Social Programs

Dans ses contes et ses chansons, Félix Leclerc parle sans cesse des valeurs qui nous habitent, mais qu'il voudrait voir grandir davantage en chacun de nous: le courage, la détermination, l'indépendance, la liberté. Si Leclerc a visé juste en soulignant que " la meilleure façon de tuer un homme, c'est de le payer à ne rien faire ", alors pourquoi les libéraux fédéraux nourrissent-ils des intentions si meurtrières à l'égard de tant de Canadiens? Car quelle autre conclusion peut-on tirer de l'annonce faite par le gouvernement, tout juste avant le déclenchement des élections, voulant que s'il est réélu, il consacrerait 300 millions supplémentaires aux prestations d'emploi destinées aux travailleurs saisonniers? Brian Lee Crowley observe que, toutes les études sérieuses consacrées aux prestations d'emploi versées aux travailleurs saisonniers ont reconnu sa perversité, piégeant génération après génération dans cette sorte de dépendance destructrice dénoncée par Leclerc.

American playwright Eugene O'Neil is best known for poignant tragedies of everyday life in first half of the 20th century America. Sixty years later, O'Neil's words resonate as another modern day tragedy plays out in Atlantic Canada. Recently New Brunswick MP Dominic Leblanc announced on behalf of the election-bound federal government that seasonal workers would be rewarded even more richly for not working. As Brian Lee Crowley writes in his regular column for the Halifax Chronicle Herald and Moncton Times and Transcript, who knew that O'Neil could be talking about Employment Insurance policy when he wrote "There is no present or future - only the past happening over and over again"?

A cardinal rule of economics says if you subsidize something, you'll get more of it. An election-bound federal government recently announced they were adding a further $300-million of your tax dollars to subsidize seasonal work with Employment Insurance. What can we expect as a result? More such work will be created. In this column for the National Post, AIMS president Brian Lee Crowley calls into question the federal government's perverse policy of making access to EI easier for seasonal workers, and extending the period of time during which they can collect benefits.