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First published at Global News on June 23, 2017.

Employees of the LCBO could be heading to the picket lines next week if an agreement isn’t reached between their union and the Crown corporation by Monday at 12:01 a.m.

As part of OPSEU’s public relations strategy while collective bargaining continues, the union has launched a website and ad campaign called LiqiLeaks, aimed at sharing the “real stories” of life at the LCBO.

Unlike WikiLeaks, LiqiLeaks contains no bombshells or revelations of any kind — just gripes from employees who don’t seem to realize how good their situation really is.

The short video testimonies from 11 workers reveal the concerns OPSEU thinks are the most salable to the general public this time around—most of them focused on scheduling and hours.

It’s worth noting that Kathleen Wynne has already offered Ontario’s unionized public sector workers an unconditional 7.5 per cent raise, which both pleased and surprised OPSEU president Warren ‘Smokey’ Thomas.

Over half of the LiqiLeaks videos feature laments of lost family time due to job demands, with some even complaining about having to work over their family’s dinner hour. One of the subjects, Chris, somberly called his employment at the LCBO an “attack on the family.”

It’s not enough of an attack to cause him to work somewhere else, though.

Two stars broke down into tears during their minute-long videos. Step aside, Meryl Streep—the Oscar goes to…

All employees end their respective melodramas with some variation of “That’s the real story.”

With the strike deadline looming, I find myself getting nostalgic as OPSEU’s posturing ramps up to full gear; it’s all rhetoric I’ve heard before.

After all, I worked there for a number of years.

When I was 18 and in university, the LCBO was an attractive employer. The hourly pay was about 50 per cent above minimum wage, and the expectation of evening and weekend shifts matched what I was able to offer as a full-time student lacking a social life.

I worked with some wonderful people — many of whom I still count among my friends — but also saw quite plainly a mindset of entitlement and laziness in far too many of my colleagues.

Like 84 per cent of the LCBO’s employees, I was classed as casual. Admittedly, it was feast or famine as far as scheduling was concerned. Shifts were as short as three-and-a-half hours, or as long as nine. There was no guarantee of hours whatsoever.

This was all explained to me when I was offered the job.

OPSEU claims it’s unfair that part-timers are not easily able to ascend to full-time. Absent from the messaging is that no one is promised anything otherwise from the company.

The LCBO was abundantly clear when hiring me that due to the seniority system (for which OPSEU bargained, incidentally) I would have to work there for as many as 10 years to even hope for full-time status.

Like most jobs of that nature, it wasn’t my plan to make a career out of it, lucrative as it could have been.

The problem with the LCBO’s employee culture lies in that even of those lucky ones who are full-time, few realize how good they have it.

Full-time ‘customer service representatives’— employees who work the floor and cash registers — earn as much as $57,459 per year under the current agreement. This is based on years of service rather than merit or qualifications.

When I worked there, it was, in practice, impossible for the company to fire employees for being terrible at their jobs. I saw several colleagues who balked and even cursed at customers receive disciplinary notices that amounted to merely sticky notes on the record.

Employees caught stealing alcohol aren’t fired — they get alcoholism treatment paid for by the LCBO, and by extension the Ontario taxpayers. One can even be a common thief, rather than an alcoholic, to qualify for this sweet deal.

If a cashier is short on money at the end of the night, they only have to pay less than half of the shortage, with the government picking up the rest.

The union also bargained to let employees wear jeans to work and ditch the formerly mandatory uniform neckties. I guess they ran out of other things to ask for.

By the time I left the LCBO, I was making more than $20 per hour — as a cashier.

Was I worth it? I think so, but that doesn’t make it a realistic or sustainable wage in a job that almost anyone can do. Especially when LCBO product prices are higher than most private alternatives.

“There was a point in time where having a government job was a good thing,” said one of the LiqiLeaks-featured employees. “Now, having a government job feels like a bad joke.”

At least I can agree with them on something. Except the joke is on us.

That’s the real story of the LCBO.

First published at Global News on June 16, 2017.

You’d think there were Qur’an burnings on every street corner in Canada.

With the announcement from Statistics Canada that police-reported hate crimes against Muslims increased in 2015 — the most recent year for which data are available — many are responding, perhaps predictably, as though there is an epidemic of hate in Canada.

Of hate crimes motivated by religion, offenses directed to Muslims increased 60 per cent from the previous year, while those against Jews dropped by 16 per cent. Despite this, hate-motivated crimes against Jews still surpass those against all other religious groups, with 178 incidents reported, compared to 159 against Muslims.

Discussing racial and prejudicial realities is important, but in a country of over 36 million, 159 incidents hardly speaks to a broader narrative.

Hate crimes against Catholics rose by 57 per cent — yet no one is talking about them. Where’s the parliamentary motion to condemn Catholiphobia? I haven’t seen the Archbishop of Toronto call for policy changes, either.

Catholicism lacks the grievance industry driving the narrative that Muslims are Canada’s most persecuted group.

The terrorist attack allegedly committed by Alexandre Bissonnette at a Quebec City mosque in January was tragic and evil, but it was also an outlier. We can be grateful in Canada that this doesn’t happen with regularity against Muslims or any other group.

