You’re really mad at the CONs for this, right, wingnuts?

A new panel created by the Harper government will move to raise employment insurance premiums by the maximum allowed, despite calls to leave payroll taxes frozen in light of Canada’s fragile jobs picture.

Canadians will start feeling the hit on their paycheques when the two-year freeze on EI premiums announced in the 2009 budget comes to an end on Jan. 1. Employers will also have to cough up more in premiums for their workers, which economists and business groups warn could hurt employment.

That’s a double-whammy, there.  Hurts employment and…here it comes…takes money out of the hands of hard workin’, Timmie’s drinkin’ Canadians to support them-thar no-account, lazy unemployed soashlists.

Damn!!!!

So you right wingers are making your protest signs at this moment, correct?

But don’t despair.  There’s plenty of bad news for the bleeding heart Liberals and socialists as well.  While people with jobs will be paying more into EI, people who have been paying into it and now need it will receive less.

As of Saturday, Ottawa will cancel an extra five weeks of regular EI benefits and end a program that provided up to an additional 20 weeks of benefits for longer-serving employees.

For older workers who suddenly find themselves unemployed after years of long-term service this is a crushing blow, says Ontario’s Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Monique Smith.

…The EI clawback is nationwide.

The CONs don’t get it, and Steve must have cheated his way through economics.  They treat stimulus action like a check list:  promise made, promise kept!!!!  As long as some action was taken that could be coupled with a PMO press release and a photo op, mission accomplished as far as they are concerned.  Setting rigid deadlines with no regard as to the current and future economical and job climate shows ignorance of the problem, and lack of concern for those they claim the actions were supposed to help.

The Bank of Canada is talking about “unusual uncertainty” in reference to the economy, saying that the stagnating U.S. economy is what’s keeping economists awake at night.

Higher deductions on paychecks, uncertainty over employment, cuts to EI that working Canadians, laid off during the recent crisis...those things are very close to home for people.  Photo ops in front of cool, expensive military equipment that we don't really need, a stadium in Quebec, and billions for prison cells for unreported criminals probably won't  win the CONs a lot of votes right now.

I thought the idea was to create jobs

Not cut them.

As students are finding job prospects slim   and Harper is going around spending vast amounts of money on self-promotion, several organizations are suffering and will have to cut back on staffing since funding which they have received for decades is no longer coming and that probably won’t change.

The Bedeque Bay Environmental Management Association, along with 15 other Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP) organizations, has learned Environment Canada's Atlantic region programs under the National Ecosystem Initiative, will not be ready for implementation in the 2010 fiscal year.  Currently there are no plans out of Ottawa to maintain conservation and environmental education in the Atlantic Region. Community programs such as BBEMA will wind down and critical youth employment opportunities will cease.

There’s problem number one: this government doesn’t feel environmental project are worth funding.

Problem number two is this government’s arrogance in wanting to control everything despite evidence that projects are best managed by experts and those who have been working on them for years.

"We've had great success but unfortunately, the way the money goes, BBEM and our sister organization Southeast Environmental Association are community-based organizations," (Tracy Brown, BBEMA executive director) said. "So our projects and what we do and how we react is driven by the community.  "The federal government is looking to go the other way . . . they want to be governing from the top down so they're the ones controlling where things go."

There is not much honesty in a stimulus push that create temporary construction jobs while existing ones are slashed, especially if they are part of effective programs such as those managed by ACAP.

We will be seeing more cuts such as these, especially in the public service with this government that thinks nothing is worth investing in unless it turns a buck for private businesses.  The cost to that path isn’t only jobs, it’s accountability, and the provision only of services that translate into big profits for private companies.