Confucius once said, “Find a job you love and you will never work another day in your life.” Otherwise, work is just a four-letter word that ends in ‘k.’ There are many who have sought and found that dream job that brings more than just remuneration. It brings satisfaction and a sense of self-purpose to our lives, drawing upon skills that allow us to contribute to society. And this is why we are happy to get up and go to that job every day.
But what happens when this dream job just disappears, through no fault of our own? Life, suddenly, comes to a grinding halt. Our whole sense of being comes into question, and the social stigma of a Presbyterian-influenced culture that praises work and associates it with God’s blessing, starts to undermine our esteem. Thankfully, we have a safety net developed by our society that helps alleviate some of those financial pressures that are also occurring at this same time.
Under our current, ideologically-driven federal government, however, the idea of this social safety net is being eroded, primarily by abstract economic theories and socially conservative values. Instead of trying to understand the reasons why people work, beyond just basic necessity, and trying to help us to get back on our feet, the government has introduced sweeping changes that reflect the interests of corporations rather than the health and well-being of Canadians. In short, they are punishing the innocent and vulnerable of our society.
This is not to say that there have not been abuses of this social safety net in the past. Nor will these draconian measures negate the chances of such abuses happening again. That is the basic flaw of quick-fix, emotionally and ideologically charged solutions – they ignore the greater picture of where the weaknesses are in our economy, and it does not address the realities of why we work in the first place.
Forcing people into lower-paying work or to move across Canada to help abate the labour shortages in a hot economy, fails to address the over-arching questions of why these problems exist. Unemployment is a necessary part of the modern economy. When the number is too high, it slows an economy down; when it is too low, it removes basic competition and it over-heats the economy.
Both of these reasons are usually created by a government’s mismanagement of the overall economy. Trying to resolve these problems, however, by viewing Canadians as nothing more than a labour supply, is to ‘commodify’ us, which is not that far from treating us as a form of chattel – as property. But why do those in charge think they have a right of ownership over us, a right to say what happens to us?
Life is a lottery, for which few will truly be big winners. Most of those who are ‘successful’ rarely admit that the luck of birth and personal connections are the very essence of their success. It is not that hard work does not play its part in success, but it is more the anomaly rather than the rule. If we start to understand this, then there has to be more to work other than just being able to consume and to keep those at the top in their economic comfort.
That is why our Employment Insurance (EI) program is important – it offers hope. Otherwise, we are just feudal serfs – slaves, labouring away in an economy that will never benefit us. And without that hope, all the other rules make no sense.
John Kennair is an international consultant and doctor of laws who lives in St. Albert.
