Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak has obviously decided to take a leaf from the successful campaign against John Tory in the last provincial election and continues his xenophobic tactic against the proposed tax credit for immigrant workers. And why not, he has already successfully gotten CityNews to use his moniker of “foreign worker” to describe the people who will benefit from the credit.
But first, a word on definitions:
1. A foreign worker is a person who resides and is a citizen of a country other than Canada who comes here to work with the intention of returning home. The very word “foreign” is a red flag announcing “not Canadian.” The Mexicans who come up here to help our farmers bring in the harvest are foreign workers and are badly needed. But they won’t be the beneficiaries of the Liberals’ proposed tax credit.
2. An immigrant worker is someone who has immigrated to Canada, has chosen to reside in Ontario, has made our city, our province, our country his or her home and not only wants to work here but is living here already. This is who will benefit from the tax credit. And us too, by the way, from their taxes.
CityNews tonight clearly bought Hudak’s line that the immigrant workers are really “foreign workers.” Not Ontarians. I heard the reporter using the wrong term at least once during the report and not in the context of quoting Hudak either. In her voiceover reporting of Hudak’s strategy, the emaciated blonde reporter showing her age – oh dear, was that descriptor offensive? Any more or less offensive than calling people who spent years filling out forms, meeting Canada’s eligibility requirements, waiting patiently to get into this country legally, choosing to live in Ontario, seeking work here so they can become contributing citizens of this country, finding roadblocks in the form of “no Canadian experience” in this province but persisting anyway because this is where they want to stay, “foreign workers”?
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