Yeah, I know, cheesy title. Save it. Lisa Raitt’s a aging tart, I can’t do anything to change that. Something about her will perhaps turn me into a female center-left version of Don Cherry, with a better taste in clothes–they’re all black. Something about her just brings out the vulgar language out of me. I wil try to restrain as much as possible.
And one has to wonder how she managed to bamboozle the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to find some kind of shaky loophole in the Canada Labour Code to stave off the Air Canada flight Attendant’s Strike so she, and more importantly, her puppet master, Stevie Spiteful, can enjoy the rest of their week off. Yes, boys ‘n’ girls, the irony isn’t missed on me here.
This notice from the CIRB came after correspondence late this afternoon from the Minister of Labour to the Board. One of the minister’s letters concerns section 87 of the Canada Labour Code, dealing with essential services to be maintained in the event of a strike or lockout. The minister’s intervention with the Labour Board, as it stands, postpones the calling of a strike until the question of essential services has been ruled on.
Essential services? Is she insane? As I’ve pointed out yesterday, if anything Air Canada offered (or any other airline, for that matter) were ‘essential’ for the public at large, why did Brian Mulroney privatize it? Mind you, Stevie is about to privatize real essential services, so perhaps I’m not asking a great question here, but still…
Yes, let’s examine those dire ‘essential’ services at Air Canada, now.
The CIRB said in a statement earlier Wednesday that it is being asked to determine, under section 87.4 of the Canada Labour Code, “whether any services need to be maintained, in the event of a strike or lockout, to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public.
Serious danger to the safety or health of the public? Are they serious? I mean, I’m waiting any moment for Ashton Kutcher to announce that we’ve been collectively ‘punked’ . Not to knock the work that flight attendants do, but let’s have some perspective here, folks. I mean, this isn’t the hospital workers (nurses, doctors, orderlies, technicians, etc), the cops, firefighters, paramedics, ambulance technicians, etc., hell, they’re not even air traffic controllers. Can somebody really explain with a straight face how Air Canada flight attendants going on strike would affect the health and safety of the public at large?
The answer is no one can. Why? Because Air travel is not an essential service. Plain and simple. One glaringly obvious point I’ve made yesterday was that for most working class and middle class Canadians, air travel is prohibitively expensive; most can’t afford it. Even those who can afford it or must travel by air for business purposes, there are other airlines that will take you to where you need to go.
Furthermore, even for business people, in a pinch, with today’s technology, using video conferencing and skype and other such technologies, again, as I’ve pointed out yesterday, there are still ways to conduct business without leaving the comfort of your home office.
As for cargo, again, there are other means of shipping, including Fed-ex.
Also, Air Canada has planned to operate on a partial schedule in the even of a strike.
It appears to be unclear whether the CIRB actually has the right to do what dear Lisa wants them to do or not:
Labour lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo told CBC News he firmly believes the CIRB cannot suspend the legal right to strike.
Cavalluzzo pointed out that the CIRB was brought in to prevent an illegal strike by security screeners at Toronto’s Pearson airport last week. He said the board only intervenes in legal strikes if there is illegal activity, and, even then, the board cannot stop the strike entirely.
“I don’t think the CIRB has the authority to stop [a strike],” he said.
But York University law professor David Doorey told CBC’s Power & Politics with Evan Solomon that he believes the board does have that authority.
“The simple filing of this reference to the board has the affect under the statute of suspending the commencement of a strike,” Doorey said.
“My take on it is it’s pretty clear that in fact it does what the minister says it does.”
It’s understandable that there would be some disagreement and confusion out there over this. After all, Stevie Spiteful will go down in the history books as having a propensity for the unprecedented. Clearly, this falls under that category.
It gets even more obvious that the Harpercons have an agenda at play here; according to CUPE, Air Canada management did not make any request to the government to step in as of yet. Not even to make a formal request to maintain ‘essential services’. Hmm, something sure does smell rotten here. Further evidence this is the Stevie Spiteful agenda at work here. What hidden agenda? It’s all out in the open.
Imagine that heavy handed move during their week off, under the guiding hand of puppet master, Stevie Spiteful, to begin to eliminate workers’ rights to strike, so they can continue their week off–paid, I might add! Imagine what will happen when they all come back? Speaking of ‘essential services’, I’d say government is more of an essential service than Air Canada flight attendants or even Canada Post mail carriers, yet those Harpercons thought nothing of proroguing when Stevie needed to run away from a jam–again, paid in full by the tax payers. Yet, we would begrudge workers who demand better working conditions and fair wages; rights that every Canadian worker should have?
Oh, dear Lisa, you so disgust me. Furthermore, I so wonder how you sleep at night with the memory of your brother and father who died of work related cancer from working at the coke ovens and steel mill? They must be turning over in their graves right now. This is why you are probably one of the worst Harpercons in my book at this time. Instead of working toward better working conditions and fighting for the working man in the memory of your late brother and father, you’re sticking it to them. Or perhaps you have daddy and brother issues?
Yeah, yeah, I know, all of this is all happening under Stevie Spiteful. This has Stevie stamped all over it. After all, most likely, none of his puppets even go to the bathroom without his say so. But Lisa chose to follow him. If she really didn’t believe in what Stevie was doing, all she has to do is resign her cabinet post, perhaps even sit as an independent. No, she is more than a willing party all ga ga giddy over sticking it to the working Canadian.
About her toying with rewriting the Canada Labour Code, I’d say that this would be a near certainty now; part of that Stevie Spiteful not-so-hidden agenda.