Nevermind The TFW's....Here Come The ICT's!

ButWhoWillActuallyGetToRideAllThose
SparklePoniesVille


ICT's = Intra-Company Transfers to be precise.

Never heard of them, you say?

Well...

There out there.

And Alison has done a whole lot of digging and dot connecting to come up with the story:

Then there's the ICTs - Intra-Company Transfers - also not reliant on LMIAs to safeguard Canadian jobs because they were created to allow multinational corps to move their skilled workers easily from country to country.
{snippety doo-dah}

...In BC, eight US construction workers were granted entry to BC by the CBSA under an ICT after a US company got the contract to build a wood-waste storage building near Prince George. These "specialized workers" included a former rancher and an apprentice roofer and produce clerk. Yea NAFTA! and all that, but don't we have enough ranchers, apprentice roofers, and produce clerks looking for any kind of work in Canada already?

Asked about the union-backed court case protesting import of the eight US workers, (FedCon Minister Jason) Kenney referred reporters to Chris Alexander, but a year ago he stated : "The obligations we have have for intra-company transfers are often hard-wired into trade agreements."...
{snippety doodle-dandy}

...TransCanada, once billed in the US as "an American company with operations in Canada", is slated to build a $1.9-billion pipeline link for Kitimat LNG project.

In February (Snooklandian Minister) Mr. (Rich) Coleman announced there was "no question the industry will be looking to foreign workers to get up and running", and in March he touted the importance of being on

"a continent with a lot more people south to us ... so we have access to other skilled labour on the continent and there are people who are very good at doing certain jobs - specialized welders." One presumes he isn't referring to the TransCanada welders on the southern leg of the Keystone XL Canada to Texas project :

"Over 72 per cent of welds required repairs during one week. In another week, TransCanada stopped welding work after 205 of 425 welds required repair.

Inspections by the safety agency found TransCanada wasn’t using approved welding procedures to connect pipes, the letter said. The company had hired welders who weren’t qualified to work on the project because TransCanada used improper procedures to test them."...


Please go and read Alison's entire dispatch.

There is a whole lot of good stuff there.

And as you're reading it think about how these fine corporations will do just about anything to decrease their labour costs in countries they simultaneously do their best not to pay taxes in.

Put another way...Cheap labour in + Expensive taxes out = Big profits for the very few while everybody else (including the people who keep voting for the enablers against their own best longterm interests) gets screwed.

It's like Thomas Frank's Kansas book has gone global.

In other words...We are all Toto now.


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And my apologies to Alison for pulling so much of her post and putting it up here - it really just is that good...Now, go read it all!


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