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Don's avatar

Working in the oilsands as a union electrician in 2005, construction began on the CNRL Horizon project North of Ft. Mac, and it was great news (at first) for the Alberta Building Trades ( made up of union trades about  40,000 strong) ,as times were a little slow and most of us were not working. It was around that same time the TFW program was gaining momentum, and the ABT had approached Steve Laut (CNRL president) concerning the Temp workers at Horizon while many in Alberta's (and Canada's) building trades were unemployed and their unions not getting called to work BEFORE any TFWs were hired (which was the law). Mr. Laud ,who had previously stated Horizon would not be hiring TFWs , informed the Building trades that CNRL had no control over who their many foreign contractors they hired to work there. We did protests..went public..but even though CNRL KNEW it was illegal for the TFWs to work there without contacting Canadian unions FIRST they did nothing.. We of course took them to the Supreme Court of Canada..but (as was their plan) it took years going thru court delays etc. ,they were found guilty..but by that time Horizon was pretty much completed. Some of the unions eventually did get called in toward the final months, only to find we were needed to clean up and repair the colossal mess that the contractors and workers had left Horizon in! One of CNRL's contractors from China (DUH!) had a crew of about 1000 Chinese "tradesmen" set up on site camps away from the main sites..they were in charge of building the Tank Farm for the site. During that time, in spite of concerns from local pipefitter/ boilermaker trades being raise about the Chinese tank construction methods being outdated and hazardous,2 of the tanks collapsed..(1 of them killing a few Chinese workers), and the remaining tanks that were near completion were dismantled. Not only that..the Chinese contractor that signed the CNRL contract that stated their workers were to be paid approx. $30/hr had only paid their workers $3 /hr.!! As this came to light after the project's completion, CNRL had to locate all those workers back in China and pay the balance to them for the whole time they were employed. Obviously, we are welcoming Jamil Jivani's petition to scrap the corrupt, TFW program who's 2 main intents were to save Big Oil millions of $$$, and to destroy unions.  WHERE DO WE SIGN!!??

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Bernadette's avatar

CBC need to be defunded. Fed up with there old fashion programs. Not much of sports any more. Gem one can not record if want to watch later.

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