Of course there are examples of Muslims being victimized by crimes because of their religion, but there are many more attacks against people targeted for no reason at all. Are these less evil because there was no ‘hate’ behind them? They certainly aren’t crimes of love.

We are to believe that we’re living in an era of hate, which is why so many media outlets jump the gun when it comes to reporting on hate crimes — often with little to no follow-up when the initial story falls apart.

A bomb threat against Muslim students at Concordia University earlier this year was later revealed to have been the work of a 47-year-old Muslim man.

Just this week, former journalist Juan Thompson pleaded guilty to a string of bomb threats against Jewish community centres in the United States and Canada. He said he was trying to frame his ex-girlfriend, but it really had nothing to do with anti-Semitic hate — jarring as it was for North American Jews.

My own city, London, Ont., played host to a faux hate crime last year when a hijab-wearing Muslim woman was assaulted in a grocery store by a female assailant who allegedly shouted slurs at her and ripped off her headscarf.

The tussle was held up across the country — including by Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, the National Council of Canadian Muslims and many journalists — as an example of Islamophobia in Canada.

Notoriously absent from most coverage was the fact that the accused was an Iranian immigrant herself, who didn’t speak English and missed her court date because she was in hospital for mental health issues.

These are the cases that have more violent undertones. The vast majority of the police-reported hate crimes in the Statistics Canada data set are based on vandalism and other property-based offences. There is a difference between hate mongers and teenage provocateurs. This nuance is absent from the data.

The accompanying analysis also cautions that data comparisons should be taken with a grain of salt given the low numbers across the board.

“Because the number of hate crimes targeting specific populations is small, a change of a few incidents can have a considerable impact,” it reads.

None of this is to say that anti-Muslim bigotry doesn’t exist, nor even that some people may turn their prejudices into crimes. However we can’t let these statistics be contorted into the revelation of a problem that doesn’t exist on a wide enough scale to call it an epidemic, as a report by the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants charged last summer.

Yet still, people are not only concluding a rash of Islamophobia is sweeping the nation, but even extrapolating as to the cause.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary, Gerald Butts, intimated on Twitter that this data — collected in 2015 — could be connected to the most recent federal election.

“What was going on in 2015, again?” he wrote alongside a link to the data.

I asked Butts whether he’d like to elaborate on his thoughts for this column; he politely declined.

The spokesperson for NCCM (formerly CAIR-CAN) didn’t mince words at all when connecting the stats to the election.

“Looking back to 2015, it was a difficult year for Canadian Muslims,” said NCCM vice-chairman Khalid Elgazzar at a news conference. “The Canadian Muslim community bore the brunt of sinister political rhetoric surrounding the federal election, which painted Muslims as terrorists or terror-sympathizers, as well as being anti-woman.”

The NCCM, which has previously called for anti-Islamophobia education in public schools, used the Statistics Canada release to push police departments to publish annual hate crime reports. The group has also asked the federal government to “study the growth of online hate.”

To what end, though? Words may hurt, but they aren’t generally crimes.

In a country as large and diverse as Canada, it shouldn’t surprise us that not everyone gets along.

First published at Global News on June 9, 2017.

Never underestimate the government’s ability to suck the fun out of, well, everything.

As Ottawa kicks off its summer Sunday Bikeday series, the National Capital Commission — the federal body that regulates the touristy areas of Ottawa and Gatineau—has put out a call for young entrepreneurs.

Though it’s more like a cull of entrepreneurialism.

One year after an NCC officer shut down a lemonade stand two young sisters set up to quench the thirst of passersby, the NCC has implemented a permit program for child-run kiosks.

“Are you interested in setting up your own business this summer? Do you want to gain a bit of entrepreneurial experience? We may have just the thing for you!,” the website promises.

That ‘thing’ is a free vending permit for kids aged five through 17 interested in setting up shop along the bike paths.

To get one, prospective vendors and their parents must fill out and sign a three-page contract indemnifying NCC of any legal liability, ensuring safe beverage or product standards, and of course promising bilingual signage. The NCC also requires reporting of revenue — at least seven per cent of which must be donated to charity. Better than taxes, I suppose.

But even before assembling your cardboard bar, you’re expected to go through government-sanctioned business training.

The application says kids are “strongly” recommended to take part in one of a handful of workshop dates, though the NCC’s website also says applicants will only receive their “young entrepreneur permit” — required for operating a kiosk — upon completion of training.

I’m not sure government could more laughably reveal its bureaucratic instincts if it tried.

Responding to a problem that doesn’t exist? Check.

Overcomplicating a simple process? Check.

Pretending this is doing everyone a favour, when it really isn’t? Check.

What better way to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday than a firsthand example of the make-work projects that keep much of the public service in business.

The page on the NCC’s website is titled “Calling all young entrepreneurs!” as though this policy signals something to be celebrated.

NCC senior manager Bruce Devine told Global News that his office “simplified the process a lot.” Compared to setting up a regular business, that may be the case. Compared to just stepping back and letting kids be kids? Hardly.

