Paul Dewar NDP supports crony capitalists and corporate welfare
May 20, 2009 · By Charles Anthony
Paul Dewar of the NDP is now demanding corporate welfare for the laid-off Nortel employees:
“Nortel has a long history of R&D in Canada. We can’t let the last 10 years affect Canada and prevent it from being an R&D leader. We can’t sustain a country on service workers. We need knowledge-based workers.”
That sounds poetic but I beg to differ. We can not sustain people with government bailouts. The technology industry did not just collapse over night. If those workers can not find “knowlegde-based” jobs — whatever that means — elsewhere in the market, tough luck. They should go find different jobs.
Re: “The technology industry did not just collapse over night..” This time around I don’t believe it is the technology industry — just Nortel. A bailout would not be justifiable. Moreover, I think the workers should have no problem collecting unemployment insurance.
I think the government could do much to encourage these laid-off workers to improve their training, cross-train to a new field, and – even better – start their own companies. Canadian high-tech companies are terrible self-promoters, and don’t do well attracting VC funding at the best of times.