Paddies did. Set up an Expert Group on Future Skill Needs. Get business, labour, post-secondary and labour market people involved. Make them responsible for their own recommendations. Do separate reports on key sectors - healthcare, trades, ICT transport.
Identify the shortages, identify the reasons for the shortages, identify the ways in which we can eliminate those blockages, identify the future workers, identify how we will train them and when they will be ready. They can be immigrants, or unemployed people brought back to work, or Nova Scotians lured home, or young people coming up, or women, or Mi'k Maq or African Nova Scotians who have been ignored until now or whoever.
Leave no stone unturned.
The next thing we need to understand is why people are leaving. So we can staunch the bleed. All the people I know who left for Alberta did so because they were tired of scratching a living on Nova Scotian wages, paying Nova Scotian taxes and paying off huge Nova Scotian student loans. They would rather live here (where their wives, children, families are) but they can't afford to.
Rant alert
The middle class in this province has its head in the sand about poverty. If you make $60k here and you're in a dual income household you have a pretty good standard of living - two cars, cottage, meals out, bottles of wine, etc with few of the strains of big city life. Why is that? This nice lifestyle is on the back of people who get paid crappy wages to deliver services to you. That's why they're so cheap. This has not sunk in with most people. Europeans take it for granted that in order to have social stability and low levels of poverty, you must have good service wages and a high cost of living.
Extreme rant alert
Here, poverty is an opportunity to show how generous you are. I have never, ever, ever in my life encountered a place where you have to buy a lorry-load of tinned food at the start of the Christmas party scene and pop one or two Campbell's Soup cans into your velvet purse every time you go out. Why? Every social occasion in Nova Scotia is used to collect food for the Food Bank.
I'd rather pay more tax, really I would.
I feel like Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist. It's off to the poor house with you me lad!!
- Pharmacy assistant - $8 an hour x 40 = $320 per week
- Call centre person - $11 an hour x 40 = $440 per week
- Labourer - $10 an hour x 60 = $600 per week
- Truck driver - $15 an hour x 90 = $1,350 per week
Crappy work environment examples:
- A friend recently told me that she earns $10k less in Alberta than she did in Nova Scotia and she still comes out $5 richer on a pay packet.
- Overtime starts in this province after 48 hours. It's worse in the construction sector.
- OHS standards in the construction sector are the worst in Canada. More people die at work here than anywhere else.
- They've just started discussing whether to have legislated lunch breaks here. I kid you not. Even the queen of white collar herself - i.e. moi - rarely gets one.
Enough said.
Okay, back to demographics - a key issue, but one that occurs in other provinces and in other countries. They solve that with immigration. Atlantic Canada's immigration policies have failed for a number of years and very little has been done to redress that. People talk about the need for more immigration. This is true, and we need to develop innovative immigration policies but we also need to look at why there are so few immigrants, apart from the fact that we are not made feel very welcome in AC.
Let's see:
- It's really difficult to get a well-paid job here if you are a graduate.
- Most immigrants to Canada are graduates.
- Immigrants are not prepared to work for $7 - 15 an hour while paying off heavy student debt loads any more than Nova Scotians are.
The business community, having lost the opportunity to lord it over average joe Nova Scotians with crappy jobs, terrible labour standards and mediaeval human resource practices, are now grasping at immigration as a straw.
They have missed the point completely.
Instead of asking themselves - why are all our former workers sitting homesick in Fort McMurray (or Fort McMoney as it's called now), working long hours in terrible weather in a polluted atmosphere, paying exorbitant rents for crappy trailers, when they could be home with their families - they are now thinking, ahaa, we'll get immigrants to come over and fill these spots. Sure they'll be delighted to be let into this great friendly little province.
- Immigrants are not stupid.
They will wonder where all the young people are. And then they will find out and why and move to join them. Because you don't move yourself and your family halfway across the world for $10 an hour.
Yes, in the long term we need better immigration levels, but it's going to take years to convince people to come and settle here, particularly as many young people are leaving. What we need is flexible, innovative migrant worker policies for key sectors. Both skilled and unskilled.
Lots of people would come to work here for a year if it were possible. Then they might possibly like the place and ask to stay for longer. Of course, you would have to attract these people with good wages and resettlement packages and have a govt unit that works with employers to ensure they can drive, get car insurance or health insurance, a credit card, a health card, etc - all the things that are an incredible hassle to organise if you are a migrant worker at the moment.
Extremely extreme rant alert
The government spends all its time advertising Nova Scotia as a place to live to the people who already live here. See www.novascotialife.com for an hilarious look at how important Nova Scotian media analysts think Nova Scotia is.
They should maybe think about advertising it to people who think Halifax is a place in England with a crappy football team and don't realise that it's actually the centre of the universe and the best little city in the world etc. Most people in the world don't know where Halifax is.
I know that's a terribly shocking thing to say but I know my geography and this time two years ago I didn't know where Halifax was. Never mind Pictou County.
So I should wrap up this rant. What I'm trying to say is that there is a reason why this is happening, that is cultural, that is much deeper than ageing population or not enough immigrants. This cultural identity, which is 'I'm alright Jack, so it must be your fault if you're not getting on' fits quite nicely with right wing ideology. It is rampant in Nova Scotia. People have had enough and are leaving in droves. Immigrants are not settling here because it is anathema to them.
Yeah, immigration, training, improved access to education and interesting labour market interventions are exactly how we should solve this problem. They should have a conversation about why they're in this mess sometime too.
We could have a potluck. Talk it over. Don't forget to bring a can for the food bank with you though, or we'll think less of you!!
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Monday, November 06, 2006
Breathtaking insouciance
I hope I'm using this word in the right context.
Today I sat and watched a presentation from a senior manager in a company that specialises in building systems for fighter jets. He showed a picture of Albert Einstein while talking about 'not knowing the things you don't know', which is of course Rummyspeak. Then he gave us all a lecture on the importance of ethics in business.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I just went back to the office and ate sweets all afternoon and wrote questions on the Nova Scotian economy (which according to this morning's seminar is going down the tubes fast).
And then it snowed.
Thank you for today Baby Jesus. I'll not forget this one in a hurry.
Today I sat and watched a presentation from a senior manager in a company that specialises in building systems for fighter jets. He showed a picture of Albert Einstein while talking about 'not knowing the things you don't know', which is of course Rummyspeak. Then he gave us all a lecture on the importance of ethics in business.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I just went back to the office and ate sweets all afternoon and wrote questions on the Nova Scotian economy (which according to this morning's seminar is going down the tubes fast).
And then it snowed.
Thank you for today Baby Jesus. I'll not forget this one in a hurry.
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