Needless to say, the stipulations are ridiculous, but in a perverse way they’re useful. These rules tell children from a young age how anti-business the government really is, surely testing the mettle of anyone who might later on wade into this territory for a living.

I’m surprised children aren’t required to lab-test their products to offer calorie counts on the menu and guarantee a living wage to any subcontractors who help for the day (great news for mum or dad, if so.)

Vendors will have to post bilingual signage, because the French “limonade” is too indistinguishable from “lemonade” for the average Ottawa francophone to discern, apparently.

A study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business found the cost to businesses of compliance with government regulations to be $37-billion annually—with $11-billion of that going toward needless red tape. This doesn’t take into consideration the taxpayer burden of regulators auditing these things.

I asked Devine whether the reporting of finances and mandatory charitable contributions would be verified by his office or whether that requirement would rely on the honour system.

Devine didn’t reply to my query, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it falls upon some NCC young entrepreneur compliance analyst to pore over the finances of little Timmy’s lemonade stand to make sure his donation was based on gross revenue rather than net profit.

It may sound clichéd to say we should let kids be kids, but such advice needs to be heeded. Getting young people accustomed to entrepreneurialism is a good idea, but let’s not pretend that every children’s car wash, lemonade stand or bake sale is a corporate conglomerate in the making.

Kids are looking for fun activities, but it used to be a lot easier for parents to play along with them.

First published at Global News on June 2, 2017.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s pledge to hike the province’s minimum wage to $15 an hour is a victory for low-information government.

Wynne announced her plans this week to the delight of the NDP and labour groups, which have been advocating for this change for years.

The increase comes in the spirit of “fairness” rather than, you know, economics.

I didn’t tally the number of times Wynne said “fair” in her announcement, but had I turned it into a drinking game I’d likely be in an alcohol-induced coma.

“With these changes, every worker in Ontario will be treated fairly, paid a living wage and have the opportunities they deserve,” she said.

There are some reasonable reforms proposed, such as increased clarity surrounding employees classed as independent contractors and the guarantee of three hours of pay for employees whose shifts are cancelled with less than 48 hours of notice.

The most substantive change — the 32 per cent increase over the next year and a half to the minimum wage — is the most problematic.

It’s unsurprising that the Chamber of Commerce and Canadian Federation of Independent Business came out against the plan, but Wynne should pay attention. These groups represent the interests of small business at a time when the provincial government certainly doesn’t.

A few weeks ago, Wynne was trumpeting a 25-per cent hydro rate cut and now she’s increasing payroll expenses for many businesses by almost a third.

It may be difficult to make ends meet on $11.40 an hour — the current Ontario minimum wage — but invoking the emotional concept of “fairness” doesn’t change the black and white nature of the balance sheets of small companies, which must make decisions based on business rather than charity.

When the last minimum wage increase kicked in — smaller than the one on the table now — one restaurateur couple I know pegged the cost at nearly $15,000 a year, which meant not replacing one employee and working more hours themselves.

I once interviewed the late owner of an Exeter, Ont. doughnut shop who worked 14 to 16 hour days to compete with the Tim Hortons that opened beside him. He couldn’t compete if he raised his prices, but also couldn’t afford to keep up with rising payroll costs in the final years of his business, which closed when he died in 2015, at 55.

The industries where minimum wage earners are the norm are those whose employees require no specialized skills or education. Statistics Canada data say nearly six in 10 minimum wage workers are under 24. The second largest bloc is filled with people whose spouse works in a higher-paying job.

The Marxist fantasy of everyone making $50,000 per year may be comforting, but consider how much that cup of coffee, pack of gum or deli sandwich must cost to allow that.

After all, increasing prices is one of only two options employers have. The other is cutting costs, typically by reducing hours or even eliminating jobs.

Instead of raising the minimum wage, government should abolish it altogether.

In practice, minimum wages tend to be maximum wages. In Ontario, $11.40 is embraced as an industry standard in the service and retail sectors, not the starting point.

If that number were to disappear, employers and employees would be compelled to compensate based on genuine market value.

The knee-jerk response to that proposal is fear that some corporation might pay a mere $5 an hour. So what? If that’s what it costs to compete with a self-checkout machine, which as of yet doesn’t have a minimum wage (most likely because it can’t vote), then let’s celebrate a guaranteed job.

A low-paying job is better than none at all.

Without a minimum wage, we’d find that people won’t work for nothing—or next to nothing—and companies that low ball will have to up the ante to attract good talent. Businesses that want the best will pay a premium. Customers looking for that will pay the extra cost because they’re getting something for it.

Where’s the extra value if costs go up because the government says so?

Small- and medium-sized businesses make up over 80 per cent of the Canadian workforce. These are the operations most hit by minimum wage hikes — not the McDonald’ses and Walmarts of the world.

Why are the do-gooders pushing for government to mandate a $15 hourly wage not calling on companies to offer it on their own?

If “fairness” is the goal, what then of fairness for business owners, many of whom plug away at a fraction of minimum wage because that’s the only way they can afford to stay in business?

You may not trust the market, but it’s the only force in existence reflecting the true will of the people, unadulterated by politics.

A truly ‘fair’ policy would be to let the market do its job — and let the people keep theirs.