Last night I sat listening to The National and heard in disbelief Gord Nixon, CEO of the Royal Bank, explain the nuanced difference between outsourcing jobs and hiring foreign workers. Is this attempt at befuddlement why they pay you the big bucks, Mr. Nixon, for according to the Financial Post, your take-home pay last year was $12.6 million? http://business.financialpost.com/2013/02/04/rbc-boosts-ceos-pay-25-to-12-6-million/ Or are you truly befuddled yet somehow still running a major institution? In case it's the latter, let me be clear. Many Canadians do not give a rat's ass what you call it but they do care that they or their neighbours are losing jobs at a time when the RBC is making record profits, $7.5 billion in 2012 alone. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/11/29/rbc-profit-earnings.html To dress up your bank's shamelessly greedy practices in legalities is like putting lipstick on a pig. And for the people who made RBC great, your Canadian depositors, it is nothing short of a slap in the face. Perhaps I'll close my RBC account. Perhaps we all should.
Last year, all Canadian banks made billions as did many corporations. But if "Government contracts have fallen out of step with the workplace norm." as Barrie McKenna of the Globe and Mail claims in his piece "In fight over banked sick days, a widening fairness gap is exposed", is it because government contracts have inflated or because workplace norms have become impoverished? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/in-fight-over-banked-sick-days-a-widening-fairness-gap-is-exposed/article10837039/
Even with record profits, business practices similar to RBC's are not unusual and they often enough include a curtailment of sick leave or pensions at the time when western populations are aging and most in need of these benefits. And as some Canadian business reporters note, profits are not even reinvested in infrastructure to modernize the Canadian workplace.
Canadians should be decrying their loss of sick leave or pension benefits. Instead we see lots of finger-pointing and scapegoating particularly of teachers on the part of conservative pundits. A lie repeated often enough is perceived as truth. There are provincial and federal government deficits to point to too but what conservative pundits don't say is that these deficits were often created not by an economic downturn but by the actions of government. By the late 1990s, Mike Harris's government had reduced both corporate and personal taxes. Many of these taxes have not been reinstated and the revenue they generated for the Ontario government has not been found elsewhere.
As well with little infrastructure replacement, our manufacturing economy has suffered and Ontario has gone from being a have to a have-not province. Still Ontario continues to pay equalization payments as if it were a have province to the tune of $11 billion annually, all the while dealing with a $12 billion deficit. Even if Ontario did not receive equalization payments but simply stopped paying into the Equalization Program, its deficit would instantly shrink to a far more manageable $1 billion.
Should we just continue our race to the bottom and perhaps ask the Royal Bank to outsource our kids' education too? The point is that at the very least, our children are going to need a good education if the next generation is going to cope with the sorry state of this world. Much of the research on education in Canada and abroad indicates that this is best accomplished with having teachers in the classroom who are decently treated and respected. But let's not kid ourselves. The scapegoating is unlikely to stop anytime soon for unlike other jurisdictions, Ontario's teachers have successfully withstood an attempt to undermine their rights. Conservative pundits will not let this pass.
Which brings me back to last night's news. The architect of modern austerity programs, Margaret Thatcher, has passed away. According to some British commentators, she left in her wake the destruction of the British middle class. Some have even said that her deregulation measures, which served as the template for Ronald Reagan's sweeping reforms, caused America's banking crisis. Ultimately Mrs. Thatcher's policies and their short-term gains may be judged even more harshly by future historians.
Sure, so go ahead and keep on blaming the teachers. Maybe then you'll miss that the financial world is going down the drain due to irresponsible corporate practices, bloated CEO compensation packages, and the ridiculous profits of banks like RBC.
The views expressed in this blog are my personal views only.
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