XPost: can.politics, ab.politics, edm.general   
   XPost: ab.general   
   From: puela@nyet.ca   
      
   What the Harper government WOULDN'T do, the drop in oil prices IS doing - even   
   tho' very gradually.   
   ____________________________________________   
      
      
     December 28, 2014   
   Success eludes recent migrants as Fort McMurray braces for TFW fallout   
   By COLIN FREEZE   
   Tim Hortons already scaling back expansion as shortage of low-skilled workers   
   expected to worsen   
      
   At 5-foot-2, Mucharata Minog David is half the height of one of her truck   
   tires, but she has always dreamed big, and that's how she got a new life and a   
   six-figure salary hauling oil sand.   
      
   "I'm a tough princess," says the 37-year-old Philippines native.   
      
   Ms. David, who became a Canadian citizen six months ago, likes to explain how   
   she parlayed a guest-worker gig as a nanny into her job as a heavy-equipment   
   operator. Now, she drives some of the world's biggest trucks for Syncrude, such   
   as the Liebherr-T282, a vehicle strong enough to haul 70 elephants and as big   
   as a two-storey home.   
      
   "Ambition is a mindset," she says, reflecting on her decade in Fort McMurray.   
      
   Ms. David is one of the early cohort of temporary foreign workers from the   
   2000s who found long-term success. However, today's tighter federal policies   
   are forcing employers to stop issuing paycheques to TFWs and start buying them   
   tickets home.   
      
   This makes finding the good life a much taller order for newer arrivals.   
      
   March Bacay, a 30-year-old homeless man, walks out of the -20 cold and into a   
   Salvation Army shelter downtown. He is also from the Philippines, but unlike   
   Ms. David, has a few months remaining in Canada.   
      
   "It's hard to find a job for a temporary foreign worker [TFW] like me – no   
   skills, my work is just a cashier," he says. "The government, they don't care."   
      
   For more than a decade, migrant workers have kept Alberta communities such as   
   Fort McMurray humming. Because the municipality's unemployment rate has long   
   been below 4 per cent, the city's businesses have paid premiums for low-skilled   
   labour as city residents headed out to high-paying jobs in the oil sands.   
      
   According to new rules announced by Employment Minister Jason Kenney in June,   
   businesses have to get down to a maximum work force of 20 per cent TFWs by   
   summer, and 10 per cent by 2016. This could reduce the low-wage TFW work force   
   "by 50 per cent in the next three years," according to a government statement.   
      
   In Fort McMurray, that policy carries a high cost – for businesses, workers,   
   and consumers.   
      
   Every day at the Tim Hortons drive-through, a double lineup of pickup trucks   
   pours out and clogs a lane on busy Thickwood Boulevard.   
      
   Never able to serve up coffee fast enough, the franchise managers say they have   
   no choice but to cut hours of operation as they are forced to send TFWs   
   packing.   
      
   "We already stopped building a new store ... as we have no one to work it," the   
   director of operations wrote this fall to his Member of the Legislative   
   Assembly of Alberta (MLA).   
      
   The letter, published by local media, said TFWs account for 75 of the city's   
   200 Tim Hortons employees – a ratio that is dropping fast.   
      
   The MLA for Fort McMurray-Conklin, Don Scott, says he and others have been   
   asking Ottawa to cut Northern Alberta businesses some slack, so they don't have   
   to ratchet down the numbers of TFWs as rapidly.   
      
   "I've talked to several employers who are facing challenges in this region ...   
   they just cannot find the labour that they need to go forward."   
      
   Some hotels in Fort McMurray had up to 80 per cent TFWs, says Sara Dorow, a   
   University of Alberta sociologist, who has spent years studying the city's work   
   force.   
      
   While there are no precise statistics on the number of migrant workers in the   
   city, she adds she fears plummeting crude price may accelerate the shedding of   
   staff.   
      
   Some migrant workers around town are frustrated by the lack of opportunities.   
      
   "If you lose your job, it's not easy to find another one," Mr. Bacay says.   
      
   Over a coffee at a downtown diner, he explains how he left a better-paying job   
   in Saudi Arabia to work as a cashier in Canada.   
      
   Arriving two years ago, his hope was that he would make a foothold for his   
   family.   
      
   But that all changed when he got fired by a boss who he says told him "you have   
   attitude."   
      
   Now Mr. Bacay's work permit says he has to leave in August – and it's been   
   months since he managed to send any money back home to his seven siblings.   
      
   No one in the Philippines blames him for bad luck, he says. "You know what my   
   Mom tells me?' God has blessed me because I have you.' "   
      
   He says that when he arrived in Fort McMurray, he had paid $500 monthly to rent   
   a room shared with two others. After he was terminated as a cashier, he said he   
   jumped through hoops to get a job at a far-away assembly line – but that work   
   dried up, too. Now Mr. Bacay is back in Fort McMurray, stuck with papers saying   
   he is supposed to still be looking for work in High Prairie, a six-hour drive   
   away.   
      
   Last summer, Mr. Bacay says he slept outdoors near Keyano College, a trade   
   school on the outskirts of downtown.   
      
   That same school provided a very different kind of opportunity for Ms. David   
   –   
   it was where she learned how to operate industrial vehicles.   
      
   The Philippines is Canada's top source country for TFWs, though most workers   
   get jobs in Asia or the Middle East first.   
      
   "We always use Hong Kong as our stepping stone," explains Ms. David, sipping a   
   grande caramel macchiato.   
      
   In 2004, she says she was an overworked nanny in Hong Kong. Then she snuck into   
   a Canadian consulate while on a grocery run.   
      
   In 2008, she got her Class 5 Alberta driver's licence and brokered a deal with   
   her employers – she would care for their children for a few extra months if   
   they could open doors for her in the oil sands.   
      
   Now she's a homeowner – she bought a two-storey house for $799,000 a few   
   years   
   back, where she lives with her Canadian boyfriend and her teenage son.   
      
   People in her community often ask her how she secured the good life.   
      
   "I tell them all you have to do is work hard and be patient and always wear a   
   smile," she says.   
      
   "We don't want to get fired ... So we have to be nice."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)