Author Archives: CanucksBanter

ACTION ALERT: Protect B.C.’s water from corporate freeloaders

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Please take a moment to sign and share this important petition!

Imagine a place where companies can take as much water as they want. They don’t need to ask permission from government or the community. And they don’t have to pay any fees for the water they use. Sound unbelievable?

Well, it’s not – at least not in British Columbia.

B.C. doesn’t require companies to apply for permits when they withdraw groundwater, nor to report how much water they are taking. This allows industries, such as bottled water and fracking, to use groundwater at no cost.

Nestlé alone withdraws 265 million litres of groundwater a year from Hope, B.C.

Tell the B.C. government that enough is enough. You want action now! Sign the petition here.

20 bar employees file labour complaints over alleged bilked pay

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By Kate Webb   http://metronews.ca

Vancouver, B.C.

  Robbie Sanchez, former manager of Mavericks Sports Lounge on Kingsway, says he worked 19-hour days without proper compensation.

 

At least 20 employees staged a walkout earlier this month at a Mount Pleasant sports bar and have filed complaints with the Employment Standards Branch over allegations they were shortchanged hundreds of hours in pay, Metro has learned.

The majority of the complaints were filed together on Aug. 12 against Mike O’Connell, owner of Mavericks Sports Lounge at 395 Kingsway.

Collectively, the claims contain dozens of allegations of unpaid shifts, overtime and vacation pay, pay rates below the minimum wage, excessive hours, disrespectful treatment, and human rights abuses.

O’Connell denies all the claims, which are being investigated by the Employment Standards Branch and have not been proven.

19-hour days

Robbie Sanchez used to be the manager at Mavericks and said he considers his former job “modern slavery.”

He alleges he was expected to come in at 9 a.m. and did every task in the house, from cooking and cleaning to bartending and ordering supplies, because O’Connell did not hire enough staff.

Sanchez would then close the bar at 4 a.m. — seven hours later than the 12 hours employers are legally allowed to ask employees to work in a day.  He asserts he never saw a dime of overtime pay.

“I slept there,” he said. “I had my own blankets rolled up and I slept on the floor there, because my body couldn’t make it.”

Former staff members say O’Connell bought the bar about five months ago and not one person who was working there then is still there now. Many quit, while others were fired.

Two cooks claim they were paid $9 an hour even though the minimum wage in B.C. is $10.25. They also allege their pay cheques were often late.

In early August several employees allegedly noticed their paychecks were drastically less than they should be.

“People cried,” Sanchez said. “The ladies in the kitchen were all crying because he was paying them $9 an hour, and then they waited for that check, and on top of that he took 47 hours from their pay.”

Fired while pregnant

Waitress Stephanie Lipp, 24, was about four months pregnant when O’Connell bought the bar.

“Our manager at the time… ended up leaving because he couldn’t get along with Mike, and when he left he told me ‘We’ve all been trying to save your job. He’s wanted to fire you from day one because of your pregnancy.’”

Lipp says when she confronted O’Connell they argued about it.

“He denied it of course. I sat down with him and tried to talk to him and I was like, ‘You realize that you can’t fire me on the basis of my pregnancy,’ and he was like, ‘Oh, I can give everyone whatever shifts I want and I’m not firing you.’”

When he cut Lipp’s shifts down to one day per week she quit and phoned a lawyer.

She has since filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal for wrongful termination, which has not been resolved.

Unable to pay dad’s hospital bills

Virginia Dalaguiado is one of the cooks who alleges she was paid only $9 an hour.

The Filipina immigrant scrimped and saved so she could send money home each month to pay hospital bills for her elderly father, who is half paralyzed, and her elderly mother is also ill and in and out of hospital.

Reached by phone on Friday she cried as she recounted what it was like when she got her paycheck late, only to discover there would not be enough to send anything home after she paid her bills and rent.

“We agreed [on] $11 an hour,” she said. “I work July 15 and then Aug. 8 I receive my first cheque. From July 15 until July 31 I work 120 hours. He paid me only 80 hours and $9 is the rate.”

She has not been unable to find employment since and said she doesn’t know how she will pay her bills.

“I was not able to send money for the month of July. The hospital knows we can’t pay, because I am the only one supporting the family,” she said.

All claims denied

The Employment Standards Branch confirmed it is investigating a total of 20 complaints against Mavericks. Sanchez said another five are pending.

“As this is an active complaint file, no further information can be provided at this time,” said spokesman David Currie in an email.

“The branch looks at every complaint it receives, and each complaint is treated equally.”

When asked how the branch investigates, Currie said disclosing that could compromise the investigation.

Reached by phone on Friday O’Connell initially agreed to a sit-down interview at Mavericks, but later backed out.

“I’m not going to be discussing this here situation. We have never heard nothing from the labour board that we had complaints, me or my accountant,” he said.

He dismissed the allegations as “totally untrue,” and when asked to elaborate, O’Connell suggested booking an appointment to sit down with him and his accountant next week.

Currie said the Employment Standards Branch receives 6,000 to 7,000 complaints every year and recovers on average about $6.5 million in wages owed on behalf of employees.

Guardian Charlottetown: Prorogation proves pivotal to prime minister

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Harper delays Parliament’s return to redirect attention to economy

https://i0.wp.com/www.theguardian.pe.ca/images/logo/204_GuardianFlag2013.jpg     Published on August 21, 2013

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has thrived by following the abridged axiom: “if it gets too hot in the House, prorogue Parliament.” It has worked well in previous cases of threatened coalitions and heated questioning in the House of Commons. No one should be surprised the PM has chosen the same course this week.

Why not delay facing his critics by another four to five weeks while he fine tunes a new economic plan to distract Canadians from the Senate scandals and get their attention back on jobs and the economy, a trump card he has played so well the past two elections. Whether it work this time remains to be determined.

While making his annual trek through Canada’s north this week, Mr. Harper confirmed he intends to prorogue what has been a disastrous session of Parliament for his Conservative government, a session largely derailed by the scandal over Senate expenses.

It’s a guarantee that Mr. Harper will still face a barrage of questions about those expenses. But the new session will also give him an opportunity to lay out a fresh legislative agenda, concentrating on economic issues which he hopes will steer the Conservatives to victory in the fall of 2015.

The optics are obvious and they are all wrong for the PM. His decision fools no one. Proroguing also kills a number of pieces of legislation. Is it simply irony or part of the overall strategy that Senate reform legislation is just one of the bills that will die on the order paper? The bill would set nine-year term limits for senators and create a mechanism for elections to the upper chamber.

But this stalling tactic to delay a return to fiery Commons question periods is the smart, political move. Who knows what other contentious issue, either nationally or internationally, might arise by late October that could push the Senate scandal off the front pages. It makes little sense to meet NDP, Liberal and Green MPs any earlier than necessary. The PM is a master at the game of playing politics.

The prime minister has used prorogation very effectively in his career. In December 2008, it saved his government from a looming defeat at the hands of a dubious Liberal, NDP and Parti Quebecois coalition, an alliance desperate for power. He prorogued again the following year, halting heated House of Commons committee hearings into the treatment of Afghan detainees.

So Canadians will see a new throne speech in October that will finish off some old business of course, but more importantly set out a new direction for the country towards the end of this decade.

Mr. Harper has already tested the central theme of the next election, attacking other party leaders who have “vacuous minds” and featuring out of control, hire and spend agendas. But he can also expect repeated question about his own good judgment concerning an ill-advised decision to appoint 18 senators, many with dubious credentials, in December 2008 with his government facing defeat and his own future in doubt. That class of 2008 included Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau and Michael Duffy.

So, while NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair thunders a barrage of criticism this week about a desperate government worn out by ethical scandals and mismanagement, and Deputy Liberal leader Ralph Goodale suggests that Mr. Harper is trying to avoid answering questions about his former chief of staff’s $90,000 cheque to Sen. Duffy, the prime minister is nonchalantly posing for photo ops with polar bears, far from the madding crowd.

Democracy delayed

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Staff ~ The Cape Breton Post      Published on August 22, 2013

Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a sound argument for proroguing Parliament. He says it’s a chance for his government to set out its agenda for the last half of its current mandate via a new throne speech.

Fair enough. But extending the parliamentary break by about a month in concert with prorogation is both unnecessary and undemocratic.

So far in 2013, the House of Commons sat for 75 days, between Jan. 28 and June 18, after which MPs started their three-month summer break.

They were due back in the House on Sept. 16, but now the prime minister says that parliamentarians won’t get their bums back in the House of Commons seats until October, reportedly after Thanksgiving, which lands in the middle of the month.

As NDP Leader Tom Mulcair noted, Harper could prorogue and restart Parliament with a throne speech on Sept. 16. There’s no need for an extended break.

In June, Mervyn Poole of North Sydney penned a letter to the editor criticizing the length of the House of Commons summer break. He wrote: “Three months is preposterous. A month seems ample to me.”

In response, Sydney-Victoria MP Mark Eyking wrote that he would spend the break “attending meetings, festivals and community events, travelling hundreds of kilometres around Cape Breton and enjoying it. This gives me the opportunity to hear first-hand the constituents’ personal issues and community concerns to take back to Ottawa in September.”

Eyking added: “I enjoy travelling and connecting with everyone throughout the summer. I guess you could say I am on a working vacation.”

That wasn’t a surprising response coming from Eyking, who, like many politicians, isn’t known for his dynamic parliamentary speaking skills or for his mastery of policy matters. His advantage lies in being a strong constituency politician — attending as many community events, shaking as many hands, listening to as many complaints and appearing in as many photos as possible.

Constituency work is important. But Parliament exists for a reason.

After Harper prorogued Parliament in December 2009, Cape Breton Post political columnist David Johnson wrote a followup piece.

Johnston stated: “Canadians love to make fun of politicians and to lament the silly games and partisanship often found in Parliament, especially in question period. But such criticisms should never be seen as Canadians showing disrespect for the institution of Parliament, or laughing at the symbolism of Parliament.

“To most Canadians, Parliament is where the government works. Parliament is where our democratically elected representatives are supposed to serve us. Parliament is where Canadian democracy is enshrined.”

By extending the current parliamentary break by another month, Harper can delay answering uncomfortable and potentially damaging questions about, for example, Sen. Pamela Wallin’s inappropriately claimed travel expenses, which, we learned Wednesday, total almost $139,000.

At the same time, the prime minister will delay democracy.

 

 

Prorogation marks desperate attempt to change the channel

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Written by Carol Hughes, MP

Friday, 23 August 2013    http://www.wawa-news.com

If you watched Question Period during the last five weeks parliament sat in the spring, you didn’t see much of the Prime Minister.  When Stephen Harper was around over that stretch, it was anything but smooth sailing.  Day after day he faced a tough line of questioning from Tom Mulcair about the Mike Duffy/Senate expense scandal and the attempted cover-up performed by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.  His answers were weak and it was clear he was losing patience with the situation.

For a man with a reputation for controlling every situation it was easy to understand that he wouldn’t want to be in Question Period.   That doesn’t mean that he should have avoided Parliament so much.  Much the same, it is no excuse to avoid facing those same, tough, unanswered questions, but that is what the Prime Minister is doing by proroguing Parliament and delaying the start of the autumn sitting likely by as much a five weeks.

The problem with the growing cynicism over prorogation is of the Prime Minister’s own making.  This is the fourth time he has used the parliamentary tool and in each case it has been employed primarily to avoid scandal.   The scandal he is avoiding this time is also of his own making. With the exception of Liberal Senator, Mac Harb, Stephen Harper appointed the Senators at the centre of the storm.

Throughout the summer the problem has only deepened.  While we do hear less about Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright, we are hearing more and more about Senator Pamela Wallin, who has now been ordered to repay $138,970 due to misappropriation and is the subject of an ongoing RCMP investigation.

It looks as if the Prime Minister considered the appropriateness of his Senate appointments as a secondary concern when vetting candidates.  The clear emphasis seems to have been on whether they were politically useful to the Conservative Party – especially with Senators Duffy and Wallin. 

Now it is time to be accountable for those appointments and any attempts that members of the Prime Minister’s inner circle have made to sweep these problems under the rug.  Instead of returning to Parliament, answering the tough questions, and working our way through the government bills that remain at various stages of the parliamentary process, the Prime Minister is going to hide out for another month and start from scratch – again.

This buys a little time, but Canadians are clearly outraged by the entitled behavior of these patronage appointees and that anger won’t dissipate as quickly as the Prime Minister hopes.  What is being slowly ground down is any faith Canadians have in the effectiveness of our democratic institutions.  It is beyond ironic that the Senate, which is inherently undemocratic, is at the heart of the problem.  While the Prime Minister makes vague statements about reforming the Senate, public opinion is growing in support of the long held New Democrat position that we should just abolish it altogether.

As far as answering for the actions of his patronage appointees and senior members of his inner circle, the Prime Minister will eventually have to deal with the fact that no amount of hiding can wash away the bitter taste of deceit that Canadians are experiencing.  Although it is clear he is going to give that another try.