With all due respect, I believe Chad Jenkins' fears for the community should Hortons and other snack and fast food outlets close, is just a little overblown: what buyers stop spending on one product or service, they spend on another, and there are myriad businesses in St. Albert to spend money on, including hairdressing, health clubs, theatre, and real food.
It is ironic, also, that in an intensely capitalistic part of the world, soon to include all of it, if the U.S. has its way, proprietors would ask for special government programs that underwrite their businesses: the principle of capitalism is that if you feel you are not making enough profit when paying a wage people will actually work for, you fold, and leave the market open to capitalistic forces. And although the donut business is hardly an essential service, there is a niche for it and the closing of one outlet will increase the market share for donut sellers in other outlets — and thus allow the proprietors to offer a decent wage. That's how it works.
Also ironic it is that The Philippines, from where many temporary workers originate, was in 1898 invaded by the U.S. in the name of the free market: hundreds of thousands were killed in Indonesia in 1965 for this very reason: they were a little too communitarian to suit the “system.” So it is dismaying that businesses claim they can't operate within the system made possible by the sacrifice of so many lives. Filipinos are great people and they should be allowed to immigrate in numbers and be protected by Canadian labour laws, such as they are: instead, they are in an essentially exploitative position which can become more so, with no recourse to our laws whatsoever in a government-sponsored initiative that smacks of slavery. And it is a specious argument that makes a bad situation seem better by comparison, especially when bad conditions in home countries are a direct result of western policies.
Jenkins' domino theory is not new and although relates to St. Albert, is hardly more viable than earlier, more insidious versions.
Doris Wrench Eisler, St. Albert
