Yes, We’ve Noticed You
The scene: a conference centre near Toronto airport, formerly a Sears warehouse. The date: early November. The headlines: “1,100 local jobs lost at Chrysler.” The circumstances couldn’t have been more propitious for Workwest’s first Toronto-based career fair, a two-day event that saw two dozen Alberta employers go trolling for new staff from Canada’s largest city
by Rick Spence
The Canadian dollar had just hit an all-time high, kicking Ontario manufacturers in the kneecaps, and Chrysler had just announced its second massive restructuring of the year. That killed 1,100 jobs in nearby Brampton and deep-sixed several thousand more positions in other plants that fed Chrysler’s assembly line.
The result: hundreds of job seekers mobbed the Toronto Congress Centre as soon as it opened to explore career opportunities in a West that has never looked more golden. A car dealership looking for mechanics was offering $33 an hour to start, but the manager admitted he can pay more. A motor-coach company in Fort McMurray was eager to pay school-bus drivers twice what they’re earning in Ontario. (But there’s a downside, as an envious Calgary transport executive pointed out: “You’d have to live in Fort McMurray.”)
The job-seekers themselves were a mix of boisterous youth and soured middle age, immigrant and local-born, skilled and unskilled. I met kids just out of high school, looking for a fast start in the world (or just “sump’n different”), as well as professional engineers who felt cheated that the big oilsands producers had skipped the fair.
Despite their diverse backgrounds, these refugees-to-be told similar stories: they’re ready for a new start. In southern Ontario, Canada’s economic engine for the past 80 years, they feel vulnerable. Some had been laid off, while others were living in fearful expectation of it. All were eyeing the high pay and, better still, the job security offered by fast-growing service employers in Alberta.
Becoming a place people come from is a big change for the once-Golden Horseshoe, traditionally a magnet for migration. But it’s a fair reflection of a country (and a planet!) that is changing fast. A litter of rapidly industrializing nations now demand Western Canada’s resources, even as their low-cost factories deal knockout blows to Eastern Canada’s remaining manufacturers. Few job-seekers consider this a fad. None of the people I talked to see themselves returning to Ontario, other than for weddings and funerals.
Just over three years ago, publisher and editor-in-chief Ruth Kelly asked me to write a column for Alberta Venture exploring the “eastern” view of Alberta. The rationale was that, for all their bold bluster, their Stanley Cups and their Winter Olympics, Albertans still cared about what Toronto thought of them. The sad truth, back in 2004 when oil was still $37 a barrel, was that my fellow Hogtowners were advising me, “Tell them we never think about them at all.”
With the West now in ascendance and Ontarians lining up to join the Maritimers in Fort McMurray, how times have changed. The Toronto Star told this sob story on Nov. 3, day two of Workwest’s Career Caravan: “The jobless rate in Canada is the lowest in 33 years. As employment prospects soar, so does the dollar, to $1.07 [US], its highest close on record. Still one question nags. If times are so great, then why does the country’s heartland feel so broken?” (Note how Ontario, even down on its luck, still appropriates the title “heartland” for itself. You can learn much from these people.)
Beneath that scene setter the Star ran photos of eight Ontarians interviewed at the previous day’s job fair. “Four hundred thousand new jobs need filling in the next two years,” said the caption. “Problem is, they’re all in Alberta.”
A poignant note on which to end this column. Next month something different will fill this space, and Upper Canadian arrogance will be relegated to history – like $37 oil. But first, a note of caution.
Everything runs in cycles. Central Canada’s blue-collar class may be fleeing, but the white-collar folks – in management, marketing, communications and culture, professional services, banking and investments – are still calling the shots. House prices will keep rising so long as the Greater Toronto Area remains the first-choice destination for most immigrants to Canada. Besides, Ontarians have a hard-edged survival instinct that surfaces whenever necessary.
Take the Star. It sponsored November’s Career Caravan. It sold ads to the exhibitors and promoted the show. Even its news coverage was part of the deal (although probably not the maudlin tone; that usually costs extra). In other words, Canada’s biggest newspaper was playing both sides.
In other words, don’t turn your back on us.
Rick Spence is a Toronto writer and consultant and former resident of Alberta. It was world-class back in the ’80s, too, but just didn’t know it.
Follow Alberta Venture On: