News Briefs

Laid-off workers give finance minister the boot

Whitby, Ont. — Hundreds of members of the Canadian Auto Workers presented federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty with thousands of pairs of old work boots, gathered from laid off workers from across Ontario. The workers left the boots, each one signed by a laid-off worker, at Flaherty’s campaign office in Whitby, Ont., on Oct. 6 “If there was a report card on the economy, both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty would get an ‘F’ for their performance,” said CAW President Ken Lewenza. Since the Conservatives took office in January 2006, the Oshawa, Ont., area alone has lost more than 6,100 jobs.

Van with 13 workers ‘tragedy waiting to happen’: police

Victoria — Police have charged the owners of a construction company for overloading a two-passenger van with 13 workers. Police pulled over the van on the Patricia Bay Highway on Vancouver Island and discovered two workers sitting in the front seats, nine workers sitting on makeshift benches without seat belts in the back and two other workers sitting on top of other passengers. The overloaded van was “a huge tragedy waiting for a place to happen,” said a police spokesman. The vehicle’s modifications were similar to those of a van carrying 17 women that flipped on the Trans-Canada Highway near Abbotsford, B.C., on March 7, 2007. Three farm workers died. The owners of the construction company face charges under the Motor Vehicle Act, and police say other charges may be coming.

Laid-off workers sue Ford

Oakville, Ont. — Laid-off workers at the Ford assembly plant in Oakville, Ont., are filing a class action suit against the automaker. Earlier this year, the company said it would create an extra 500 jobs at its assembly plant to increase output of cross-over utility vehicles but cancelled the plan in the summer after gasoline prices soared and the American economy began to slow down. Workers who were hired and quit other jobs earlier this year have filed a claim against Ford for the decision.

Sask. lures immigrants west

Toronto — Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall hosted a lamb curry and halal chicken biryani barbecue in Toronto last month in hopes of luring immigrants to his province to fill a growing labour shortage. Wall visited Thorncliffe Park, one of Toronto’s most multicultural neighbourhoods, to reach out to immigrants to fill more than 10,000 new jobs in every industry from health care and the oil patch to high-tech and construction. Immigrants tend to settle in Canada’s big three cities — Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver — overlooking smaller centres such as Saskatoon and Regina. For example, there are twice as many South Asians in Thorncliffe Park than there are in all of Saskatchewan: 8,665 versus 3,990. Fifty employers from Saskatchewan, including Enbridge and the University of Regina, also attended a national job fair in Toronto to lure more workers West.

Children of immigrants better educated: StatsCan

Ottawa — Children of immigrants, especially those from Asian countries, tend to achieve higher levels of education than children of Canadian-born parents, according to Statistics Canada. The study Group Differences in Educational Attainment Among the Children of Immigrants found 28 per cent of young people with Canadian-born parents finished university, compared to more than 65 per cent of young people with immigrant parents from China and India. And nearly one-third of youth whose parents were from the Caribbean, Portugal and the Netherlands completed university. Second-generation German and Central and South American youth had lower completion rates than their counterparts with Canadian-born parents, with just 24 per cent of them graduating from university.